satisfied in our Cautioner and considers us as righteous in that account before God And this likewise I speak for your use that ye may loath and abhor your selves as much in your selves who are made clean by the blood of Jesus Christ as if ye were not washen Nay so much the more ye ought to remember your own sins which he doth not remember as debt any more and to be ashamed and confounded because they are pardoned It is ordinary for souls to look on themselves with an eye of more complacency in themselves when they apprehend that God lookes favourably on them I do not think that any soul can duely consider the gracious aspect of God in Jesus Christ to them but they will the more loath themselves but I find it ordinary that slight and inconsiderate thoughts of pardon begets jolly conceits in mens hearts of themselves and this is even the sin of Gods children something is abated of our self abhorring when we have peace and favour spoken in to us but I beseech every one that believes there is no condemnation for them to consider there is all things worthy of it in them yea nothing but what deserves it and therefore let that aspect of God beget self-loathing and self-detestation in you the more you apprehend he is pleased with you be ye the more displeased with your selves because it is not your selves he is pleased with but his own well-beloved Son The day of redemption is coming when there shall be no condemnation and nothing condemnable either In Heaven you shall be so but while ye are here this is the most important duty ye are called to to loath your selves because of all your abominations and because he is pacified towards you Ezek. 16. at the close and Chap. 36.31 and 20 43 44. There is a new and strange mortification now pleadde â—or by many whose highest advancement consisteth in not feeling or knowing or confessing sin but in being dead to the sense and convictâ—â—n of the same Alace whither are these reforming timeâ— gone Is not this the spirit of Antichrist I confess it is a mortification of Godliness a crucifying of Repentance and Holiness a crucifying of the new man but it is a quickning of the old man in the lusts thereof a living to sin this is a part of that new but â—aâ—sly so called Gospel that is preached by some which if an Angel would bâ—ing from Heaven we ought not to believe it Other foundation can no man lay then which is laid already upon which the Prophets and Apostles are builded even Christ Jesus Lord give the spirit to understand these mysteries already revealed but save us from these new discoveries and lights That which we have received is able to make us perefâ—ct to salvation Every one pretends a claim and right to this priviledge of Christians to be pardoned and absolved from condemnation who doth not put it out of question though in the mean time their iniquities testifie against them and their transgressions say in the heart of a godly man that there is no fear of God before their eyes Therefore the Apostle describes the man that is in Jesus Christ to be such an one That walks not after the flesh but after the Spirit Not only to guard against the presumptuous fancy of those that live in their sins that pretend to hope for Heaven but to stir up every justified soul to a new manner of conversation since they are in Jesus Christ. We would speak a word of two things from this First that the Scripture gives marks and characters of justified and reconciled persons that they may be known by both to themselves and others Next that the Christian escaped condemnation hath a new manner of walking and is a new creature in Christ. It might seem a strange thing that this fiâ—st were questioned in this generation if any the most clear and important truth could pass without scanning the very tenor of the whole Scripture holds out so much of it I wonder that any man that reads this Chapter or the Epistles of Iames and Iohn should have any more doubt of it Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his commands Is not this a conclusion of our state and condition from the conformity of our walking to the will of God What divine truth can we be sure of if this be uncertain When the beloved Disciple who knew how to preach Christ asserts it in express terms 1 Ioh. 5.13 These things have I written to you that believe that ye may know ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the Name of the Son of God this very thing was the great scope and purpose of that Evangelick and Divine Epistle I find that Antinomians confound this question that they may have the more advantage in their darkness The question is not concerning the grounds of a mans believing in Christ but concerning our assurance or knowledge of our believing There is a great mistake in Christians practice in confounding these two it makes Christians very unreasonable in their doubtings and exercises therefore let us have this before our eyes Faith in its first and pure acting is rather an adherence and cleaving of a lost soul to Christ than an evidence of its interest in him or of his everlasting love You know all that it is one thing to know a thing or love a thing and another thing to reflect upon it and know that I know and love Iohn did write to believers that they might know they did believe and believe yet more These things then are both separable and the one is posterior to the other After ye believed ye were sealed The perswasion of Gods love and our interest in Christ is the Spirits seal set upon the soul there is a mutual sealing here the soul by believing and trusting in Jesus Christ sets to its seal that God is true as Iohn speaks 3.33 When God speaks in his Law the soul receives that testimony of his Justice and Holiness subscribes to the equity and righteousness of the sentence by condemning it self And when Christ speaks in the Gospel the soul seals that doctrine of free Salvation by approving and consenting with all its heart to the offer subscribes to the way of Salvation in Christ and truth of his promises and thus is the truth of God and Christ sealed by the souls believing Then the Spirit of Jesus Christ afterward when he pleaseth irradiats and shines upon the soul and discovers these things that are freely given and witnesseth to the conscience of the believer that he is a son of God thus the Spirit seals the believer and gives his testimony to his truth Now if we speak of the ground of the first viz. Of believing in Christ to salvation I know none but that which is common to sinners and holden out in the Gospel generally to all Our sin and misery and absolute necessity and Christs invitation of all to
what hopes are there then of delivery when the prisoner accounts his bondage liberty and his prison a palace what expectation of freedom when all that is within us conspires to the upholding that tyrranous dominion of sin against all that would cast it out of its usurpation as if they were mortal enemies Yet there is a delivery possible but such as would not have entered in the heart of man to imagine and it is here expressed the Law of the Spirit of Life c. this declares how and by what means we may be made free Not indeed by any power within us not by any created power without us sin is stronger then all these because its imperial seat is within far without the reach of all created power there may be some means used by men to beat it out of the out-works of the outward man to chase it out of the external members some means to restrain it from such gross out-breakingâ— but therâ— is none can lay â—iedge to the soul wiâ—hin or sâ—orm the undeâ—standing and will where it hath its pâ—incipal residence its inaccessible and impregnable by any humane power no intreaties or perswasions no terrors or threatnings can prevail it can neither be stormed by violence nor undermined by skill because it is within the spirit of the mind Untill at length some other spirit stronger then our spirit come till the Spirit of life which is in Christ come and bind the strong man and so make the poor soul free You heard that we were under a law of death and under the power of sin now there is another Law answering this law and a power to overcome this power You may indeed ask by what law of authority can a sinner that is bound over by Gods Justice unto death and condemnation be released Is there any law above Gods Law and the sentence of his Justice The Apostle answers that there is a Law above it a Law after it the Law of the Spirit of Life Jesus Christ opposes Law unto law the Law of life unto the law of death the Gospel unto the Law the second Covenant unto the first Thus it is then Iesus Christ the eternal Son of God full of grace and truth did come in mans stead when the law and sentence of death was past upon all mankind and there was no expectation from the terms of the first Covenant that there should be any dispensation or mitigation of the rigour of it he obtains this that so many as God had chosen unto life their sins and their punishment might be laid on him and so he took part of our flesh for this end that he might be made a curse for us and so redeem us from the curse Thus having satisfied Justice and fulfilled the sentence of death by suffering death him hath God exalted to be a Prince and Saviour and the head of all things In compensation of this great and weighty work given him by his Father all judgment is committed to him and so he sends out and proclaims another Law in Sion another sentence even of life and absolution unto all and upon all them that shall believe in his Name Thus you see the law of death abrogated by a new Law of life because our Lord and Saviour was made under the law of death and suffered under it and satisfied it that all his seed might be freed from it and might come under a life-giving law so that it appears to be true that was said at first there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ there is no Law no Justice against them But then another difficulty as great as the former is in the way though such a law and sentence of life and absolution be pronounced in the Gospel in Christs Name yet we are dead in sins and trespasses we neither know nor feel our misery nor can we come to a Redeemer as there was a law of death above our head so there is a law of sin within our hearts which rules and commands us and there is neither will nor ability to escape from under it It is true life and freedom is preached in Christ to all that come to him for life to all that renounce sins dominion is remission of sin preached But here is the greatest difficulty how can a dead soul stir rise and walk how can a slave to sin and a willing captive renounce it when he hath neither to will nor to do Indeed if all had been purchased for us if eternal life and forgiveness of sins had been brought near us and all the business done to our conâ—ent and that only wanting if these had been the terms I have purchased life now rise and embrace it of your selves truly it had been an unsuccessful buâ—ineâ—â— Christ had lost all that was given him if the moment and weight of our salvation had been hung upon oâ—r acceptation Tâ—erefore it is well provided foâ— this alâ—o that there should be a power to overcome this power a spirit of life in Christ to quicken dead sinnerâ— and â—aise them â—p and draw them to him And so the second Adamâ—ath â—ath this prerogative beyond the fiâ—st that he is only a living soul in himself but a quickening spirit to all that aâ—e given him of the Father 1 Cor. 15.45 So then as Christ Jesus hath law and right on his side to free us from death so he hath vertue and power in him to accomplish our delivery from sin as he hath fair law to loose the chains of condemnation and to repeal the sentence past against us without prejudice to Gods justice he having fully satisfied the same in our name so he hath sufficient power given him to loose the fetters oâ— sin from off us When he hath pay'd the price and satisfied the Father so that justice can crave nothing Yet he hath one adversary to deal with Satan hath sinners bound with the cords of their own lusts in a prison of darkness and unbelief Jesus Christ therefore comes out to conquer this enemy and to redeem his elect Ones from that unjust usurpation of sin to bring them out of the prison by the strong hand and therefore he is one mighty and able to save to the uttermost he hath might to do it as well as right to it Consider then my beloved these two things which are the breasts of our consolation and the foundation of our hope we are once lost and utterly undone both in regard of Gods justice and our own utter inability to help our selves which is strengthned by our unwillingness and thus made a more desperat busineâ—s now God hath provided a suitable remedy he hath laid help on one that is mighty indeed who hath almighty power and by his power he fiâ—st conflicted with the punishment of our sins and with his Fathers wrath and hath overcome discharged and satisfied that and so hath purchased a right unto us to give salvation to whom he will be conquered
ver 16. Here the Spirit not casting out the Word but bringing it in plentifully and sweetly agreeing with it The Spirit that Christ sent did not put men above Ordinances but above corruptions and the body of death in them It s a poor and easie victory to subdue Grace and Ordinances every slave of the Devil doth that I fear as men and Angels fell from their own dignity by aspiring higher so these that will not be content with the estate of Christ and his Apostles but soar up in a higher strain of spirit and trample on that ministration as fleshly and carnal I fear they fall from Jesus Christ and come into greater condemnation It s true indeed 2 Cor. 3.6 The Letter killeth that is the Covenant of Works preacheth now nothing but condemnation to men but the Spirit of the Gospel giveth life nay even the Gospel separated from the Spirit of life in Jesus is but a savour of death to souls Shall we therefore separate the Spirit from the Gospel and Word because the Word alone cannot quicken us David knew how to reconcile this Quicken me O Lord according to thy Word Psal. 119.25 Thy Spirit is good lead me into the land of uprightness and quicken me Psal. 143.10 11. The Word was his rule and the Spirit applyed his soul to the rule the Word holds out the present patteâ—n we should be conformed unto now if there be no more a man may look all his dayes on it and yet not be changed but the Spirit within transforms and changes a mans soul to more and more conformity to that pattern by beholding it If a man shall shut his eyes on the pattern he cannot know what he is and ought to be if he look only on the Spirits work within and make that his rule he takes an imperfect rule and an incompleat copy and yet this is the highest attainment of these aspirers to new light they have forsaken the Word as their rule and instead of it have another Law within them as much as is already written on their hearts which is in substance this as they suppose I am bound to do no more then I have already power to do I am not to endeavour more holiness then I have already These men are indeed perfect here in their own apprehension and do not know in part and believe in part and obey in part because they are advanced the length of their own Law and rule their rule being of no perfection Paul was not so but forgetting what he had attained he followed on to what was before him and was still reaching forward Let not us my brethren believe every spirit and every doctrine that comes out under that name Christ hath forwarned us Let us pray for more of that Spirit which may quicken the Word to us and quicken us to obey the Word there must be a mutual enlivening the Word must be made the ministration of life by the Spirit of Jesus which can use it as a sword to divide the soul and spirit and we must be quickned to the obedience of the truth in the Word The Word is the seed incorruptible but it cannot beget us or be a principle of a new life within us except a living spirit come alongs to our hearts Know that the Word is your pattern and rule the Spirit your leader and helper whose vertue and power must conform you that rule 1 Pet. 1.22 Peter joyns these two the purification and cleansing of the soul which Christ attributes to the Word ye are clean through the word I have spoken Joh. 15.3 Peter attributes it to the Spirit working according to the pattern of truth It s true the Spirit of God needs no pattern to look to nay but we must have it and eye it else we know not the Spirit of truth from a lie and delusion we cannot try the spirits but by this rule and it is by making us stedfastly look on this glorious pattern in the Word and the example of Christ Jesus his life that we are conformed unto Christ as by the Spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.13 Certainly that must be fleshly walking which is rather conformed unto the imaginations of a mans own heart then the blessed will of God revealed in his Word Can such walking please God when a man will not so much as hearken to what is Gods will and pleasure As other heresies so especially this is a work of the flesh Now there is another principle amongst many of us we account it spiritual walking to be separated from the gross pollutions of the world to have a carriage blameless before men this is the notion that the multitude fancy of it Be not deceived you may pass the censure of all men and be unreproveable among them and yet be but walkers after the flesh It is not what ye are before the world can prove you spiritual men though it may prove many of your carnal Your out-side may demonstrate of many of you that ye walk after the flesh and if ye will not believe it I ask you if ye think drunkenness a walking in the Spirit Do ye think ye are following the Spirit of God in uncleanness Is it not that Holy Spirit that purgeth from all filthiness Look but what your walk is ye that are not so much as conformed to the Letter of the Word in any thing who cares not to read the Scriptures and meditate on them Is this walking after the Spirit of truth If drunkenness railing contention wrath envy covetousness and such like be the Spirits way then I confess many of you walks after the Spirit but if these be the manifest works of the flesh and manifestly your way and work then why dream ye that ye are Christians But I suppose that you could be charged with none of these outward things that you had a form of Religion and Godliness yet I say all that is visible before men cannot prove you to be spiritual walkers Remember it is a spirit ye must walk after now what shall be the chief agent here sure not the body what fellowship can your body have with him that is a Spirit the body indeed may worship that eternal Spirit being acted by the Spirit but I say that alone can never prove you to be Christians we must then layaside a number of Professors who have no other ground of confidence but such things as may be seen of men if they would enter their hearts how many vain thoughts lodge there how litle of God is there God is not almost in all our thoughts we give a morning and evening salutation but there is no more of God all the day throughout and is this walking after the Spirit which imports a constancy And what part can be spared most but the spirit of a man The body is distracted with other necessary things but we might alwayes spare our souls to God Now thus should a man obey that command Pray alwayes
Covenant of Grace I will put my Spirit in you and cause you walk in my wayes there is first quickening and then walking You who were dead in sins hath he quickned together with Christ Eph. 2.1 5. and then it follows in due order I will cause you to walk in my wayes Ezek. 36 27. Christ comes into the heart to dwell and then he walks in it 2 Cor. 6.16 And what is that Christ to walk in believers it is nothing else but Christ by his Spirit making them to walk in his way there is so little in us to principle a spiritual action even when renewed and quickned that we should look on our selves not so much as workers with him but as being acted by him we should look on soul and body as pieces of organized clay that cannot move but as it is moved by him as the soul and life of it so that according to the Scriptures diâ—lect a Christian is nothing else but Christ living and waâ—king in such a person This is it which Christ when he is to go out of the world instructs his Disciples into Iob. 15.1 He is the vine and we the branches the branch must first be united to the tree and implanted into the tree ere it bring forth fruit without the tree it withers So must a soul be fust ingrast in Jesus Christ implanted in him by â—aith in his death and sufferings before it can grow up into the similitude of his resurrection or walk in newness of life as Paul speaks Rom. 6.4 5. Without me ye can do nothing ye must first be one with him by believing in him and receiving him as a compleat Saviour and then the sap and vertue of the tree flows into the dead branch and it shoots forth and blossoms and bears Now if this Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles were duly pondered and believed O what a change would it make on the lives and spirits of Christians since this is the order established in the Gospel and an order suitable both to his grace and our necessity as all that is in it speaketh forth an excellent contriver when we go about to establish our souls in another method how is it possible that we should not weary and vex our souls in vain how can we choose but torment our selves and intricat our selves still more Our method and way is just contrary we perplex our souls how to find the fruits of the Spirit of Christ how to walk after the Spirit without fiâ—st closing intirely with Christ himself We trouble our selves to find the operations of a spiritual life before we lay hold on Christ who is the life of our souls It is made an argument by many to keep them from believing in Christ because they do not find that spiritual life stirring in them How cross is this to the declared mind of Christ in the Gospel It cannot choose but both darken the spirit more and dry up the influences of the Spirit of God because it keeps thee from the fountain of all consolation You may disquiet your souls by this means but you shall never make advantage this way without him ye can do nothing and yet ye will not come to him because you have done nothing It s strange how little reason is in it if your eyes were opened you refuse or delay to abide in the vine till you bring forth fruit and fruit you cannot bring forth till you be in the vine you would walk and you will not have the life from which you must walk Paul lived indeed but what a life the life that I live is by the faith of the Son of God faith in Christ transported him out of himself to Christ or received Christ into the soul and Christ in the soul was the life of his soul Gal. 2.20 your walking is as if a dead man essay to go Will one expect figs of thorns or grapes of thistles I beseech you know what wrong ye do to your selves and to Christ ye wrong your selves because ye stand in the way of your own mercy ye stand a back from your life him that is the way the truth and the life You would walk in the way but no man can walk in this way but by this way Christ must quicken you to walk in himself ye must get life in him and not bring it You are in a vain expectation of fruits from your selves they will never see the Sun and when you have wearied your self in such a vain pursuit you must at length come and begin here Ye wrong Christ his grace and mercy this order is suited of purpose for our desperat condition and yet ye presume to reject it and seek another You prescribe to your skilful tender Physician that which would undo you I beseech you know the original of your miseries doubts barrenness and darknesse Here it is you are still puzling your selves about grace and duties how to fill your eyes with these and ye neglect Christ as your righteousnesse as one dead and risen again and now sitting at Gods right hand for us you must first close with him as ungodly men though you were godly you must shut your eyes on any such thing and lay living Jesus upon your dead and benumb'd hearts answer all your challenges with his absolution and stand before God in his cloathing put his garment immediately on your nakednesse and vilenesse and we may perswade you it shall yield you abundant consolation and life because he lives ye shall live and walk If you were more frequent and serious in the consideration of his excellent Majesty of his beautiful and lovely qualifications as the Mediator for sinners and of the precious promises which are all Yea and Amen confirmed in him and lesse in the vain and unprofitable debates of self-interest and such like I am perswaded ye would be more fruitful Christians This is not as the business of a holy-day to be done at your first coming to Christ and no more no it must run alongst all your life the aged experienced Christian must come alongs as an ungodly sinner to a blessed and living Saviour and have no other ground of glory or confidence before God but Christ Jesus crucified SERMON VII Vers. 2. For the Law of the Spirit of life in Iesus Christ hath made me free c. YOU know there are two principal things in the preceeding verse the priviledge of a Christian and the property or character of a Christian he is one that never enters into condemnation he that believeth shall not perish Joh. 3.15 And then he is one that walks not after the flesh though he be in the flesh but in a more elevat way above men after the guiding and leading of the Holy Spirit of God Now it may be objected in many consciences how can these things be Have not all sinned and come â—â—ort of the glory of God and so the whole world is become guilty before God Is not every
Christians puddle themselves in the mire of their own darknesse and discouragement because they cannot find any thing in themselves that can give but the least probable conjecture that he will admit and welcome them to come to him or that such precious promises and sweet invitations can belong to such sinners as they conceive themselves to be Truly my beloved I think while we exercise our selves thus we are seeking the Sun with a candle making that which is in it self as bright as the light to be more dark The evidence of Gods reality in offering life to you in Christ and his willingness to receive you it is not without the compasse of his invitation and yet you seek it where it is least to be found that is in your selves But indeed his invitations in the Gospel carry the evidence in their bosome that which is above all other signs and evidences that he did ever send his own Son in the flesh for this purpose is there any thing besides this either greater or clearer I think we are like these who when they had seen many signs and wonders done by Christ which did bear testimony to all the world of his Divine Nature yet they would not be satisfied but sought out another sign tempting him Mat. 16.1 And truly he might return this answer to us O wicked and adulterous generation that seeketh after a sign there shall no sign be given to thee but the sign of the Prophet Ionas the greatest testimony that can be imagined is given already that the Father should send his only begotten and well beloved Son into the state of a servant for man If this do not satisfie I know not what will I see not how any work of his Spirit in us can make so much evidence of his reality and faithfulnesse in the Gospel and of his willingness to welcome sinners All the works of Creation all the works of Grace are nothing to this to manifest his love to men and therefore there is a singular note upon it God so loved the world that he sent his Son Joh. 3.16 And in this was love manifested that he gave his Son 1 Joh. 4.9 If men and Angels had set themselves to devise and find out a pledge or confirmation of the love of God they would have fallen upon some revelation unto or some operation upon their spirits but alace this is infinitly above that his own express image and the brightness of his glory is come down to bear witnesse of his love nay he who is equal with himself in glory is given as a gift to men and is not he infinitly more then created gifts or graces who is the very spring and fountain of them all God so loved the world that truly he gave no such gift besides to testifie such a love Therefore when all that he hath done in this kind cannot satisfie thy sâ—rupulous mind but thou wilt still go on to seek more confirmation of his readinesse to receive thee I think it is a tempting of the Holy One which may draw such an answer from him O wicked and adulterous person there shall no sign be given thee but that which is darker then the former that which thou shalt understand lesse thou may get what thou seeks perhaps some more satisfaction in thy own condition but it shall plung thee more in the issue thou shall alwayes be unsetled and unconstant as water thou shalt not excell I confesse indeed if we speak of the manifestation of ones particular interest in these promises and of an evidence of the love of God to thee in particular then there must needs be something wrought by the Holy Spirit on thy soul to draw down the general testimony of Gods love to mankind into a particular application to thy self But that I do not speak of now because that is the sealing of the Spirit after believing and because you are alwayes unsetled in the first and main point of flying unto the Son and waiting on him for life therefore have you so much inevidence and weakness in that which follows That which I now speak of is that if this were cordially believed and seriously considered that God sent his own Son in the flesh to save sinners you could not readily have any doubt but that you coming to him for salvation would be welcome you could not say that such precious invitations could not belong to sinners or that he could not love the like of you Truly I think if the general were laid to heart that God hath so loved mankind that he gave such a gift unto them there is none could make any more question of his reality when that gift is tendered to any in particular Nay I think it is the inconsideration of this general evidence and manifestation of love to the world that makes you so perplexed in particulars Could you have so much difficulty to believe his love to you if you indeed believe that he hath loved the world that is so many thousands like you Is there so much distance I pray you between you and another as between him and all If then he loves so many miserable sinners is there any impossibility in it but he may love you for what is in them that might conciliat his love I tell you why I think the right apprehension of the general truths of the Gospel would be able like the Sun in its strength to scatter all the clouds and mists of our particular interest-debates because I find that these very grounds upon which you call in question your own particular interest if you did consider them you would find they go a further length to conclude against all others and either they have no strength in your case or they will be of equal force to batter down the confidence of all the Saints and the certainty of all the promises What is it that troubles you but that you are sinners and such sinners so vile and loathsome from whence you do conclude not only that you have no present assurance of his love but that he cannot love such a one as you are Now I say if this hold good in reference to you take heed that you condemn not your selves in that which you approve that is that you do not diâ—pute against the interest of all the Saints who were such as you are and the truth of these fundamentall positions of the Gospel God so loved the world c. And so you do not only wrong your selves but all others and not only so but you offer the greatest indignity to him that out oâ— love sent his Son and to him who out of love came and laid down his life O consider how you indignifie and set at nought that great manifestation of Gods love God manifested in the flesh how you despise his love-pledge to sinners a greater then which he could not give you because as great as himself O that you could see the consequence of your anxious and
The more the soul be satisfied with eaâ—thly things it is the deeper buâ—ied in the grave of the flesh and the â—urther separated from God Alas many oâ— you know no other liâ—e then that which you now live in the body you neither apprehend what this new birth is nor what the perfect statuâ—e of it shall be afterwards but truly while it is thus you are but walking shadows breathing â—lâ—y and no more A godly man used to calculat the years of his nativity from his second birth his conversion to God in Christ And truly this is the true period of the â—ight calculation of life of that life which shall not see death True life hath but one period that is the beginning of it for end it hath none I beseech you reckon your years thus and I fear that you â—eckon your selves many of you yet dead in sins and trespasses Is that life I pray you To eat to drink to sleep to play to walk to work Is there any thing in all these worthy of a reasonable soul which must survive the body and so cease from such things for ever Think within your selves do you live any other life then this What is your life but a tedious and wearisome repetition of such bruitish actions which are only teâ—minat on the body O then how miserable are you if you have no other period to reckon from then your birth day If there be not a second birth day before your burial you may make your reckoning To be banished eternally from the life of God As for you Christians whom God hath quickned by the Spirit of His Son be much in the exercise of this life and that will maintain and advance it let your care be about your spirits and to hearten you in this study and to beget in you the hope of eternal life look much and lay fast hold on that Life-giving Saviour who by his righteous life and accursed death hath purchased by his own blood both happinesse to us and holinesse Consider what debters ye are to Him who loved not his own life and spared it not to purchase this life to us Let our thoughts and affections be occupied about this high purchase of our Saviours which is freely bestowed on them that will have it and believe in Him for it if we be not satisfied with such a low and wretched life as is in the body He will give a higher and more enduring life and only worthy of that name SERMON XXX Rom. 8.11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken you c. IT is true the soul is incomparably better then the body and he is only worthy the name of a Man and of a Christian who prefers this more excellent part and imploys his study and time about it and regards his body only for thâ— noble guest that lodges within it and therefore it is one of the prime consolations that Christianity affords that it provides chiefly for the happy estate of this immortal piece in man which truly were alone sufficient to draw our souls wholly after Religion suppose the body should never taste of the fruits of it but die and rise no more and never be awak'd out of its sleep yet it were a sufficient ground of engagement to godlinesse that the life and well-being of the far better part in man is secured for eternity which is infinitly more then all things beside can truly promise us or be able to perform Certainly whatsoever else you give your hearts to and spend your time upon it will either leave you in the midst of your dayes and at your end you shall be a fool or you must leave it in the end of your dayes and find your selves as much disappointed or to speak more properly because when your time is ending your life and being is but at its beginning you must bid an eternal adieu to all these things whereupon your hearts are set when you are but beginning truly to be But this is only the proper and true good of the soul Christ in it most portable and easily carried about with you yea that which makes the soul no burden to it self and helps it to carry all things easily and then most inseparable for Christ in the soul is the spring of a never-ending life of peace joy and contentation in the fountain of an infinit goodnesse and it out-wears time and age as well as the immortal beeing of the soul yea such is the strength of this consolation that then the soul is most closly united and â—ully possessed oâ— that which is its peculiar and satisfying good when it leaves the body in the dust and eâ—capes out of this pâ—iâ—on unto that glorious liberty But yet there is besides this an additional comfort comprehended in the vers read that the sleep of the body is not perpetual that it shall once be awakened and raised up to the fellowship of this glory â—or though a man should be abundantly satisfied if he possesse his own soul yet no man hateth his own flesh the soul hath some kind of natural inclination to a body suitable unto it and in this it differs from an Angel and therefore the Apostle when he expresseth his earnest groan for intimat presence oâ— his soul with Christ he subjoyns this correction not that we desire to be uncloathed but cloathed upon it 2 Cor. 5.1 2 3. If it were possible sayes he we would be glade to have the society of the body in this glory we would not desire to cast off those cloaths of flesh but rather that the garment of glory might be spread over all if it were not needful because they are old and ragged and would not suit well and our earthly Tabernacle is ruinous and would not be fit for such a glorious guest to dwell into and therefore it is needful to be taken down well then here is an overplus and as it were a surcharge of consolation that seing for the present it is expedient to put off the present cloathing of flesh and take down the present earthly house yet that the day is coming that the same cloaths renewed shall be put on and the same house repaired and made suitable to Heaven shall be built up that this mortal body shall be quickned with that same Spirit that now quickens the soul and makes it live out of the body and so the sweet and beloved friends who parted with so much pain and grief shall meet again with so much pleasure and joy and as they were sharers together in the miseries of this life sâ—all participat also in the blessednesse of the next like Saul and Ionathan lovely and pleasant in their lives and though for a time separated in death yet not alwayes divided Now is the highest top of happinesse to which nothing can be added its comprehensive of the whole man and its
and murderer from the beginning and murdered man at first by lying to him you find the hook covered over with the varnished bâ—it of an imaginary life and happinesse satisfaction promised to the eye to the taste and to the mind and upon these inticements man bewitched and withdrawn from his God after these vain and empty shadows which when he catched hold upon he himself was caught and laid hold upon by the wrath of God by death and all the miseries before it or alter it Now here is the Mapp of the World for all that is in the world is but a larger volume of that same kind the lust of the eyes the lust of the flesh and the pride of life Albeit they have been known and found to be the notablest and grossest deceivers and every man after he hath spent his dayes in pursuit and labour for them he is constrained to acknowledge at length though too late that all that is in the world is but an imposture a delusion a dream and worse yet eveâ—y man hearkens after these same flatteries and lies that hath cast down so many wounded and made so many strong ones to fall by them every man trusts the world and his own flesh as if they were of good report and of known integrity and this is mens misery that no man will learn wisdom upon others expences upon the woâ—ul and tragical example of so many others but go on as confidently now after the discoverie of these deceivers as if this were the first time they had made such promises and used such fair words to men Have they not been these six thousand years almost deluding the world And have we not as many testimonies of their falshood as there hath been persons in all ages before us After Adam hath tasted of this tree of pleasure and found another fruit growing on it that is death should the posterity be so mad as to be medling still with the forbidden tree and therefore forbidden because destructive to our selves Know then and consider beloved in the Lord that you shall reap no other thing of all your labours and endeavours after the flesh all your toyling and perplexing cares all your excessive pains in the making provision for your lusts and caring for the body only you shall reap no other harvest of all but death and corruption Death you think that is a common lot and you cannot eschew it however nay but the death here meant is of another sort in respect of which you may call death life it is the everlasting destruction of the soul from the presence of God and the glory of his powerâ— it is the falling of that infinit weight of the wrath of the Lamb upon you in respect of which mountains and hills will be thought light and men would rather wish to be covered with them Rev. 6.16 Suppose now you could swim in a River of delights and pleasures which yet is given to none for truly upon a jâ—st reckoning it will be found that the anxiety and grief and bitteâ—nâ—sse that is inteâ—mingled with all earthly delights â—wallows up the sweetnesse of them yet it will but carry you down ere you be aware into the Seâ— oâ— deâ—th and destruction as the fish that swim and sport for a while in Iordan are carried down into the dead Sea of Sodom where they aâ—e presently suffocated and extinguished or as a Malefactor is carried through a pleasant Palace to the Gallows so men walk thâ—ough the delights of their flesh to their own endlesse torment and destruction Seing then my beloved that your sins and lusts which you are inclined and accustomed to will certainly kill you if you inteâ—tain them then nature it self would teach you the Law of self-defence To kill ere you be killed to kill sin eâ—e it kill you to mortifie the deeds and lusts of the body which aboâ—nd among you or they will certainly mortifie you that is make you die Now if self love could teach you this which the love of God cannot perswade you to yet it is well for being once led unto God and moved to change your course upon the fear and apprehension of the infinit danger that will ensue ceâ—tainly if you weâ—e but a little aâ—quainted with the sweetnesse of this life and goodnesse of your God you would find the power of the former aâ—gumenâ— Ã debito from debt and duty upon your spirit let this once lead you in to God and you will not want that which will constrain you to abide and never to depart from Him If you mortifie the deeds of the body you shall live as sin decayes you increase and grow as sins die your soulâ— live anâ— it shall be a sure pledge to you of that eternal life and though this be painful and laborious yet consider that it is but the cutting off of a rotten member that would corrupt the whole body and the want of it will never mâ—im or mâ—tilat the body for you shall live perâ—ectly when sin is perfectly expired and out of life and according aâ— sin is nearer expiring and nearer the grave your souls are neaâ—â—â— that endlesse life If this do not move us what can be said nâ—xt What shall he do more to his Vineyard SERMON XXXV Rom. 8.13 14. But if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Vers. 14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God THE life and being of many things consists in union separat them and they remain not the same or they losse their vertue It is much more thus in Christianity the power and life of it consists in the union of these things that God hâ—th conjoyned so that if any man pretend to one thing of it and neglect the other he hath really none of them and to hold to the subject in hand there are three things which joyned together in the hearts of Christians have a great deal of force the duty of a Christian and his reward and his dignity his worke and labour seems hard and unpleasant when considered alone but the reward sweetens it when it is joyntly believed his duty seems too high and his labour great yet the consideration of the real dignity he is advanced unto and priviledge he hath received will raise up the spirit to great and high attempts and to sustain great labours Mortification is the work and labour life eternal life is the reward following the Spirit is the Christians duty but to be the son of God that is his dignity Mortification sounds very harsh at first the hearts of men say It is a hard saying who can bear it And indeed I cannot deny but it is so to our corrupt nature and therefore so holden out in Scripture the words chosen to press it express much pain and pains much torment and labour it is not so easie and trivial a business to forsake sin or subdue it as many think
Christ Jesus there is a Throne of Justice where no sentence passes but pure unmixed Justice without any temperament of mercy and this all men must once compear before Ye know what a Covenant of Works God once made with us If thou do these things thou shalt live not thou shalt die the death according to this we must once be judged that Justice suffer no prejudice Therefore God speaks out of his Law upon this Throne the language of Mount Sinai he reads our charge unto us and because all the world is guilty therefore the sentence of death is once past upon all Now whoever of you come before this Tribunal to be judged know that it is a subordinate Court there is a higher Court of Mercy and Judgement both Justice and mercy mixed together though mercy be the predominant Iustice and Iudgment i◠〈◊〉 habitation of it but mercy and truth goeth before the Judges 〈◊〉 and come nearest sinners to give them access And this 〈◊〉 may appeal unto from that Tribunal of Justice But there is forgiveness with thee c. Psal. 130.4 5. And whoever comes here Christ Jesus sits on this Throne to absolve him from that sentence If you ask what equity is in it is not this a prejudice to Justice and an abomination to the Lord to justifie the wicked and ungodly sinner I say it is no iniquity because Jesus Christ hath payed the price for us and was made a curse for our sins that we might 〈◊〉 he righteousness of God in him and therefore it is just with God to forgive sins to relax that sinner from the condemnation of the Law that flees unto Jesus Christ. Ye may answer Justice I will not take this for Gods last word I hear that all final Judgement is committed to the Son that he may give life to whom he will he calls me and to him will I go for he hath the words of eternal life he will justifie and who shall condemn Now if any man will not now arraign himself before the Tribunal of Gods Justice if he will not search his guiltiness till his mouth be stopped and hear his sentence of condemnation read and take with it that man cannot come to Jesus Christ to be absolved for he justifieth none but self condemned and lost sinners so your day is but yet coming when ye must answer to Justice the Tribunal of Mercy shall be removed and Christ shall sit upon a Throne of pure Justice to judge these who judged not themselves Alas for your loss the most part of you I pity you ye live in great peace and quietness without the ports of the city of refuge We declare unto you in the Lords Name ye are under the curse of God will ye yet sit secure and put the evil day far from you Oh! rather trouble your peace for a season with the consiâ—eration of your sins enter in judgement with your selves till ye see nothing but perishing in your selves and there is no hazard because here is salvation brought near in the Gospel If ye will not trouble your selves so much as to judge your selves then ye shall be judged when there is no Mediator to plead for you none to appeal unto But whosoever takes the sentence of condemnation unto them and subscribes to the righteousness of the Lords curse upon them we do invite all such in the Lords Name to come in hither even to Jesus Christ there is no condemnation to them that are in him If ye stand scrupulous making many questions in such a matter of so great necessity ye wrong your own soul and dishonour him know this that God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself therefore thou condemned sinner may come to God in Christ If ye ask any warrand we think there should be no such questioning when ye are in so great necessity If a man weâ—e starving without a city and it were told him there is plenty within were he not a fool that would make any more business but labour to enter in This is enough to cross all your objections ye are in extream necessity and like to perish within your self He is able to save to the utmost all that come to him What should more let there be then a closure between absolute necessity and sufficient ability to save will ye yet stand disputing without the city when the avenger of blood is above your head If ye will yet press for some more ground and warrand of believing then I will tell you all that I know is in the Word for a ground of Faith ye have great misery and necessity within you that ye grant and it is your complaint Christ hath mercy and sufficiency of grace in him he is able to save to the utmost that ye cannot deny But I do add this third he is willing also to save thee whoever will be willing to be saved by him nay he is more willing than thou art If ye question this I desire you but to consider the whole tenor of the Gospel How many invitations How many perswasions How many promises to those who come Yea how many commands and that peremptory to believe on him Yea how many threatnings against you if ye will not come to him to have life Hath he given himself for the sins of the world and will he not be willing that sinners partake of that he was at so much pains to purchase Think ye that Christ will be content his death should be in vain and it should be in vain if he did not welcome the worst sinners yea it should be in vain if he did not draw them to him and make them willing But besides this he hath promised so absolutely and freely and fully as there should be no exception imaginable against it Him that cometh I will not in any case cast out Joh. 6.37 Why do ye imagine any case where Christ hath made none Why do ye sin against your own souls Oh! if I were in Christ say ye I would be well and Oh! that he would welcome such a sinner Christ answers thee in express tearms Whosoever will let him take and drink freely Thou declares thy willingness in so speaking and he declares his willingness in so promising Nay thy looking afar off on him is a fruit of his willingness Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you and loved you first If ye will not yet believe this look upon his command This is his command that ye believe on the Son 1 Joh. 3.23 What warrand have ye to do any duty he commands and why do ye more question this Is not this his command and is it not more peremptory because a new command and his last command And when withall he boasts us in to his Son that we may have life Oh! who should have the face to question any more his willingness Other grounds than these I know none And I think if any come to Christ or pretend to come on other
come and receive his full and perfect salvation I think a man should seek nothing in himself whereupon to build his coming to Christ though it be true no man can come to a Saviour till he be convinced of sin and misery yet no man should seek convictions as a warrand to come to Christ for salvation he that is in earnest about this question how shall I be saved I think he should not spend the time in reflecting on and examination of himself till he find something promising in himself but from discovered sin and misery pass straight way over to the grace and mercy of Christ without any interveening search of something in himself to warrand him to come there should be nothing before the eye of the soul but sin and misery and absolute necessity compared with superabounding grace and righteousness in Christ And thus it singly devolves it self over upon Christ and receives him as offered freely without money and without price I know it is not possible that a soul can receive Christ till there be some preparatory convincing work of the Law to discover sin and misery But I hold that to look to any such preparation and fetch an incouragement or motive therefrom to believe in Christ is really to give him a price for his free waters and wine it is to mix in together Christ and the Law in the point of our acceptation and for souls to go about to seek preparations for a time resolving not at all to consider the promise of the Gospel till they have found them and satisfaction in them is nothing else but to go about to establish their own righteousness being ignorant of the righteousness of Christ. And therefore many do corrupt the simplicity of the Gospel by rigid exactions of preparations and measures of them and by making them conditions or restrictions of Gospel-commands and promises As in this Come ye that are wearied And from thence they seem to exclude persons not so qualified from having a warrand to believe Alas it is a great mistake of these and such words certainly these are not set down of purpose to exclude any who will come for whoever will let them come and take freely but rather to encourage such wearied and broken souls as conceives themselves to be the only peâ—sons excluded and to declare unto us in some measure the nature of true faith that a soul must be beaten out of it self ere it can come to Christ. Therefore I conclude that not only it is â— ridiculous and foolish conceit of many Christians that uses to object against believing Iâ— I were as such or such a person if I did love God if I had these fruits of the Spirit if I walked according to the Spirit then I might believe Alace how directly opposite is this to the tearms of the Gospeâ— I say If thou place satisfaction in these and from that ground come to Jesus Christ then thou dost not come really thou dost indeed establish thine own righteousness Doth any Saint though never so holy consider himself under such notions of grace when he comes to be justified No indeed but as an ungodly man rather he must deny all that though he had it And besides it is most unreasonable and incongruous to seek the fruits before the tree be planted and to refuse to plant the tree till you can behold the fruits of it But also it is contrary to the â—ree and comfortable Doctrine of the Gospel for a soul to seek the discovery of any thing in it self but sin before it apply to Jesus Christ. I say there must be some sense oâ— sin otherwise it hath not rightly discovered sin but a soul should not be at the pains to discover that sense of sin and find it out so as to make it a motive of believing in Christ He ought to go straight foreward and not return as he goes he must indeed examine himself not to find himself a sensible humbled sinner that so he may have ground of believing but that he may find himself a lost perishing sinner void of all grace and goodness that he may find the more necessity of Jesus Christ. And thus I think the many contentions about preparations or conditions preparatory to believing may be reconciled Now if the question be as it is indeed about the grounds of our assurance and knowledge of our own faith certainly it is clear as the noon-day that as the good tree is known by the fruits thereof and the fire by the heat thereof so the in-dwelling of faith in the heart is known by its purifying of the heart and working by love it makes a man a new creature so that he and others may see the difference Neither is this any derogation to the free grace of Christ or any establishing of our own righteousness except men be so afraid to establish their own righteousness that they will have no holiness at all but abandon it quite for fear of trusting in it which is a remedy worse than the disease because I make it not a ground of my acceptation before God but only a naked evidence of my believing in Christ and being accepted of God it being known that these have a necessary connexion together in the Scriptures and it being also known that the one is more obvious and easie to be discerned then the other Sure I am the Lambs Book of Life is a great mystery and unless this be granted I see not but every mans regeneration and change shall be as dark and hidden as the hidden and secret decrees of Gods Election for the Spirit may immediatly reveal both the one and the other Is it any derogation to the grace of Christ to know what is freely given us Doth it not rather commend his grace When a soul looks upon it self beautified with hiâ— comeliness and adorned with his graces and loaths it self in it self and ascribes all the honour and praise to him Is it not more injury to the fountain and fulness of grace in Christ not to see the streams of it at all nor to consider them then to behold the streams of grace that flowes out of this fountain as coming out of it I think Christians may be ready to idolize their graces and make them Mediators when they are known but is this a good remedy of that evil to abandone all sight and knowledge of the things freely given us of God Shall we not speak of the freeness of grace because mens corruptions turn grace into carnal liberty and wantonness If these graces be in us sure I am 't is no vertue to be ignorant of them but rather a weakness and darkness It must then be the light and grace of God to know them and from thence to conclude that assurance of faith which is not a forced ungrounded perswasion and strong fancy without any discovered reason of it Sure I am the Apostles counsel is to make our election sure by making our calling sure
manner the crucifying of a mans self thus to deny himself to have a sort of righteousness and not to trust in it Who is he that cannot indure to look upon himself for moral vilenesse Alace men flatter themselves in their own eyes looks with a more favourable â—ye on their own actions then they ought Who is he that abhors himself even for abominable works But who shall be found to abhore himself for his most religious and best actions Who casts these out of their sight as unclean and menstruous things Therefore I say though thy righteousnesse were equal to or exceeded any Pharisees righteousnesse thou cannot enter into heaven The poor Publicane that was a vile and profane sinner yet his righteousnesse exceeded the Pharisees though he had none of his own yet he had a righteousnesse without blemish of Christs purchasing having by saith fled to the mercy of God in and through a Mediator It is not more doing more praying more exact walking that can make you more righteous in Gods account in order to absolution from Law-condemnation then the profâ—nest and most wretched sinner but the baser and viler thou be in thine own eyes the more thou hide thy best doings from thine eyes and look on thy uncleannesses and betakes thy self to Christ his unspotted and perfect righteousnesse the more honourable and precious thou art in his eyes Therefore God is said to dwell in the heart of the humble and contrite one not for the worth of his humility and repentance No no but for the pleasure he hath in the well-beloveds righteousnesse that is the beautiful garment only in the eye of a humbled soul that seeth nothing in it self desirable Therefore I wish that this conjunction which is made in the Gospel were also engraven in your hearts and on your practices that is that you would seek after hoâ—â—ness without which no man shall see God seek to perfect it in the fear of God but not aâ— though ye were to be thereby justified seek it with that diligence and earnest study as if ye were to be saved by it and yet seek it so as to be denyed to your diligence or as if ye sought it not at all How sweet a conjunction were this in the Christians practice to walk and run so after the prize as if his walking did obtain it and yet to look upon his walking as if it were not at all Your diligence and seriousnesse in godlinesse should be upon the growing hand as if doing did save you yet you ought to deny all that and look to the righteousnesse of another as if nothing were done at all by you How doth Paul Phil. 3.8 unite these in his practice I count all losse and dung to be found in Christ not having my own righteousnâ—sse and yet I presse forward and follow after perfection as having attained nothing yet One of these two is the Original of many stumblings and wandrings in our Christian-way either there is not a necessity and constraint laid upon the souls of many to walk in all well-pleasing and to perfect holiness in the fear of God We look on it as a thing indifferent that is to be determined according to the measure of our receivings from God or we look on it as a thing not urging all but belonging to Ministers or more eminent Professors and hence there ariseth much carnal liberty in walking without the line of Christian-liberty because there is an indifference in the spirit that gives that latitude in walking or else there is not that following oâ— holinesse in such a way as can consist with the establishing of Christs righteousness No denial of our selves in our actions we act as if we were sufficient of our selves and walks aâ— if we were thereby justified and commends our selves to God in our own consciences when ever we can have the testimony of our consciences for well-doing And by this means the Lord is provoked because we do not honour the Son the Father counts himself despised and the spirit is grieved and tempted to depart and leave us to our own imaginations till our idol which we established fall down and our understanding return to us As it would be of great moment to the peace of Christians and increase of holinesse to have that union of Justification and Sanctification stamped on their hearts so especially to have the due and Evangelick-method and order of these impressed on their consciences it would conduce exceedingly both to their quckening and comforting As there is nothing that either so deadens or darkens and saddens the spirits of the Godly as darknesse in this particular the ignorance and mistake of the method and order of that well-ordered Covenant must certainly be very prejudicial to the life and consolation tendered by the Gospel This spiritual walking it flowes from the believers state of non-condemnation in Christ he is once in Jesus Christ and then he walks after the Spirit of Christ. You may make engines to cause a dead statue waâ—k but it cannot walk of it self till it have a principle of life in it Walking is one of the operations of life that flowes from some inward principle and so this spiritual-walk and motion of a Christian in his course is the proper operation of the new nature that he is partaker of in Christ Jesus As then you know it is impossible that there can be true and unâ—eigned walking where there is no life no principle within to put the creature to motion though a man may by Art and some external impulse so act a piece of timber or stone as it may resemble to you a walking like to living creatures so it is not possible that any of the Sons of Adam who are by nature dead in sins can walk spiritually before they be united to Jesus Christ by believing in him for righteousnesse and salvation There may be such a walking of carnal unregenerat men as may deceive all the senses and judgements of beholders men may be acted from base external principles in matters of Religion so that a beholder shall perceive no difference between them and others in whom Christ lives and walks but before God it is nothing else but an artificial walk a painted and dead business because the spirit that raised up Christ is not stirring in them they are not living members of that Head that quickens all have not been driven out of their own righteousnesse to Christ the city of refuge their principles are no higher then walking to obtain salvation and acceptation of God in a legal way walking to pacifie him walking to please men and their own consciences walking for gain or credit or advantage in the way walking according to custom or education in the way These are not living principles but when once a soul hath embraced Christ Jesus within it he becomes in a manner a soul to actuat and to quicken that soul he animates it and moves it in Gods wayes according to the
that is quickned by this new Law of the Spirit of Life for its the entry of this that expells its contrary the Law oâ— sin And indeed the Law must enter the command and the pâ—omise must enter into the soul and the affections of the soul be enlivened thereby or rather the soul changed into the similitude of that mould or else the having of it in a book or in ones memory and understanding will never make him the richer or freer A Châ—istian looks to the patern of the Law and the word of the Goâ—pel without but he must be changed into the image of it by beholding it and so he becomes a living Law to himself The Spirit writes these precepts and practices oâ— Christs in which he commands imitation upon the fleshly tables of the heart And now the Law is not a rod above his head as above a slave but it s turned into a Law oâ— love within his heart and hath something like a natural instinct in it all that men can do either to themselves or others will not purchase the least measure of â—â—eedom from predominant corruptions cannot deliver you from your sins till this free Spirit that blows where he pleases come It s our part to hoise up sails and wait for the wind to â—â—e means and wait on him in his way and oâ—der but all will be in vain till this stronger one come and cast out the strong man till this arbitrary and free wind blow from heaven and fill the sails SERMON X. Rom. 8.3 For what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son c. THE greatest design that ever God had in the world is certainly the sending of his own Son into the world and it must needs be some great busines that drew so excellent and glorious a person out of Heaven the plot and contrivance of the world was a profound piâ—ce of wisdom and goodness the making of men after Gods image waâ— done by a high and glorious counsel Let us make man after our image there was some thing special in this expression importing â—ome peculiar excellency in the work it self or some special depth of design about it But what think you of this consultation let one of us be made man after mans image and likeness that must be a strange piece of wisdom and grace Great is the mystery of godliness God manifested in the flesh No wonder though Paul cryed out as one swallowed up with this mystery for indeed it must be some odd matter beyond all that is in the creation wherein thâ—â—e are many mysteries able to swallow up any understanding but that in which they were first formed This must be the chief of the works of God the rarest piece of them all God to become man the Creator of all to come in the likeness of a creature he by whom all things were created and do yet consist to come in the likeness of the most wretched of all Strange that we do not dwell more in our thoughts and affections on this subject either we do not believe it or if we did we could not but be ravished with admiration at it Iohn the beloved Disciple who was often nearest unto Christ dwelt most upon this and made it the subject of his preaching that which was from the beginning which we have heard and seen and handled c. Ioh. 1.1 He speaks of that mystery as if he were imbracing Jesus Christ in his arms and holding him out to others saying Come and see This divine mystery is the subject of these words read but the mystery is somewhat unfolded and opened up to you in them yet so as it will not diminish but increase the wonder of a believing soul. It is ignorance that magnifies other mysteries which viâ—ifie through knowledge but it is the true knowledge of this mystery that makes it the more wonderful whereas ignorance only makes it common and despicable There are three things then of special consideration in the words which may declare and open unto you something of this mystery Fiâ—st what was the ground and reason or occasion of the Sons sending into the world next what the Son being sent did in the world And the third for what end and use it was What fruit we have by it The ground and reason of Gods sending his Son is because there was an impossibility upon the Law to save man which impossibility was not the Laws fault but mans defect by reason of the weakness and impotency of our flesh to fulfill the Law Now God having chosen come to life and man having put this obstruction and impediment in his own way which made it impossible for the Law to give him life though it was first given out as the way of life therefore that God should not fail in this glorious design of saving his chosen he choosed to send his own Son in the likeness of flesh as the only remedy of the Laws impossibility That which Christ being sent into the likeness of flesh did is the condemning of sin in the flesh by a sacrifice offered for sin even the sacrifice of his own body upon the crosse He came in the likeness not of flesh simply for he was really a man but in the likeness of sinful flesh though without sin yet like a sinner as to the outward appearance a sinner because subject to all these infirmities and miseries which sin did first open a door for Sin was the in-let of afflictions of bodily infirmities and necessities of death it self and when the floods of these did overflow Christs Humane Nature it was a great presumption to the world who look and judge according to the outward appeaâ—ance tâ—at â—in was the â—lâ—ce opened to let in such an inundation of calamity Now he being thus in the likeness of a sinner though not a sinner he for sin that is because of sin that had entered upon man and made life impossible to him by the Law by occasion of that great enemy of God which had conquered mankind he condemned sin in his flesh he overthrew it in its plea and power against us he condemned that which condemned us overcame it in judgment and made us free by sustaining the curse of it in his flesh he cut off all its plea against us This is the great work and business which was worthy of so noble a Messenger his own Son sent to conquer his greatest enemy that he hates most And then in the third place you see what benefite or fruit redounds to us by it What was the end and purpose of it vers 4. That the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us that seing it was impossible for us to fulfill the righteousness of the Law and so became impossible to the Law to fulfill our reward of life it might be fulfilled by him in our name and so the righteousness of the Law being fulfilled in us by
and self-love of the heart together with the ignorance of a better righteousness Adam hid himself among the trees and covered his nakedness with leaves and truly the shift of the most part is no better How vain and empty things do men trust into and from them conclude an expectation of eternal life the most part think to be safe in the midst or thick of the trees of the Church if they be in the throng of a visible Church and adorned with Church-priviledges as Baptisme hearing the Word and such like they do perswade themselves all will be well Some have civility and a blameless conversation before men and with such acts of righteousness or rather wants of some grosse out-breakings do many cover their nakedness If there be yet a larger and finer garment of profession of Religion and some outward performances of service to God and duties to men O then men do inâ—orce upon their own hearts the perswasion of Heaven and think their nakedness cannot be seen through it these are the coverings these are the grounds of claim and title that men have to eternal life and in the mean time they are ignorant of that large glorious robe of righteousness which Christ by his obedience and sufferings did weave for naked sinners But as the impossibility of the Laws saving us by reason of the weaknesse of the flesh was the ground and occasion of Christs coming into the flesh for to supply that defect and take away that impossibility so the sense and sight of this impossibility in us to satisfie and fulfill the Law and of the Law to give life is the very ground and reason of a souls coming to Jesus Christ for the supplying of this want As the Son should not have come in the likeness of sinful flesh unless it had been otherwise impossible by mans doing or suffering that life should be obtained so will not a soul come to Christ the Son of God through the vail of his flesh untill it discern and feel that it is otherwise impossible to satisfie the Law or attain life That was the impulsive cause if we may say that there was any cause beside his love why Christ came even mans misery and remediless misery and this is the strong motive and impulsive that drives a poor sinner unto Jesus Christ the sense and impression of its desperat and lost estate without him As there was first sin and then a Saviour dying for sin because nothing else could suffice so there must be in the soul first the apprehension of sin and that remediless sin incurable sin by any created power or act and then the sight of a Saviour coming to destroy sin and the works of the devil and destroying it by dying for it There is no imployment for this Physician upon every slight apprehension of a wound or sickness till it be found incurable and help sought elsewhere be seen to be in vain indeed upon the least apprehension of sin and misery men ought to come to Christ we shall not set or prescribe any measure of conviction to exclude you if you can but come to him indeed upon the least measure of it you will not be cast out according to his own word but as certain it is that men will not come to this Physician till they find no other can save them These two things I wish were deeply and seriously thought upon that you cannot satisfie Gods justice for the least point of guilt and then that you cannot do any thing in obedience to please God There is a strange inconsideration yea I may say ignorance among us when you are challenged and convinced of sin as there is no conscience so benum'd but in some measure it accuseth every man of many wrongs what is the course you fall on to pacifie it or please God Indeed if you can get any shadow of repentance if it were but a bare acknowledgment of the fault you excuse your selves in your own consciences and answers the accusation by it either some other good works formerly done occurre to you or some resolution for amendment in time coming and this you think shall pacifie God and satisfie justice But alace you are far from the righteousness of God and you do erre even in the very foundation of Religion these are but sparks of your own kindling and for all these you shall lye down in darkness and sorrow these are but the vain expiations and excuses of natural Consciences which are led to some sense of a Deity by the Law written in their heart But consider this once you must fiâ—st satisfie the curse of the Law which you are under before you can be in any capacity to please him by new obedience Now if you should undertâ—ke to pay for your former breaches of the Law that will eternally ruine you and therefore you see the punishment is lengthned throughout eternity to them who have this to undergo alone Go then and first suffer the eternal wrath of an infinit God and then come and offer obedience if thou can But now thou art in a double error both of which are damnable One is thou thinks thou art able by consideration and resolution to perform some acceptable obedience to God another that performance of obedience and amending in time coming will expiat former transgressions if either of these were true Christ needed not to have come in the likeness of sinful flesh because it had been possible for the Law to save thee But now the truth is such is the utter disability and impotency â—f man through sin that he can neither will nor do the least good truly good and pleasant to God his nature and person being defiled all he doth is unclean And then suppose that were possible that man could do any thing in obedience to his Commands yet it being unquestionable that all have sinned satisfaction must fiâ—st be made to Gods threatning Thou shalt die before obedience be acceptable and that is impossible too This then I leave upon your consciences beseeching you to lay to heart the impossibility you are encompassed with on both hands Justice requiring a ransome and you have none and justice requiring new obedience again and you can give none old debts urging you and new duty pressing you and ye alike disabled for both that so finding your selves thus invironed with indigency and impossibility within you may be constrained to flee out of your selves unto him that is both able and willing This is not a superficial business as you make it it is not a matter of fancy or memory or expression as most make it believe me it is a serious business a soul-work such an exercise of spirit as useth to be when the soul is between despair and hope Impossibility within driving a soul out of it self and possibility yea certainty of help without even in Christ drawing a soul in to him thus is the closure made which is the foundation of our happinesse
SERMON XI Rom. 8.3 For what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son c. FOr what purpose do we meet thus together I would we knew it then it might be to some better purpose In all other things we are rational and do nothing of moment without some end and purpose but alace in this matter of greatest moment our going about Divine Ordinances we have scarce any distinct or deliberat thought of the end and rise of them Sure I am we must all confess this that all other businesses in our life is almost impertinent to the great end the salvation of our souls in respect of these in which God in a manner trysts with men and comes to dwell with them these have the nearest and most immediat connexion with Gods glory and our happiness and yet so wretched and unhappy are we that we study and endeavour a kind of wisdom and diligence in other petty things which are to perish with the using and have no great reach to make our condition either better or worse and yet we have no wisdom nor consideration or attention to this great and momentous matter the salvation of our souls Is it not high time we were shaken out of our empty vain and unreasonable custom in going about such solemn duties when the wrath of God is already kindled and his mighty arm is shaking terribly the earth and shaking us out of all our nests of quietness and consolation which we did build in the creature God calls for a reasonable service but I must say the service of the most is an unreasonable and bruitish kind of work little or no consideration of what we are about little or no purpose or aim at any real soul-advantage Consider my beloved what ye are doing undoing your selves with ignorance of your own estate and unacquaintedness with a better whence it comes that you live contented in your misery and have no lively stirrings after this blessed remedy That for which we meet together is to learn these two things and alwayes to be learning them to know sensibly our own wretched misery and that blessed remedy which God hath provided it 's the sum of the Scriptures and we desire daily to lay it out before you if at length it may please the Lord to awake you out of your dream and give you the light of his salvation You hear of a weaknesse of the flesh but you would understand it aright it s not properly and simply a weakness that supposeth alwayes some life and some strength remaining it s not like an infirmity that only in disposeth to wonted action in the wonted vigour but it s such a weaknesse as the Apostle elsewhere Eph. 2.1 calls deadness it s such a weakness as may be called wickedness yea enmity to God as it is here our souls are not diseased properly for that supposeth there is some remnant of spiritual life but they are dead in sins and trespasses and so it s not infirmity but impossibility such a weaknesse as makes life and salvation impossible by us both utter unwillingnesse and extream inability these two concurrs in all mankind no strength to satisfie justice or obey the Law and no willingnesse either There is a general practical mistake in this men conceive that their natures are weak to good but few apprehend the wickednesse and enmity that is in them to God and all goodness all will grant some defect and inability and its a general complaint but to consider that this inability is an impossibility that this defect is a destruction of all spiritual good in us the saving knowledge of this is given to few and to these only whose eyes the spirit opens There may be some struglings and wrestlings of natural spirits to help themselves and upon the apprehension of their own weakness to raise up themselves by serious consideration and earnest diligence to some pitch of serving God and to some hope of heaven But I do suspect that it proceeds in many from the want of this through and deep conviction of desperate wickedness few really believes that testimony which God hath given of man he is not only weak but wicked and not only so but dâ—speratly wicked and that is not all the heart is deceitfull too and to compleat the account deceitful above all things Jer. 17.15 A strange character of man given by him that formed the spirit of man within and made it once upright and so knows best how far it hath departed from the first pattern O! who of us believes this in our hearts but that is the deceitfulness of our hearts to cover our desperatâ— wickedness from our own discerning and flatter ourselves with self-pleasing thoughts If once this testimony were received that the weakness of the flesh is a desperate wickedness such a wretched and accursed conditiâ—n as there is no hope therein as is incurable to any created power and makes us incurable and certainly lost then I say the deceitfulness of the heart were in some measure cured believe the desperate wickedness of your natures and then you have deceived the deceitfulness of your hearts to your own advantage then you have known that which non can know aright till the searcher of the heart and â—eins reveal it unto them Thus man stands invironed with impossibilities his own weakness and wickedness and the Laws impossibility by reason of that these do shut up all access to the tree of Life and are instead of a flaming sword to guard it our legs are cut off by sin and the Law cannot help us nay our life is put out and the Law cannot quickken us it declares our duty but gives no ability it teacheth well but it cannot make us learn While we are in this posture God himself steps in to succour miserable undone man and here is the way he sends his Son in the likeness of sinfull flesh and grace and truth comes by him which doth remove these impediments that stopt all accesse to life This is a high subject but it concerns the lowest and most wretched amongst us and that is indeed the wonder of it that there should be such a mystery such a depth in this work of redemption of poor sinners so much business made and such strange things done for repairing our ruines In the consideration of this we may borrow that meditation of the Psalmists Ps. 8.4 Lord what is man that thou should thus magnifie him and make him not a little lower then Angels but far higher for he took not on him the nature of Angels Heb. 2.14 16 But took part with the poor children of flesh and blood This deâ—erves a pause we shall stay a little and view it more fully in the steps and degrees that this mystery rises and ascends up by But Oh! for such an ascending frame of heart as this deserves it s a wonder it doth not draw us upward beyond our own elemâ—nt
should buy it at the dearest rate of pains and expenses from all those vain impertinent and trifling diversions that take it up that we may imploy it as it becomes suitable to eternity that is posting on And then as the shortness of it makes it the more precious and considerable in regard of the end of it eternity as the scantnesse of a thing increases the rate of it so that same consideration should make all worldly things that are confined either in their being or use within it to be incosiderable as Paul 1 Cor. 7.29 30 31. shews seing the time is short it remaineth that we should rejoice as not rejoicing weep as not weeping buy as if we possessed not use the world as not abusing it Seing all its worth is to be esteemed from the end of it eternity never ending then certainly whatsover in time doth not reach that end and hath no connexion with it we should give it but such intertainment as a passing bird that is pleasant to the eye gets of a beholder while it is in its flight the shortness of the day should make us double our diligence and put on the harder in our walk or race that so we may come in time to our place of rest and that same should make the passenger give an overly and passing look to all things that are by the way and which he must of necessity leave behind him Seing these things then are so important let us draw our hearts together to consider what the Lord speaks to us in this word for in it you have two wayes and two ends opposite and contrary wayes and walks and as contrary ends the wayes are walking after the flesh and walking after the Spirit the ends to which they lead are death and life We spoke something of the wayes and the wide difference that is between them what excellency is in the one beyond the other but truly it is hard to perswade you to take off your accustomed wayes and walks because your inward sense and the inclination of your hearts is wholly perverted and corrupted by nature You know the moving faculty is subordinat in its operations unto the knowing feeling and apprehending-faculties The locomotive power is given for a subsidiary and help to the apprehensive and appetitive powers because things are convenient and disconvenient good or evil to the nature of the living creature are without it and it could not by meer knowledge or desire or hatred of things either come in possession of them or eschew them therefore God hath given them a faculty of moving themselves to the prosecution and attainment of any apprehended good or to the eschewing and aversion from any conceived evil Thus when beasts savour or smell that food which is fit for them their appetite stirs them up to motion 〈◊〉 it to obtain it Now I say if this inward sense be â—orrupâ—â—d thâ—n things that are destructive will be conceived good because they are suitable to that corrupt humor or quality that possessed the senses and thus all the motion and walk will be disordered The truth is my beloved our spirits and minds are infected with a poysonable humour fleshly passions and lusts are predominant naturally and as in them that are in a feaver their organ being distempered with a bitten unsavoury humour the pleasantest things seems unsavoury because not suitable to that predominant humour even so it is wiâ—h you by nature That which puts all upon motion is out of course since the fiâ—st distemper of mâ—n your spirits and minds are fleshly and carnal they have a strong and deep impression of all the lusts that are in the body and are accordingly affected and therefore you cannot fitly judge what is good or evil for you but as these Isai. 5.20 You mâ—st call evil good and good evil bitter sweet and sweet bitter because you are already prepossessed thus And therefore the wayes of the flesh those paths that lead to destruction you cannot but look on them as pleaâ—ant because they suit and please your corrupted sense or spirit and so this disordered savour or smell of some fragrant perfume in the ways of the flesh puts you upon walking in these wayes and being thus possessed and ingaged you cannot but stop your ears to all contrary perswasions you think it against-your sense and reason to tell you that these are loathsome and unsavoury and that the other wayes of widom and spirit are pleasantness and peace I say you cannot believe this till your hearts and spirits be purged and your taste be pure and uncorrupted It is certainly upon this ground that our Saviour puts such characters upon the way to Heaven and Hell to life and death the one is strait and narrow and few walk in it the other broad and easie and many walk in it Matth. 7.13 Certainly it is not the way in it self simply that admitâ— of such a motion to speak properly as the thing is the way to life by the guiding of the Spirit is easiest plainest shortest and broadest it hath all the properties of a good way none so pleasant and plain how sweet and pleasant sights all the way its an Alley of delight the way of his Commandments it wants not accommodation in it to refresh the Traveller the most delightful company is here the Father and the Son who sought no other company from all eternity but were abundantly satisfied and rejoiced one another this fellowship the Christian hath to solace himself with and he is admitted to be partaker of that joy There is nothing that doth disbuâ—den the soul so of care and anxiety nothing doth rid a man of so many perplexities and troubles as this way But the way of sin in it self is most laborious most difficult it hath infinite by-wayes that it leads a man into and he must turn and return and run in a circle all the day all his time to satisfie the infinit lusts and insatiable desires of sin O! how painful and laborious is it to fulfill the lusts of the flesh how much service doth it impose how serious attention what perplexing câ—res and tormenting thoughts how many sorrows and griefs are in every step of this way Do you not perceive what drudges and slaves sin makes you how much labour you have to satisfie your lusts and you are alwayes to begin as near that which you seek in the end of your years as in the beginning How thorny how myry is the way of covetousness Are you not alwayes out of one thorn into another and cut asunder or pierced through with many sorrows 1 Tim. 6.10 Mat. 13.22 Is that a pleasant and easie way I pray you that makes all your sorrow and your travel grief and suffers not your heart to take rest in the night Eccles. 2.22 23. What pains of body What plotting oâ— mind What labour and vexation of both must a sinner have as his constant attendants in this way The way is intricat deep
Christ hath continued our mortality Else he would have abolished death it self if he had not meant to abolish sin by death and indeed it would appear this is the reason why the world must be consumed with fire at the last day and new Heavens and earth succeed in its room because as the little house the body so the great house the world was infected with this leprosie so subjected to vanity and corruption because of mans sin therefore that there might be no remnant of mans corruption and no memorial of sin to inteâ—upt his eternal joy the Lord will purify and change all all the members that were made instruments of unrighteousness all the creatures that were servants to mans lusts a new form and fashion shall be put on all that the body being restored may be a fit dwelling place for the purified soul and the world renewed may be a â—it house for righteous men Thus you see that Death to a Christian is not real death for it is not the death of a Christian but the death of sin his greatest enemy it is not a punishment but the enlargement of the soul. Now the next comfort is that which is is but partial it is but the dissolution of the lowest part in man his body so far from prejudging the immortal life of his spirit that it is rather the accomplishment of that Though the body must die yet eternal life is begun already within tâ—e soul for the Spirit of Christ hath brought in life the Righteousnesse of Christ hath purchased it and the Spirit hath performed it and applyed it to us not only there is an immortal being in a Christian that must survive the dust for that is common to all men but there is a new life begun in him an immortal well being in joy and happinesse which only deserveth the name of life that cometh never to its full perfection till the bodily and earthly house be taken down If you consider seriously what a new life a Câ—â—istâ—â—n is â—â—â—aâ—lated unto by the operation of the Holy Ghost and the ministration of the word it is then most active and lively when the soul is most retired from the body in meditation the new life of a Christian is most perfect in this life when it carrieth him the furthest distance from his bodily senses and is most abstracted from all sensible engagements as you heard for indeed it restores the spirit of a man to its native rule and dominion over the body so that it is then most perfect when it is most gâ—thered within it self and disingaged from all external intanglements Now certain it is since the perfection of the soul in this life consists in such a retirement from the body that when it is wholly separated from it then it is in the most absolute state of perfection and its life â—cts most purely and peâ—fectly when it hath no body to communicat with and to entangle it either with its lusts or necessities The Spirit is life it hath a life now which is then best when furthest from the body and therefore it cannot but be surpassing better when it is out of the body and all this is purchaâ—ed by Christs righteousnesse As mans disobedience made an end of his life Christs obedience hath made our life endlesse He suffered death to sting him and by this hath taken the sting from it and now there is a new statute and appointment of Heaven published in the Gospel whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have eternal life Now indeed this hath so intirely châ—nged the nature of death that iâ— hath noâ— the most lovely and desirable aspect on a Christian that it is no more an object of fear but of desire amicable not terrible unto him since there is no way to save the passenger but to let the vessel break he will be content to have the body splitted that himself that is his soul may escape for truly a mans soul is himself the body is but an earthly tabernacle that must be taken down to let the inhabitant win out to come near his Lord the body is the Prison-house that he groans to have opened that he may enjoy that liberty of the sons of God And now to a Christian death is not properly an object of patience but of desire rather I desire to be dissolved and be with Christ Phil. 1.23 He that hath but advanced little in Christianity will be content to die but because there is too much flesh he will desire to live but a Christian that is riper in knowledge and grace will rather desire to die and only be content to live he will exercise patience and submission about abiding here but groanings and pantings about removing hence because he knoweth that there is no choice between that bondage and this liberty SERMON XXIX Rom. 8.10 The body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life c. IT was the first curse and threatning wherein God thought fit to comprehend all misery Thou shalt die the death in that day thou eatest though the sentence was not presently executed according to the letter yet from that day â—orward man was made mortal and there seemeth to be much mercy and goodness of God interveening to plead a delay of death it self that so the promise of life in the second Adam might come to the first and his posterity and they might be delivered â—rom the second death though not from the first Alwayes we bear about the markes of sin in our bodies to this day and in so far the threatning taketh place that this life that we live in the body is become nothing else but a dying life the life that the ungodly shall live out oâ— the body is a living death and either of these is worse then simple death or destruction of beeing The serious contemplation of the miseries of this life made wise Solomon to praise the dead more then the living contrary to the custom of men who rejoyce at the birth of a man-child and mourn at their death yea it pressed him further to think them which have not at all been better then both because they have not seen the evil under the Sun this world is such a Chaos such a masse of miseries that if men understood it before they came into it they would be far more loath to enter into it then they are now afraid to go out of it And truly we want not remembrances and representations of our misery every day in that children come weeping into the world as it were bewailing â—heir own misfortune that they were brought forth to be sensible subjects of misery And what is all our life-time but a repetition of sighs and groanâ— anxiety and satiety loathing and longing dividing our spiâ—its and our time between them How many deaths must we suffer before death come for the absence or losse of any thing much desired is a sepâ—ration no lesse gâ—ievous to the hearts of men
then the paâ—ting of soul and body for affection to temporal peâ—ishing things unites the soul so unto them that there is no parting without pain no dissolution of that continuity without much vexation and yet the soul must suffer many such tortures in one day because the things are perishing in their own nature and uncertain What is sleep which devours the most part of our time but the very image and picture of death a visible and daily representation of the long cessation of the sensitive life in the grave and yet truly it is the best and most innocent part of our time though we accuse it often there is both lesse sin and lesse misery in it for it is almost the only leniment and refreshment we get in all our miseries Iobâ—ought â—ought it to asswage his grief and ease his body but it was the extremity of his misery that he could not find it Now my beloved when you find that which is called life subject to so much misery that you are constrained often to desire you had never been born you find it a valley of tears a house of mourning from whence all true delight and solid happiness is banished seing the very Officers and Serjeants of death are continually surrounding us and walk alongs with us though unpleasant company in our greatest contentments and are putting marks upon your doors as in the time of the Plague upon houses infected Lord have mercy upon us and are continually bearing this motto to our view and â—ounding this direction to our earâ— cito procul diu to get soon out of Sodom that is appointed for destruction to fly quickly out of our selves to the refuge appointed of God even one that was dead and is alive and hath redeemed us by his blood and to get far off from our selves and take up dwelling in the blessed Son oâ— God through whose flesh there is accesse to the Father seing all these I say are so why do not we awake our selves upon the sound of the promise of immortality and life brought to our ears in the Gospel Mortality hath already seized upon our bodies but why do ye not catch hold of this opportunity of releasing your souls from the chains and setters of eternal dâ—ath Truly my beloved all that can be spoken of torments and miseries in this life I suppose we could imagine all the exquisite torments invented by the most cruel tyrants since the beginning to be combined in some one kind of torture and would tâ—â—n stâ—etch our imagination beyond that as far as that which is compoâ—ed of all torments surpasseth the simplest death yet we do not conceive nor expresse unto you that death to come Believe it when the soul is out of the body it is a most pure activity all sense all knowledge and seing where it is dulled and dampished in the body it is capable of so much grief or joy pleasure or pain we may conclude That being loosed from these stupifying earthly chains that it is capable of infinit more vexation or contentation in a higher anâ— purer strain Therefore we may conclude with the Apostle that all men by nature are miserable in life but infinitly more miserable in death only the man who is in Jesus Christ in whose spirit Christ dwells and hath made a temple of his body for offering up reasonable service in it that man only is happy in life but far happier in death happy that he was born but infinitly more happy that he was born mortal born to die for if the body be dead because of sin the spirit is life because of righteousnesse Men commonly make their accompts and calculat their time so as if death were the end of it truly it were happinesse in the generality of men that that computation were true either that it had never begâ—n or that it might end here for that which is the greatest dignity and glory of a man his immortal soul it is truly the greatest misery of sinful men because it capacitats them for eternal misery But if we make our accompts right and take the right period truly death is but the beginning of our Time of endlesse and unchangeable endurance either in happinesse or misery and this life in the body which is only in the view of the short-sighted sons of men is but a strait and narrow passage into the infinit ocean of eternity but so inconsiderable it is that according as the spirit in this passage is fashioned and formed so it must continue for ever for where the tree falleth there it lyeth There may be hope that a tree will sprout again but truly there is no hope that ever the damned soul shall see a spring of joy and no fear that ever the blessed spirits shall find a winter of grief such is the evennesse of eternity that there is no shadow of change in it O then how happy are they in whose souls this life is already begun which shal then come to its Meridian when the glory of the flesh falls down like withered hay into the dust the life as well as the light of the righteouâ— is progressive its shining more and more till that day come the day of Death onâ—y worthy to be called the present day becâ—â—se it brings perfection it mounts the soul in the highest point of the Orb and there is no declining from that again The spirit is now alive in some holy affâ—ctions and motions breathing upwards wrestling towards that point the soul is now in paâ—t united to the fountain of life by loving attendance and obedience and it iâ— longing to be more clâ—â—ly united the inward senses are exercisâ—â— about spiritual thingâ— but the burden of this clayie mansion dotâ— much dull and damp them and proves a great Remora to the spiriâ— the body indispoâ—es and weakens the soul much its life as in an Infant though a reasonable soul be there yet overwhelmed with the incapacity of the organs this body is truly a prison of restraint and confinement to the â—oul and often loathsome and ugly through the filthinesse of sin But when the spirit is delivered from this necessary burden and impediment O how lively is that life it then lives then the life peace joy love and delight of the soul surmounts all that is possible here further then the highest exercise of the soul of the wisest men surpasses the bruitish-like apprehensions of an infant and indeed then the Christian comes to his full stature and is a perfect man when he ceaseth to be a man How will you not be perswaded beloved in the Lord to long after this life to have Christ foâ—med in your hearts foâ— truly the generality have not so much as Christ fashioned in their outward habit but aâ—e within daâ—knâ—sse and eaâ—thinesse and wickednesse and without impiety and prâ—fanity will you not long for this life for now you are dead while you live as the Apostle speaks of widows that live in pleasure
is no other thing then what we owe to our selves and to our own natures so to speak for truly there is a conâ—ormity and suitablenesse of some things to the very nature of man that is beautiful some things are decent and becomes it other things are undecent and uncomely unsuitable to the very reasonable beeing of man so that they put a stain and blot upon it Now indeed there is nothing can be conceived more agreeable to the very constitution of mans nature then this that the far better and more excellent part should lead and command and the baser and earthly part should obey and follow that the flesh should minister and serve the spirit Doth not even Nature it self teach it and yet no heavier yoke is put upon us then what our own nature hath put upon 〈◊〉 already which indeed is wonderful and certainly this wonderful attempering of his Laws unto the very natural exigence of the spirit of man make the transgression of them so much the more hainous Now all these three forementioned bonds do joyntly bind on this Law upon man in general they oblidge strongly to subjection and obedience to the will of God but particularly they have a constraining influence upon this living after the spirit not after the flesh our very creation speaks this forth when God made man after his own Image when he beautified the spirit of man with that divine similitude and likenesse in that he breathed a spirit from Heaven and took a body out of the dust and then exalted that heavenly piece to some participation of his own nature Doth not all this cry aloud upon uâ— that the order of creation is now dissolved that the beauty of it is maâ—â—ed that all is turned up â—ide-down when mens passions and senses are their only guiâ—s and the principles of light in their conscience are choakt and â—â—iâ—â—led Doth not all this teach us plainly that we should not live after the flesh that we owe not so much to this bruitish part as to enthrone it and impower it over us that it were the vilest Anarchy and most intoleâ—able confusion and usurpation to give it the power over uâ— as most men do that there can be no order or beauty in man till the spirit be unfettered from the chains of fleshly lustâ— and restored to the native dignity and preheminency and so keep the body in subjection And indeed Paul was so 1 Cor. 9.27 I keep my body in subjection and beat it down because it is an imperious slave an usurping slave and will command if not beaten and kept under Again Christ hath put a bond upon us to this very same he hath strengthned this obligation with a neâ— cord in that he gave his precious life a ransome for the souls of men this was the principal thing he payed for the body only being an accessory and appendix to the soul for it is said The redemption of the soul is precious and ceaseth for ever Psâ—l 49.8 and What can a man give in exchange for his soul Mark 8.37 For what material thing can equalize a spirit Many things may be had more preciouâ— and fine than the body but all of them have no proportion to a spiritual being Now then in that so dear a ransome and so infinit a pâ—ice must be given for the spirit of man it declares the infinit worth and excellency of it above the body and above all visible things and here indeed the greatest confirmation that can be imagined God hath valued it he hath put the soul of man in the ballance to find something equal in weight of dignity and worth and when all that is in Heaven and Earth is put in the other scale the soul is down-weight by far there is such distance that there is no proportion only the life and blood of his own Son weighs it down and is an overvalue and thus in our redemption we have a visible demonstration as it were of the infinit obligation of this Law not to live after that contemptible part our flesh but to follow after the motions and directions of an enlightned spirit not to spend our thoughts care and time upon the body and making provision for the lusts thereof as most men do and all by nature aâ—e now inclined to do but to be taken up wiâ—h the immortal preciouâ— Jewel that is within how to have it 〈◊〉 and cleansed from all the filth that sin and the flesh hath cast 〈◊〉 and restored to that native beauty the image of God in righteousness and holiness If you in your practice and affectiâ—n 〈◊〉 the scales otherwise and make the body and things of the body â—uppose the whole world down-weight in your affection and imagination you have pâ—ainly contâ—adicted the just measuâ—e of the Sanctuary and in effect you declare that Christ died in vain and gave his life out of an errour and mistake of the worth of the soul you say he needed not have given such a price for it seing every day you weigh it down with every triffle oâ— momentany fleshly satisfaction Lastly the Spirit binds this fast upon us for the soul of man he hath chosen for his habitation and there he delights to dwell in the heaâ—t oâ— the contrite and humble and this he intends to beautifie and garnish and to restore it to that primitive excellency it once had The Spirit of man is neaâ—er his nature and more capable of being conâ—oâ—med unto it and therefore his peculiar and special work is about our spirits first to enlighten and convince them then to reform and direct them and lead them and this binds as foâ—cibly and constraineth a believer certainly to â—esign himself to the Spirit to study how to order his walk aâ—ter that diâ—ection and to be more and more abstracted from the satisfaction of his body else he cannot choose but gâ—ieve the Spirit his bâ—st friend which alone is the fountain oâ— joy and peace to him and being grieved cannot but grieve himself next Now my beloved conâ—â—der if you owe so much to the flesh whether or not it be so steadable and profitable unto you and if you think it can give you a sufficient reward to compense all your pains in satisfying it go on But I believe you can â—eckon no good office that ever it did you and your expectation is lesse what fruit have you of all but shame and vexation of conscience and what can you expect but death the last fruits of it whaâ— then do you owe unto it are you debters to its pleasure and satisâ—â—ctiâ—n which hath never done you good and will do you eternal hurt consider whether you are so much bound and oblidged to it as to lose your souls for it one of them must be and whether or not you be not more oblidged to God the Father and his Son Iesus Christ to live after the Spirit though for the present it should be painful to beat down your body You
are debters indeed but you owe nothing to the flesh but stripes and mortification SERMON XXXIV Rom. 8.13 For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit c. THough the Lord out of his absolute Soveraignty might deal with man in such a way as nothing should appear but his supream Will and Almighty Power he might simply command obedience and without any more perswasions either leave men to the frowardnesse of their own natures or else powerfully constrain them to their duty yet he hath chosen that way that is most suitable to his own wisdom and most connatural to mans nature To lay out before him the advantages and disadvantages and to use these as motives and perswasives of his Spirit for since He hath by his first creation implanted in mans soul such a principle as moveth it self upon the presentation of good or evil that this might not be in vain he administers all the dispensation of the Law and Gospel in a way suitable to that by propounding such powerful motives as may incline and perswade the heart of man It is true there is a secret drawing withall necessary the pull of the Fathers arm and power of the Holy Ghost yet that which is visible or sensible to the soul is the framing of all things so as to engage it upon rational terms it is set between two contraries death and life death which it naturally abhoâ—reth and life which it naturally loveth an even ballance is holden up before the light of the conscience in which obedience and sin are weighed and it is found even to the convincing of the spirit of man that there are as many disadvantages in the one as advantages in the other This was the way that God used fiâ—st with man in Paradise you remember the terms â—un to what day thou eats thou shalt die he hedged him in on the one side by a promisâ— of life on the other by a threatning of death and these two are very rational restraintâ— â—uited to â—he â—oul of man and in the inward principles of it which are a kind of instinct to that which is appâ—ehenâ—ed good or gainfull Now this vers â—uns even so in the form of words If ye live after the flesh ye shall die you see thiâ— method is not changed under the Gospel for indeed it is natuâ—al to the spiâ—it of man and he hath now much more need of all such peâ—swasions because there is a great change of mans inclination to the woâ—st side all within is so disordered and perverse that a thousand hedges of perswasive grounds cannot do that which one might have done at fiâ—st then they were added out of superabundance but now out of necessity then they were set about man to preserve him in his natural â—â—ame and inâ—linations but now they are needfull to change and alter them quite which is a kind of creation therefore sayeth David creat in me a new spirit and therefore the Gospel abounds in vaâ—ieâ—y of motives and inducementâ— in greater variety oâ— far moâ—e powerâ—ul inducements then the Law Heâ—e is that grâ—aâ— peâ—swasiâ—n tâ—kâ—n fâ—om the infinit gain or lâ—sse of â—â—e â—â—ul of man which is any thing be able to prevail this must do seing it is seconded wiâ—h some natural inclination in the soul of man to seek its own gain Yet there is a diâ—â—erence between the nature of such like promises and threatningâ— in the fiâ—st covenant and in the second In the fiâ—st covenant though life was freely promised â—et it was immediatly annexed to perâ—ect obedience as a consequent â—eward oâ— it it was fiâ—stly pâ—omised unto compleat â—ighteousnesse of mens persons But in the second covenant firstly and principally liâ—e eteâ—nal grace and glory is promised to Jesus Christ and his â—eed antecedent to any condition or qualification upon their part and then again all the promises that run in way of condition as he that believeth shâ—ll not perish c. If ye walk after the Spirit ye shall live these aâ—e all the consequent fruits of that absolute gracious disposition and resignation of grace and life to them whom Christ hath chosen and so their believing and walking and obeying cometh in principally as parts of the grace promised and as witnesses and evidences and confirmations of that life which is already begun and will not see an end Besides that by vertue of these absolute promises made to the seed of Christ and Christs compleat performance of all conditions in their name the promises of life are made to faith principally which hath this peculiar vertue To cary forth the soul to anothers righteousnesse and sufficiency and to bottom it upon another and in the next place to holy walking though mixed with many infirmities which promise in the first covenant was only annexed to perfect and absolute obedience You heard in the preceeding vers a strong inducement taken from the bond debt and duty we owe to the Spirit to walk after it and the want of all obligation to the flesh Now if honesty and duty will not suffiâ—e to perswade you as you know in other things it would do with any honest man plain equity is a sufficient bond to him yet consider what the Apostle subjoynes from the dammage and from the advantage which may of it self be the Topickes of perswasion and serves to drive in the nail of debt and duty to the head if ye will not take with this debt ye owe to the Spirit but still conceive there is some greater obligation lying on you to care for your bodies and satisfie them then I say behold the end of it what fruit you must one day reap of the flesh and service of sin If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but then consider the fruit you â—hall reap of the Spirit and holy walking ye shall live It is true the flesh may flatter you more for the present but the end of it will be bitter as death amplâ—ctitur ut strangulet the flesh imbraces you that it may strangle you and so if you knew all well you would not think you owed it any thing but enmity and hatred and mortification If your duty will not move you let the love of your selves and your souls perswade you for it is an irrepealable statute The wages of sin is death Every way you choose to fulfill the lusts of your flesh and to make provision for it neglecting the eternal welfare of your souls certainly it shall prove to you the tree of the knowledge of good and evil it shall be as the forbidden fruit which in stead of performing that was promised will bring forth death the eternal separation of the soul from God Adam's sin was an Breviary or Epitome of the multiplied and enâ—arged sins of mankind you may see in this tragedy all your fortuns so to speak you may behold in it the flattering insinuations and deceitful promises of sin and Satan who is a liar
of Adoption I conceive to be threefold beside that of Intercession expressed in the vers The first work of the Spirit of Adoption that wherein a Fathers affection seems to break first from under ground is â—he revealing to the heart the love and mercy of God to sinners I do not say to such a soul in particular for that application is neither first nor universal But herein the Spirit of Adoption first appears from under the cloud of â—ear and this is the first opening oâ— the prison of bondage wherein a soul was shut when the plain way of reconciliation to God in Christ and delivery from the bondage of sin and wrath is holden out when such a word as this comes into the soul and is received with some gladnesse God so loved the world that he gave his Son c. This is a true and faithful saying c. Come ye that labour and weary and I will give rest to your souls When a soul is made to hear the gâ—ad tidings of liberty preached to captives of lighâ— to the blind of joy to the heavy in spirit of life to the dead though he cannot come that length as to see his own pâ—â—ticular interest yet the very receiving affectionatly and greedily such a general report as good and true gives some ease and relaxation to the heart To see delivery possible is some door of hope to a desperat sinner but to see it and espy more then a possibility even great probability though he cannot reach a certainty â—hat will be as the breaking open of a window of light in a dark dungeon it will be as the taking off oâ— some of the hardest fetters and the worst chains which makes a man almost to think himself at liberty Now this is the great office of the Spirit of the Father to beget in us good thoughts of Him to incline us to charitable and favourable construction of Him and make us ready to think well of Him to beget a good understanding between us and Him and correct our jealous misapprehensions of Him for certainly we are naturally suspitious of God that he deals not in sad earnest with us when ever we see the hight of our provocation and weight of deserved indignation we think him like our selves and can hardly receive without suspition the Gospel that layes open his love in Christ to the world Now this is the Spirits woâ—k to make us entertain that hoâ—ourable thought of God that he is most inclinable to pardon sinners and that his mercy is infinitly above mans sin and that it is no prejudice to His Holiness or Justice and to apprehend seriously a constant reality and solid truth in the promises of the Gospel and so to convince a soul of righteousnesse Joh. 18. that there is a way of justifying a sinner and ungodly person without wrong to Gods righteousnesse and this being well pondered in the heart and received in love the great businesse is done after that particular application is more easie of which I shall not speak now because occasion will be given in the next vers about the Spirits witnessing with our spirits which is another of the Spirits workings only I say this that which makes this so difficult is a defect in the fiâ—st but the common principles of the Gospel are not really and so seriously apprehended because many souls do not put to their seal to witnesse to the promises and truth oâ— it therefore the Lord often denies this seal anâ— witnesse to our comfort It is certainly a preposterous way Sâ—tan puts souls upon first to get such a testimony from the Spirit before they labour to get such a testimony to Christ and eccho or answer in their hearts to his word this way it seems shortest for it would leap into the greater liberty at the first hand but certainly its farthest about because its impossible for souls to leap immediatly out of bondage to assurance without some middle step they cannot passe thus from extreams to extreams without going through the middle stâ—te of receiving Christ and laying his word up in the heart and therefore it proves the way furthest about because when souls have long wearied themselves they must at length turn in hither But there is another working of the Spirit I wish you were acquaint with as the first work is to beget a suitable apprehension of Gods mind and heart towards sinners so the next is to beget a suitable disposition in our hearts towards God as a Father The first apprehends his love the next reflects it back again with the heart of a sinner to Him The Spirit first brings the report of the love and grace of God to us and then he carries the love and respect of the heart up to God You know how God complains in Mâ—lachi If I be a Father where is my fear and honour â—or these are the only fitting qualifications of Children such a reverent respective observance of our Heavenly Father such affectionat and humble carriage towards him as becometh both His Majesty and His Love as these are tempered one with another in Him his Love not abasing his Majesty and his Majesty not diminishing his Love So we ought to carry as reverence and confidence fear and love may be contempered one with another so as we may neither forget his infinit greatnesse nor doubt of his unspeakable love and this inward disposition ingraven on the heart will be the principle of willing and ready obedience it will in some measure be our meat and drink to do our Fathers will for Christ gave us an example how we should carry towards him How humble and obedient was he though his only begotten Son SERMON XXXIX Rom. 8.15 Whereby we cry Abba Father AS there is a light of grace in bestowing such incomparably high dignities and excellent gifts on poor sinneâ—s such as to make them the sons of God who were the children of the Devil and heirs of a kingdom who were heirs of wrath so there is a depth of wisdom in the Lords allowance and manner of dispensing his love and grace in this life for though the love be wonderful that we should be called the sons of God yet as that Apostle speaks It doth not yet so clearly appear what we shall be by what we are 1 Joh. 3.1 Our present condition is so unlike such a state and dignity and our enjoyments so unsuitable to our rights and pâ—iviledges that it would not appear by the mean low and indigent state we are now into that we have so great and glorious a Father How many infiâ—mities are we compassed about with How many wants are we pressed withall our necessitiâ—s aâ—e infinit and our enjoyments no wayes proportioned to our necessities Notwithstanding even in this the love and wisdom oâ— our Heavenly Father shews it self and oftentimes more gloriously in the theatre of mens weaknesse infirmities and wants then they could appear in the absolute and total exemption