are on both sides the Law against unconcernedness in each others condition against not bearing each others infirmities against provoking one another against estrangedness against strife or contention against hatred and enmity against publishing each others infirmities against not praying for each other against adultery against jealousie On the Husbands towards the Wife the Law against not maintaining her against not protecting her against imperiousness against uncompliance or uncondescension On the Wives towards her Husband the Law against dishonour against irreverence against unobservance against disobedience against casting off his yoke or unsubjection The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Parents and Children with all its Instances which are on both sides the Law against want of natural affection against not praying for each other and imprecation On the Parents side the Law against not providing for those of their own house against irreligious and evil education against harsh Government or provoking their Children to anger On the Childrens the Law against dishonour against irreverence against being ashamed of their Parents against mocking them against cursing or reproach and speaking evil of them against disobedience against contumaciousness against robbing them The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Brethren and Sisters with its effects which are the Law against want of natural affection against not providing for our Brethren against not praying for them against imprecation or praying against them The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Master and Servant with all its expressions which are on the Masters side the Law against not providing maintenance for his Servant against not catechizing or instructing him against unequal Government against unjustness wantonness and rigour in commanding against imperiousness against immoderate threatning against railing at him against defrauding or keeping back the wages of the Hireling against not praying for him against imprecation And on the Servants the Law against dishonour of his Master against irreverence against non-observance against publishing or aggravating his Masters faults against not vindicating his injured reputation against unfaithfulness against wasting his Goods against purloining against disobedience against answering again against slothfulness against eye-service against contumacy and resistance against not praying for him against imprecation or praying against him To all which we must adde the two positive and arbitrary prohibitions of the Gospel the Law against neglecting Baptism and the Lords Supper And when we wilfully transgress any one or more of the Commands foregoing a perseverance in it without amending it which is impenitence And these are those particular prohibitions whereto our obedience is indispensably required by the Gospel and whereby at the last Day we must all be judged And for the performance of all these Commands and keeping back from all these prohibitions when it is become any mans habitual course and practice it is oft-times expressed by the general word holiness as the contrary is by unholiness CHAP. V. Of the Sanction of the foregoing Laws The CONTENTS Of the Sanction of all the forementioned particular Laws That they are bound upon us by our hopes of Heaven and our fears of Hell Of the Sanction of all the particular affirmative or commanding Laws NOW it is upon our obedience of all those Laws which are mentioned in the foregoing Chapters that all our well-grounded hope of pardon and a happy Sentence at the last Day depends They are that Rule which God has fixt for the Proceedings at that Judgment whereby all of us will be doomed to live or dye eternally There is not any one of them left naked and unguarded for men to transgress at pleasure and yet to go unpunished but the performance of every one is made necessary unto life and the unrepented transgression of it threatned with eternal damnation And that it is so is plain from this because almost the whole Body of them viz. all those which are implyed in piety towards God and in Justice Charity and peaceableness towards men are nothing else but instances and effects of Love which is plainly necessary and that in the greatest latitude For the words of the Command are as comprehensive as can be That thou mayest inherit eternal life thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind which plainly take in our whole affection towards God and every part and expression of it and thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self which again implies all instances of love towards other men seeing towards our own selves not any one is wanting This do and thou shalt live Luke 10.25 27 28. So that in shewing of them all that they are natural effects of an universal love I have shewn withal that they are necessary means of life and conditions of salvation This is a plain mark whereby it is obvious and easie for us all to understand what Laws are necessary terms of life For every mans heart can inform him what are the natural effects of love they being such things as the meanest reason may discern nay such as every mans affection will suggest to him And because they are so the Apostles themselves when they set down Catalogues of indispensable Laws never descend to reckon up all particulars but having plainly declared the absolute necessity of an ample and universal love in the general they content themselves with naming some few instances of it and leave the rest which are like unto them to be suggested to us by our own minds And the same course they take in recounting those sins which are opposite to them and which without repentance will certainly destroy us Thus for instance in S t Paul's Catalogue of damning sins Gal. 5. he doth not trouble himself to name all particulars but having mentioned several of them he concludes with this general intimation of the rest and such like vers 21. This way then of shewing the necessity of all the forementioned Laws by shewing expresly that Love in the general is plainly necessary and leaving it to mens own minds to collect of them all severally that they are natural effects of it is sufficient in it self and such as the Apostles of our Lord are wont to take up with But because our belief of the necessity of our obedience in all the preceding particulars is of so great moment and it is so infinitely our concern to be fixt and settled in it I will here set down such express declarations of it in every one of them as are to be met with in the Scriptures And to begin with the several Classes of them in the same order wherein they are laid down for sobriety and all the particular Laws comprehended under it we have their sanction set down and the necessity of our obedience to them to our life and pardon expressed in the following Scriptures For the Law of humility and lowliness of mind take these Put on as necessary qualifications
towards them and in like manner our Love of God fulfils all those other Precepts which comprehend our Duty towards him For all that he requires of us towards himself is neither more nor less than to honour and worship him to do nothing in all our behaviour that savours of disrespect towards him nor by any thought word or action to disgrace or contemn him But now nothing renders any person so secure from contempt as our love and affection for him Affront and reproach are a great part of enmity and despite and so can never proceed from us towards those whom we love and value But this is always certain that if we are kindly affected towards any person we shall not fail to express a due honour of him and bear him a just respect and veneration So that if we do indeed love God he is secure from all affront and disobedience being a most consummate reproach since our Love will not permit us to dishonour it can never suffer us to disobey him Thus mighty and powerful easie and natural a Principle of an universal obedience both towards God and men is an universal Love it doth the work without difficulty and carries us on to obey with ease in as much as all the particular Precepts and Instances of obedience are but so many genuine effects and proper expressions of it The effects of our love are the parts of our obedience the products of our Duty and Religion as well as of our passion So that it is a most natural Spring of our obedient service because it prompts us to the very same things to which God has bound and obliged us by his Precepts But besides this way of an universal love's influencing an universal obedience through this coincidence of the effects of Love and the instances of Duty our Love of God who is our King and Governour were a sure principle of our obedience to him were his Precepts instanced not in the same things which are the effects of a general Love which is the true Case but in things different from them For although our love would not prompt us to perform them by its natural tendency towards them and for their own sakes yet it would through submission and duty and for his sake who enjoyn'd them It would make us deny our selves to pleasure him and produce other effects than our own temper enclines us to to do him service For as Love is for doing hurt to none so least of all to Governours it will give to every one their own but to them most especially Now Duty and Service is that which we owe to our Rulers and the proper way of Love's exerting it self in that is by obedience If we love we shall be industrious to please and the only way of pleasing them is by doing what they command us For there is no such offence to a Governour as the transgression of his Laws no injury like that of opposing his Will and despising his Authority To do this is to renounce all subjection and to cast off his Yoke and so is not to express love but to declare enmity not affectionately to owne but in open malice to defie him But if any man would contribute to his delight there is no way for that but by a performance of his pleasure it is nothing but our obedience that can add to his contentment or evidence our Love For disobedience to our Governours is clearly the most profest hatred as the observance of our Duty is the most allowed instance of friendship and good will So that Love is a Spring and Principle of our Obedience not only because the Commandment and it run parallel and the instances of Gods Laws are the same with the effects of a general Love but also because our love of God would make us obey him even in such instances of Duty as differ from them For all that aversion which we have to the thing commanded would be outweighed by our desire to please him who commands it and although we should neglect it upon its own yet for his sake we should certainly fulfil and perform it And because our Love of God and men is so natural a Spring and so sweet and easie a Principle to produce in us a perfect and intire obedience to all those Laws which concern either or to any other therefore has God promised so nobly to reward it He never intends to crown an idle and unworking love but such only as is active and industrious For when he says that he who loves God and men is known of God and accepted by him and born of him and that God dwells in him and has prepared Heaven for him he speaks metonymically and means all the while a love with these religious effects a love that is productive of an entire service and obedience And to this Point the Scriptures speak fully For as for our love of God himself and of our Saviour Christ that is plainly of no account in his judgment but when it makes us keep his Commands and become industriously obedient If ye LOVE me saith Christ keep my Commandments for he that hath my Commandments and KEEPETH them he it is that loveth me and he only who so loveth me in obeying me shall be beloved of my Father and I will love him John 14.15 21. Whoso keepeth Gods Word saith S t John in him verily is the love of God made perfect and hereby it is by this perfection of Love in Obedience that we know we are in him 1 John 2.5 But if we have only a pretended verbal love or an inward passion for God and shew no Signs or Effects of it in our obedient works and actions we shall be as far from being accepted by him as we are from any true and real service of him He will look upon all our Professions only as vain speech and down-right flattery but will not esteem it as having any thing of sober truth and reality For whosoever hath this Worlds goods and seeth his Brother hath need and obeys not Gods Command of shewing mercy and the Case is the same in other Instances but shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him how dwells the love of God in him 1 John 3.17 And then as for our love of our Brethren it doth not at all avail us unto Mercy and Life unless it make us perform all those things which are required of us by the Laws of Justice Charity and Beneficence towards them My little Children saith S t John let us not love only in word and in tongue but in deed also and in truth For it is hereby by this operative love that we know we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts in full confidence of his mercy before him 1 John 3.18 19. Our love to them is to be manifested as Christs was to us viz. in good effects and a real service yea when occasion requires it and their eternal weal may be very much promoted
Acts 10.28 And upon the account of this freedom which he then took the Christian Jews who were of the Circumcision contended with him when he came up to Jerusalem reproving him for this That he went in to men uncircumcised and did eat with them Acts 11.2 3. The Woman of Samaria wondred that Jesus being a Jew should vouchsafe to ask so much as a Cup of cold water from her who was a Samaritan this being the stiffness of the Jewish Principle To have no dealings with the Samaritans John 4.9 Nay to that height of unkindness had they arrived as to deny even the most common Offices of humanity and Charity to show the way or give directions for a journey to any Gentile man Which several of the learned Heathens have smartly reproved and most justly complained of All which they did upon a supposition that the Neighbour to whom love and kindness was required by their Law was only a Fellow-Jew a Brother-Israelite and a man of their own Nation Which narrow and contracted sense they thought they had good reason to fix upon it from an expression in their own Law Lev. 19. where in the repetition of this great and general Duty of Love to our Neighbour the Word Neighbour is set in conjunction with and explained by one of the Children of their own People For thus 't is said Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the Children of thy People but thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self verse 18. Thus limited and confined was the Jewish Love God had chosen them out of all the Nations of the World for a peculiar people and had hedged them in from the rest of mankind by peculiar Laws and a peculiar Government And upon this they concluded that whatsover God required of them he did it as their political King and as the particular Head of the Jewish Nation and that he intended those Laws which he gave them as Rules for their behaviour towards their own Brethren and Fellow-Subjects not towards Strangers of Foreign Nations But as for our Lord and Sovereign Jesus Christ he is a Governour and has enacted all his Laws not for the guidance of any one Nation or People but of all the world He told his Disciples when he sent them out to preach the Gospel That all power was given to him both in Heaven and in Earth and thereupon commissioned them to go out and proclaim his Laws not to the Jews alone but to all Nations Matth. 28.18 19. And by this universality of his Empire he has taken away the partition-wall which was between Jews and Gentiles having made them both one Ephes. 2.14 So that now there can be no further colour or pretence for a limited and restrained affection all the World by this means being now again made one People Fellow-subjects and Brethren and Neighbours unto one another Whatever the Jews conceived of their Laws therefore 't is plain that all the Laws of Christ which command all manner of Justice Charity and Peaceableness and forbid all expressions of uncharitableness injury and unpeaceableness towards our Neighbours make these things due to all mankind It is not either distance of Country nor contrariety of interest no nor what is most of all presumed to exempt us from the obligation of these Duties diversity of opinion or perswasion in matters of Religion which takes away from any man his right to all that kindness and advantage from us which all these forementioned Laws give him But of whatsoever Country Calling or Religion he be he is the Neighbour here meant to whom all these instances of Love which are the particular Laws of Duty must be performed And this our Saviour has determined once for all in his Answer to the Lawyer Luke 10. For when he put the Question to him Who is my Neighbour to whom the Law commands all these things to be done ver 29. Jesus answers him by a Parable that it is every man in the World whom he may at any time have to do with although he be never so much a Stranger nay of a party and opinion in Religion never so contrary unto his For what Religion was ever more odious unto any one than the Samaritan was to the Jews So great a detestation had they of it that when they would give a Name of the vilest ignominy and greatest hatred to Christ himself they told him he was a Samaritan and joined with it such a farther Character as they thought would best suit with it his being possessed with a Devil Say we not well answer'd they that thou art a Samaritan and hast a Devil John 8.48 But yet for all this height of enmity between the Jews and Samaritans he tells the Jewish Lawyer who demanded of him who was his Neighbour that a Jewish man fell among Thieves who wounded him and left him half dead and that a Samaritan coming by had compassion on him and bound up his wounds and took care of him Hereby insinuating That any man though so contrary to him in Religion as these two were to one another is the Neighbour whom the Law intends and therefore in full answer to his Question he bids him Go and do so likewise Luke 10.30 to 38. CHAP. IV. Of our Duties to men in particular Relations The CONTENTS Of our Duties to other men in particular Relations The Duties enjoined and the sins prohibited towards Kings and Princes Bishops and other Ministers The particular duties and sins in the relation of Husband and Wife Parents and Children Brethren and Sisters Masters and Servants Of the two Sacraments and Repentance A recital of all particular Duties enjoined and sins prohibited to Christians Of the harmlesness of a defective enumeration the Duties of the Gospel being suggested not only outwardly in Books but inwardly by mens own Passions and Consciences BUT besides all these Laws contained in the general Command of Love to our Neighbour which require something of us to be performed or forborn towards all mankind there are yet some more particular instances of it which make some things due from us not as we are left at random towards all men indifferently but as we stand more peculiarly related towards some whether that relation be 1. Publick and Political of Prince and Subjects Ministers and People 2. More Private and Domestick as is that between 1. Husband and Wife 2. Parents and Children 3. Brethren and Sisters 4. Master and Servants For in all these special Relations Love to our Neighbour exerts it self in special effects which are all such peculiar Laws as bind us not towards all men indifferently but only towards them whom we stand so related to To begin with the first 1. The first relation from whence result several effects of Love and instances of Duty towards some particular men distinct from what we owe to the rest of all mankind is that which is between us and our Publick or Political Governours and Rulers And because we are
of the Earth but bare understanding of them doth not make him partake with them or subject to be punished for them But to make these meer apprehensions and imaginations either of good or evil an instance of obedience or disobedience they must be causes and principles of an obedient or disobedient choice or practice For our inward thoughts and imaginations are Springs and Principles both of our inward choice and also of our outward operations And the service which God requires of them is the service of the principle He demands the obedience of our minds as a means and in order to a further obedience of our hearts and actions He expects that we should think so long and so often upon the absoluteness of his authority the kindness of his Nature the reasonableness of his Commands the glory of his rewards and the terrour of his punishments till in our hearts we chuse those things which he has commanded and perform them in our works and practice For our thoughts of him and of his Laws are not in themselves Obedience but only a Spring and Principle of it and a good step and degree towards it Our knowledge shall be judged an acceptable service as it carries us on to performance but no otherwise For hereby alone says S t John we know that we know him with such knowledge as shall be accepted by him if we keep his Commandments 1 John 2.3 And on the other side our bare imaginations and apprehensions of some forbidden sin are then only disobedient when they carry us on to chuse or practise those things that are sinful We must go on from thought to choice or practice before the vices thought of become our own and our apprehensions of sin become themselves sinful For the thoughts of sin have the sinfulness of means and causes they are sinful so far as they help on either our consent or performance So our Saviour has determined in one instance viz. that of lustful looks and apprehensions Matth. 5. He that looks upon a woman so long as to lust after her or to consent in his heart to the enjoyment of her he hath committed Adultery with her already in his heart ver 28. As for our thoughts and imaginations then we see what obedience in them is required to our acceptance and when they are disobedient and will destroy us For our counsels and contrivances of evil are always sinful and so are all such simple thoughts and apprehensions as have particular Laws imposed upon them And as for our imaginations and apprehensions of things commanded or forbidden by any other Laws they are imperfect things and not fully grown up to the perfect Stature either of obedience or of disobedience So that they are neither punished nor rewarded in themselves but so far only as they are causes and principles of an obedient or disobedient choice or actions And then as for our affections their measures are the very same with those already mentioned of our bare imaginations and simple apprehensions For their service and obedience is that of the principle and their Sentence shall be according to those effects either in our wills or practice which flow from it If we love and desire obedience so far as to chuse and act it this degree of affection will gain us God's love and favour and secure his rewards but less than it no other shall He that keeps my Commandments saith Christ he it is that loveth me and they only who so love me in obeying me shall be beloved again of my Father and I will love them John 14.15 21. But if our love and desire of evil things carry us on to chuse or act any instance of disobedience for the sake of that which is loved and desired then are our affections sinful and such as will destroy us The desire of evil is not so truly the state of mortal sin as of dangerous temptation it is not deadly in it self but kills by carrying us on to a sinful and deadly choice and actions For when once it has got to that degree it is obnoxious to a dreadful Sentence Whereof the Psalmist gives us one instance in the love of violence Him that loveth violence the soul of the Lord hateth Psal. 11.5 And S t John says the same of the love of lying and the Case is alike in every other sin Without in outer darkness are murtherers and whatsoever loveth or maketh a lye Rev. 22.15 And thus we see what measure of obedience is required in these two faculties and what kinds and degrees of thoughts and affections are to be used or restrained to make theirs an acceptable Service For we must abstain from all evil counsels and contrivances from all simple apprehensions which are particularly forbidden and put in use all such as are particularly enjoined and as for all other our bare thoughts and imaginations and all our affections and desires we must fix them upon our Duty so long till they make us perform it and never suffer them to issue out upon evil so far till they carry us on either to chuse or practise it But besides these two faculties viz. our minds and affections there is yet another whose service is necessary to render ours an acceptable obedience and that is Thirdly Our hearts or wills also It is an absurd Dream for any man to think of serving God without his will because without that none of his actions can be called his own For that only is imputed to us which is chosen by us and which it was in the power of our own wills either to promote or hinder no man deserving praise or being liable to answer for what he could not help But of all persons God most of all regards our hearts in all our performances He perfectly discerns them and he estimates our services according to them So that it is not possible for any of us to obey him unwillingly in regard the choice of our will and heart it self is that which renders any action a saving and acceptable obedience For out of the heart as Solomon saith proceed the issues of life Prov. 4.23 The choice then as well as the practice of our Duty is plainly necessary to render it available to our salvation But on the other side if we chuse sin although we miss of opportunity to act it the bare choice without the practice is sufficient to our condemnation For even by that when we proceed no further our heart has gone astray from God and we are polluted by the sin which we resolve upon in our own choice since out of the heart as our Saviour tells us proceeds the pollution of the man Matth. 15.19 20. We may commit all sort of transgressions and incurr the punishment of them merely by consenting to them inwardly in our hearts without ever compleating them in our outward operation For our Lord himself has thus determined it in one instance and the Case is the same in all
that in what proportion it increases in the same must this increase likewise Charity sayes S t Paul suffereth long and is kind charity is not easily provoked charity thinketh no evil charity beareth all things and endureth all things 1 Cor. 13.4 5 7. The more therefore that any man has of charity the more will he be sure to show of sufferance of pity of endurance of such slips and oversights as are consistent with an honest and otherwise obedient heart And now since those imperfect measures and degrees of Love which are found in the hearts of all good men are of force more than sufficient to make them pity and bear with these slips of honest ignorance and inconsideration that infinite height of Love which dwells in God Almighty must needs make him bear with them much rather For the most loving man upon earth hath not the thousandth part of his affection the more loving any men are indeed the more still they are like him but when they are arrived to the highest pitch of what humanity can bear it is not possible that they should in any measure equal him And since Gods Love is infinitely more his pity and forbearance towards such pitiable oversights which is a most natural and necessary effect of it cannot possibly be less than ours is No if no kind-hearted loving man would it must needs be the greatest injury to an infinitely loving God to suspect that ever he should be severe in punishing us for them If we ask Gods Pardon then for all our ignorant and inconsiderate slips and failings he is as ready to give as we are to desire it And this we are assured of because it is no more than we daily experience at the hands of every loving and good natured man For since God cannot be equalled and much less out-done by the very best of us in kindness what the weak Love of a man doth every day effect that certainly the infinite Love of God will effect more abundantly And as for this way of arguing it is no more than our Saviour himself uses in another case when he shows that God will give good gifts unto his children at their request because all earthly Parents do it unto theirs daily whenas yet their Love which makes them grant the good things asked so readily is infinitely exceeded by the Love of God Luk. 11.13 Thus from the consideration of Gods Nature it plainly appears that those slips and transgressions which are committed involuntarily and unavoidably because ignorantly and inconsiderately do not put us out of a state of Grace but consist with it Which will appear yet further if we consider Secondly The Nature and plain declarations of the Gospel As for the Nature of the Gospel S t Paul affirms plainly that it is of such a temper and genius as tends to ingenerate in the professors of it not a spirit of fear and slavery which they are possessed with who serve a rigorous and austere Lord but a spirit of chearfulness and free confidence such as they enjoy who serve a gracious and a loving Father For he tells the Jews at Rome that in embracing of Christs Gospel they had not received again the spirit of bondage unto the possessing of their hearts with fears and scruples but the spirit of adoption whereby they were emboldened with the chearfulness and confidence of sons to cry unto God Abba Father Rom. 8.15 But now if the condition of the Gospel it self were so severe as that according to the tenour of it these unavoidable slips of inconsideration and ignorance should set God and us at enmity no Christian man could ever look upon God as upon his tender Father with this spirit of filial freedom but must needs fear and dread him as his angry and avenging Lord. And the Gospel requiring more of us under the forfeiture of Gods favour than any man among us is able to perform it could not minister to ingenerate in us a spirit of chearfull confidence towards him but quite contrary to that to fill us with inextricable doubts and fears of him As for these slips of ignorance then which cannot be avoided we may be assured that according to the Gospel they never can be punish'd for the New Covenant must bear with them because it cannot ingender in us this spirit of adoption and filial confidence without such forbearance And then as for the Declarations of the Gospel in this matter they are very clear also For besides those places that are mentioned above which show clearly that no involuntary sins are damning and then certainly that our slips of ignorance are not seeing they have the greatest plea to involuntariness of any I say besides those this consistence of our unknown and unconsidered slips will be evident from other places also And for this to seek no further S t James's Rule is full and plain To him that knoweth or which comes to the same thing if he will may know how to do good and doth it not to him it is sin Jam. 4.17 If then we have no other sins to answer for but only these of inconsideration and ignorance we are guilty of none wherefore we shall be condemned these unknown sins not being of that number And indeed S t James's Rule is verified by Scripture instances For holy David fell through inconsideration and unadvisedness in sundry things as particularly in an inconsiderate despairing of Gods mercy Psal. 31.22 and in an excessive sorrow for his Son Absolom 2 Sam. 18.33 and ch 19.4 But notwithstanding these and all other his unadvised slips he was all the while a man after Gods own heart a person upright and acceptably obedient still Zacharias and Elizabeth were surprized no question as well as other people are into several slips and inconsiderate follies For one we have mention'd even in that short account which the Scriptures have given us of them and that is this viz. that at the first hearing of the joyful message of the Angel he is incredulous and is punished with dumbness for his unbelief Luk. 1.18 20. But yet this and his other involuntary failings of like nature come not into the account of his sins and disobedience when God speaks of him for notwithstanding these their infirmities of both of them we are told that they were righteous and that before God walking in all the Commandments of the Lord blameless Luk. 1.6 As for this sort of slips and transgressions therefore viz. our sins of ignorance and inconsideration we see plainly that they never will be charged upon us to our condemnation They do not destroy a Saint or put us out of a state of Grace and Salvation but consist with it This must needs be true for they must be pardoned because they cannot be avoided Besides the love and pitifulness of Gods Nature infers and the very temper and genius of his Gospel supposes it the Apostle plainly and fully declares it and from Gods own mouth we are told
All those speeches metonymical where Obedience is not express'd and yet pardon is promised p. 8 CHAP. II. Of pardon promised to Faith Knowledge and being in Christ. The Contents Of pardon and happiness promised to Faith and Knowledg Of the nature of Faith in general Of natural Jewish and Christian Faith Of this last as â—ustifying and saving Of the fitness of Christian Faith and Knowledg to produce Obedience Pardon promised to them no further than they are productive of it Of pardon promised to being in Christ. Christ sometimes signifies the Christian Religion sometimes the Christian Church Being in Christ is being of Christ's Religion or a Member of Christ's Church The fitness of these to effect Obedience Pardon promised to them no further than they do 20 CHAP. III. Of pardon promised to Repentance The Contents Of pardon promised to Repentance Regeneration a New Nature a New Creature The nature of Repentance it includes amendment and obedience The nature of Regeneration and a New Creature It s fitness to produce Obedience Some mens repentance ineffectual The folly of it Pardon promised to Repentance and Regeneration no further than they effect Obedience In the case of dying Penitents a change of mind accepted without a change of practice That only where God sees a change of practice woulâ— ensue upon it This would seldome happen upon death bed resolutions and Repentance The general ineffectiveness of this shown by experienâ—s Two reasons of it 1. Because it proceeds ordinarily upon an inconstant temporary Principle viz. nearness of Death and present fears of it Though it always begins there yet sometimes it grows up upon a Principle that is more lasting viz. a conviction of the absolute necessity of Heaven and a Holy Life 2. Because it is ordinarily in a weak and incompetent degree All TRVE resolution is not able to reform men Sick bed resolutions generally unable Such ineffective resolutions unavailing to mens pardon 34 CHAP. IV. Of pardon promised to Confession of Sins and to Conversion The Contents Of pardon promised to confession of sins The nature and qualifications of a saving Confession It s fitness to make us forsake sin The ineffectiveness of most mens confessions The folly and impiety of it Pardon promised to confession no further than it produces Obedience Of pardon promised to conversion The nature of conversion It includes Obedience and is but another name for it 55 CHAP. V. Of pardon promised to Prayer The Contents Of pardon promised to Prayer Of the influence which our Prayers have upon our Obedience Of the presumption or idleness of most mens prayers Of the impudence hypocrisie and uselessness of such Petitions Then our prayers are heard when they are according to Gods will when we pray for pardon in Repentance and for strength and assistance in the use of our own endeavours Pardon promised to Prayer no further than it effects this Obedience and penitential endeavour 64 CHAP. VI. Of pardon promised to our fear of God and trust in him The Contents Of pardon promised to our fear of God and trust in him Of the influence which mens fears have upon their endeavours and how they carry on ignorant minds into superstition but well-informed judgments to obedience Of the influence of mens trust in God upon their obedience The ineffectiveness of most mens trust Of the presumption and infidelity of such confidence That pardon is promised to fear and trust so far only as we obey with them 76 CHAP. VII Of pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour The Contents Of pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour Of the fitness of an universal love to produce an universal obedience That pardon is promised to it for this reason The Conclusion 85 BOOK II. Of the Laws of the Gospel which are the Rule of this Obedience in particular CHAP. I. Of the particular Laws comprehended under the Duty of Sobriety The Contents A Division of our Duty into three general Vertues Piety Sobriety Righteousness Of the nature of Sobriety The particular Laws commanding and prohibiting under this first Member A larger explication of the nature of Mortification 94 CHAP. II. Of LOVE the Epitome of Duty towards God and men and of the particular Laws comprehended under Piety towards God The Contents Of the Duties of Piety and Righteousness both comprehended in one general Duty LOVE It the Epitome of our Duty The great happiness of a good nature The kind temper of the Christian Religion Of the effects of LOVE The great Duty to God is Honour The outward expression whereof is Worship The great offence is dishonour Of the several Duties and transgressions contained under both 106 CHAP. III. Of the particular Duties contained under Justice and Charity The Contents Of the particular Duties contained under Justice and Charity Both are only expressions of Love which is the fulfilling of the Law Of the particular sins against both Of scandal Of the combination of Justice and Charity in a state that results from both viz. peace Of the several Duties comprehended under it Of the particular sins reducible to unpeaceableness Of the latitude of the word Neighbour to whom all these dutiful expressions are due It s narrowness in the Jewish sense It s universality in the Christian. 114 CHAP. IV. Of our Duties to men in particular Relations The Contents Of our Duties to other men in particular Relations The Duties enjoined and the sins prohibited towards Kings and Princes Bishops and other Ministers The particular Duties and sins in the relation of Husband and Wife Parents and Children Brethren and Sisters Masters and Servants Of the two Sacraments and Repentance A recital of all particular Duties enjoined and sins prohibited to Christians Of the harmlesness of a defective enumeration the Duties of the Gospel being suggested not only outwardly in Books but inwardly by mens own passions and consciences 134 CHAP. V. Of the Sanction of the foregoing Laws The Contents Of the Sanction of all the forementioned particular Laws That they are bound upon us by our hopes of Heaven and our fears of Hell Of the Sanction of all the particular affirmative or commanding Laws 168 CHAP. VI. Of the Sanction of all the forbidding Laws The Contents Of the Sanction of all the negative or forbidding Laws particularly The perfection of the Christian Law How our Duty exceeds that of the Heathens under the revelations of Nature And that of the Jews under the additional light of Moses's Law 190 BOOK III. What degrees and manner of Obedience is required to all the Laws forementioned CHAP. I. Of Sincerity The Contents THE first qualification of an acceptable obedience that it be sincere Two things implied in sincerity truth or undissembledness and purity or unmixedness of our service Of the first Notion of sincerity as opposite to hyyocrisie or doing what God commands out of a real intention and design to serve him Of a two-fold intention actual and express or habitual and
implicite Of intention in general and of these two in particular Where an actual intention is necessary and where an habitual is sufficient to our Obedience Of the second Notion of sincerity as it notes purity of our service in opposition to mixture and corrupt alloy This Point stated viz. What intention of our good together with Gods service is consistent with an acceptable and sincere Obedience and what destroys it Integrity of our Obedience a sure mark whereby to judge whether it be sincere or no. 211 CHAP. II. Of the second qualification of al acceptable obedience viz. integrity The Contents Of the second qualification of an acceptable Obedience viz. integrity The Notion of integrity or uprightness A three fold integrity Of the integrity of our powers and faculties Or of the Obedience with our minds affections wills and bodily powers How God is to be obeyed with the first faculty our minds or understandings God is to be obeyed with the second faculty our affections This Question stated How God and his Laws which are spiritual things are proportionate Objects for our love and affections which are bodily faculties Of the difference betwixt our love of God and of the World that this is more warm and sensible that more lasting and powerful An account of what measures of Obedience in our minds and affections is necessary to the acceptance of our service That contrivances and consultations for evil things and such mere apprehensions as are particularly forbidden are deadly and damning but that all other bare apprehensions and that all our affections after good or evil things will be rewarded or punished not merely for themselves but only as they are Causes and Principles of good or evil choice and practice God to be obeyed with the third faculty our wills He cannot be served without them Men are guilty of sin if they chuse it and consent to it though they cannot act it All this service of our inward faculties is in order to our outward works and operations 240 CHAP. III. Of Obedience with the fourth faculty viz. our executive or bodily powers and outward operations The Contents God is to be obeyed with the fourth faculty viz. our executive or bodily powers and outward operations The great difficulty of Obedience in this instance Four false grounds whereupon men shift off the necessity of this service with their works and actions First A hope to be saved for a true belief or orthodox opinions Mens confidence in this represented The folly of it Orthodox Faith and Professions no further available than they produce obedient works and actions Secondly A hope of salvation upon an Obedience of idle desires and ineffective wishes An opinion of some Casuists That a desire of Grace is Grace refuted This stated and a distinct explication of what is promised to the desire of Obedience and what to Obedience it self The pretence for this acceptance of idle desires from Gal. 5.17 considered An account when the will and desire is taken for the deed and performance That Text 2 Cor. 8.11 12. plainly vindicated Thirdly A hope of being saved notwithstanding they do sin because they are insnared into it through the strength of temptations The folly of this Our own lusts make temptations strong The Grace of the Gospel is sufficient to overcome them Fourthly A hope of being excused because they transgress with an unwilling mind These mens state represented Vnwillingness in sin a mitigation but no sufficient excuse Some strugling in most actions both of good and bad men The strife of the Flesh and Spirit Two sorts of men feel nothing of it viz. the Saints in Heaven after the Resurrection and some profligate Sinners here now on Earth All good men and the generality of evil are subject to it in this life Mens peremptory will and last choice determines their condition 259 CHAP. IV. A further pursuit of this last ground of shifting off the obedience of our actions in an Exposition of the 7 th Chapter to the Romans The Contents A further pursâ—it of this last ground of false confidence The Plea for it from Rom. 7. represented This refuted A Mâ—tâ—schematism usual with Saint Paul in an odiou Topiâ—k The Apostle shown not to speâ—k of hâ—mself in that Chapter because of several things there spoken which are not truly applicable to him This evidenced in sundry instances Nor to have spoken in the person of any regenerate man which is proved by the same reason and manifested in sundry Particulars But to have personated a strugling but as yet unregenerated Jew who had no further assistance against his lusts but the weak and ineffective Law of Moses This shown from the order and design of that Chapter This whole matter represented in a Paraphrase upon the seventh Chapter with part of the sixth and the eighth Two Reasons of the inability of Moses's Law to make men wholly obedient and the perfection as to them of the Law of Christ viz. First The promise of eternal life Secondly The promise of the Spirit Both these were wanting in the Law and are most clearly supplied in the Gospel The Jews had the assistance of the Spirit not by virtue of any Article in their Law but by the gracious Covenant of the Gospel which has been confirmed with the world ever since Adam The Law mentioned in Scripture as a weak and mean instrument upon the account of these defects This weakness of the Law set off particularly in this seventh to the Romans No hopes to any man who acts sin from this Chapter but plain declarations of the necessity of a wâ—rking obedience shown in several expressions of it to that purpose A proof of the necessity of this fourth part of integrity the obedience of our exâ—cutive powers in our workâ— and actions and the insignificancy of all the rest when it is wanting 283 CHAP. V. Of the sâ—cond sort of integrity an integrity of times and seasons The Contents Of the second sort of integrity viz. that of times and seasons Of the unconstancy of many mens obedience Perseverance necessary unto bliss The desperate case of Apostates both as to the difficulty of their recovery from sin and the greatness of their punishment 325 CHAP. VI. Of the third fort of integrity viz. that of the object or of obedience to all the particular Laws and parts of Duty The Contents Of the partiality of mens Obedience from their love of some particular sins Three pretences whereby they justifie the allowed practice of some sins whilst they are obedient in some other instances The first pretence is the preservation of their Religion and themselves in times of persecution A particular account of mens disobedience under this pretence The vanity of it shown from the following considerations Religion needs not to be rescued from persecution The freedom of outward means of Religion is restrained by it but the substance of Religion it self is not It is extended in some parts and ennobled in all by
continue to separate between him and his God whatever God CAN do yet certainly he WILL not save him The Lords hand saith the Prophet Isaiah to the afflicted Jews is not shortened that it cannot save nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear but your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear For your hand 's are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity your lips have spoken lies your tongue hath muttered perverseness none calls for Justice nor any pleads for Truth and since your disobedience is so heinous your hopes must needs be false you TRVST in vanity Isai. 59.1 2 3 4. Christ himself never dyed to reconcile God to mens sins and to procure hopes of pardon for the finally impenitent and unperswadably disobedient So that no man may ever think himself delivered to act wickedness or wilfully transgress Gods Laws and still dare to trust in him But if any are so bold and frontless Christ will rebuke them at the last Day as God doth the presumptuous Jews by the Prophet Jeremiah Behold says he you trust in lying words which cannot profit you Will you steal murther and commit adultery and swear falsly and notwithstanding all that come and stand before me in this house which is called by my Name as Men that owne my service and dare trust in my love and say as in effect you do by such usage we are delivered to do all these abominations Dare you by thus presuming upon my favour in the midst of all your transgressions make me become a Patron and Protector of your villainies And is this house which is called by my Name become a Den or Receptacle and Sanctuary of Robbers in your eyes Behold I even I have seen it saith the Lord and that surely not to encourage and reward but most severely to punish it for I will utterly cast you out of my sight Jer. 7.8 9 10 11 15. God will by no means endure to have his own most holy Nature become a support to sin nor his Religion to be made a refuge for disobedience nor his Mercy and Goodness a Sanctuary to wicked and unholy men So that no man must dare to hope and trust in him but he only who honestly observes his Laws and uprightly obeys him That fear of God then and trust in his mercy which the Gospel encourages and Christ our Judge will at the last Day accept of is not a fear and trust without obedience but such only as implies it We must serve him in fear and obey him through hope as ever we expect he should acquit and pardon us For no fears or hopes will avail us unto bliss but those that amend our lives and effect in us an honest service and obedience CHAP. VII Of Pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour The CONTENTS Of Pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour Of the fitness of an universal love to produce an universal obedience That pardon is promised to it for this Reason The Conclusion EIghthly That condition which the Gospel indispensably requires of us to our pardon and happiness is sometimes called Love For of this S t Paul says plainly that it is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 It is the great condition of Life the standing Terms of mercy and happiness We have the same Apostles word for it of our love of God Those things which neither eye hath seen nor ear heard neither have entred into the heart of man to conceive are prepared for them who LOVE God 1 Cor. 2.9 And again Chap. 8. If any man love God the same is known or accepted of him vers 3. And S t John says as much of the love of our Neighbour Beloved let us LOVE one another for LOVE is of God and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God 1 John 4.7 And again God is Love and manifested his Love in giving Christ to dye for us And if we love one another God dwells in us For hereby by this mark and evidence we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of this loving temper and Spirit of his ver 8 9 12 13. And to the same purpose he speaks fully in the third Chapter of that first Epistle We know says he that we have passed from death unto life because we LOVE the BRETHREN ver 14. Now our hearty love both of God and men is a most natural and easie Principle of an intire service and obedience For the most genuine and proper effect of Love is to seek the satisfaction and delight of the persons beloved It is careful in nothing to behave it self unseemly but to keep back from every thing that may offend and forward in all such services as may any ways pleasure and content them If they rejoyce it congratulates if they mourn it grieves with them If they are in distress it affords succour if in want supply in doubts it ministers counsel in business dispatch It is always full and teeming with good offices and transforms it self into all shapes whereby it may procure their satisfaction and render their condition comfortable and easie to them So that it exerts it self in pity to the miserable in protection to the oppressed in relief to the indigent in counsel to the ignorant in encouragement to the good in kind reproof to the evil in thanks for kindnesses in patience and forbearance upon sufferings in forgiveness of wrong and injuries In one word it is an universal Source and Spring of all works of Justice Charity Humility and Peace Now the Body of our Religion is made up of these Duties For what doth the Lord thy God require of thee O man saith the Prophet Micah but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Mic. 6.8 Those things which God has adopted into his Service and made the matter of our duty towards one another are nothing else but these natural effects of love and kindness and expressions of good nature towards all men All the Precepts of Religion only forbid our doing evil and require our doing good to all the World And since as the Apostle argues love seeketh all things that are good and worketh no evil to our Neighbour therefore Love must needs be the fulfilling of those Laws which concern them This Commandment for instance as he illustrates it Thou shalt not commit Adultery thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal thou shalt not bear false witness thou shalt not covet all these and if there be any other Commandment relating to our Brethren it is briefly comprehended in this Saying Thou shalt LOVE they Neighbour as thy self For LOVE worketh none of all these ills to our Neighbour therefore LOVE is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.9 10. Thus doth our Love of our Neighbour fulfil all those particular Laws which contain our Duty
and their Faith confirmed by it in giving up our selves to Martyrdome and laying down our own lives for their advantage Hereby says this same Apostle perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us And if we would be reputed to have that love which as we are told at the fourteenth Verse wafts us over from Death unto Life we ought upon a fit occasion not to flinch from the most costly service but even to lay down our very lives for the Brethren 1 John 3.16 It is only this obedient and operative love of men which will be owned by Christ our Judg and confer a just claim to Life and Pardon at the last Day Our Love will not be rewarded as a thing that is absolute in it self but only as an Instrument in as much as it makes us as S t Paul says to fulfil the whole Law which makes any thing an instance of Duty towards them Rom. 13.8 But if we only profess love to them in kind words and tender expressions but shew none in our works and actions this idle useless love will be of no account to us nor benefit us more than it profits them For if a Brother or a Sister says S t James be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you gives them only some good words and says unto them Depart in peace be ye warm'd with Cloths and filled with Food but notwithstanding all this affectionate language ye give them not in the mean while those things which are needful for the Body what doth it profit Nothing at all surely nor will it ever advantage your selves as an instance of that mercy which rejoyceth against judgment Verse 13. more than it profits them James 2.15 16. So that when Christ comes to Judgment at the last Day we see plainly that no love either of God or men will avail us but only that which has kept the Commandments we shall never be acquitted at that Bar upon a pretence of love without obedience for all that can possibly stand us in any stead there is a loving service a love which has made us careful and diligent to obey And thus at last we have fully seen that as for all those other things besides obedience whereunto the Gospel promises pardon and happiness they are by no means available to our bliss when they are separate from obedience but then only when they effect and imply it They all aim at it and end in it and are of no account in Gods Judgment further than they produce it It is not either our knowing Christ or our believing Christ or our being in Christ or our trusting in Christ or our loving Christ or our fears of God or our confessions of sins or our pouring out many prayers or any thing else that will save us whilst we disobey No at the last Day we shall certainly be damned notwithstanding them if the obedience of our works is wanting It is only a working service that will please our Judge and which can possibly secure us if we are able in that Court to produce that it will clear us but without it nothing else will Christs Gospel whereby all of us must stand or fall at that Day has fully declared this already and Christ himself will then confirm it So that 't is in vain to cast about for other marks and to seek after other Evidences for our title to bliss and happiness nothing less than our Repentance and Obedience will avail us unto life and through the merits of Christ and the Grace of his Gospel it shall And now at last we see clearly what that Condition is which the Gospel indispensably requires of us and which is to mete out to us our last doom of bliss or misery that in the general it is nothing else neither more nor less than our obedience BOOK II. Of the Laws of the Gospel which are the Rule of this Obedience in particular CHAP. I. Of the particular Laws comprehended under the Duty of Sobriety The CONTENTS A Division of our Duty into three general Vertues Piety Sobriety Righteousness Of the nature of Sobriety The particular Laws commanding and prohibiting under this first Member A larger explication of the nature of Mortification BUT in regard our working and obeying is that whereupon all our hopes and happiness our security and comfort hangs it is very necessary that after all which has been hitherto discoursed of it in the general we go on still further and enquire of it more particularly For if it be our Obedience or Disobedience that must dispense Life or Death to us and eternally save or destroy us at the last Day then whosoever would know before-hand what shall be his final Sentence must enquire what is his present state and what have been his past actions whether in them he have obeyed or no. And the way to understand that is first to know what those Laws are whereto his obedience is due and in what manner and degrees he is to obey them and when once he has informed himself in these he may quickly learn from the Testimony of his own heart and Conscience whether he has performed that Obedience which is indispensably required to his happiness or has fallen short of it And to give the best assistance that I can in so weighty a Case I will here proceed to enquire further in this Obedience and shew concerning it these two things I. What those Laws are which under the Sanctions of Life or Death the Gospel binds us to obey And II. What degrees and manner of obedience is indispensably required to them I. Then I will enquire what those Laws are whereby at the last Day we must all be judged and which under the Sanction of Life or Death the Gospel binds us to obey And that I may render this enquiry as useful as I can I will set down as I go along the meaning and explication of those several Vertues and Vices which are either required or forbidden in the particular Laws that so we may more truly and readily understand whether the Vertues have been performed or the Vices incurred and whether thereby the Laws have been broken or kept by us As for the Laws and Commands of God they are all reduced by S t Paul to three Heads For either they require something from us towards God himself and so are contained in works of piety or towards our Neighbours all which are comprehended in works of righteousness or towards our own selves as all those Precepts do which are taken up in works of sobriety In these three general Vertues is comprized the Sum of our Christian Duty even all that is required by the Gospel as the Condition of Salvation For the Gospel saith he or that Grace of God which brings us the welcome offers of Salvation hath appeared now to all men teaching us as ever we expect that salvation which it tenders to us that denying ungodliness and
of both is Whoredome or bare Fornication and this when the Parties are too nearly allied is called Incest 2. By forcing of one and then 't is Rape or ravishing Which Vice S t Paul expresses by that word which we translate Extortioners 1 Cor. 5.11 and Chap. 6.10 Fourthly To contempt of the world and contentment with our present condition is opposed covetousness which is an immoderate love of the world or an unsatisfiedness with what we have and an insatiable desire of more and grudging or repining Fifthly To taking up the Cross is opposed our being scandalized or turn'd out of the way of Duty and Obedience by reason of it or a politick and selfish deserting of our Duty to avoid it Sixthly To diligence and watchfulness in doing of our Duty is opposed a heedlesness of it and remiss application to it which is carelesness and idleness Seventhly To patience in suffering for it is opposed an immoderate dread of pain and dishonest avoidance of it which is softness and fearfulness Eighthly To mortification and self-denial is opposed self-love and self-pleasing which as it is an industrious care to please and gratifie our bodily senses is called sensuality and as it is a ready and constant serving and obeying the lusts and desires of the Flesh especially when they carry us against the Commands of God is called carnality These are those Vices and breaches of Duty towards our selves which Gods Laws have prohibited under the pains of Death and Hell as the other were such Vertues as under the same penalty he exacts of us So that in the general Law of Sobriety we see are contain'd all these following whether commanding or forbidding Laws The commanding Law of humility of heavenly-mindedness of temperance of sobriety of charity of continence of contempt of the World and contentment of courage and taking up the Cross of diligence and watchfulness of patience of mortification and self-denial And opposite to these the forbidding Law against pride against arrogance or ostentation against vain-glory against ambition against haughtiness against insolence against imperiousness against dogmaticalness against envious back-biting against emulation against worldliness against intemperance against gluttony against voluptuousness against drunkenness against revelling against incontinence against lasciviousness or wantonness against filthiness against obscene Jestings against impurity or uncleanness against Sodomy against effeminateness against adultery against fornication against whoredom against incest against rape against covetousness against grudging and repining against refusing or being scandaled at the Cross against idleness and carelesness against fearfulness and softness against self-love against carnality against sensuality CHAP. II. Of LOVE the Epitome of Duty towards God and Men and of the particular Laws comprehended under Piety towards God The CONTENTS Of the Duties of Piety and Righteousness both comprehended in one general Duty LOVE It the Epitome of our Duty The great happiness of a good nature The kind temper of the Christian Religion Of the effects of LOVE The great Duty to God is Honour The outward expression whereof is worship The great offence is dishonour Of the several Duties and transgressions contained under both FOR the two remaining Members in S t Paul's Division viz. Godliness or Piety and Righteousness which require something from us to God or to our Neighbour they may yet be reduced into a narrower compass and are both comprized in that one word LOVE For all that ever God requires of us either to himself or towards other men is only heartily and effectually to LOVE them And this abridgment of our whole Duty in respect of these two remaining parts of it towards God and man into that one compendious Law of LOVE is no more than what our Saviour Christ and his Apostle Paul have already made to our hands For hear how they speak of it Jesus saith unto the Lawyer Thou shalt LOVE the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind This is the first and great Commandment and the second is like unto it Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self On these two which in the thing commanded LOVE are but one hang all the Law of the ten Commandments viz. which meddle not with our Duty towards our selves but only towards God and our Neighbour and the Prophets Matth. 22.37 38 39 40. And S t Paul speaks home to the same purpose By love says he serve one another for all the LAW is fulfilled in one word even this Thou shalt LOVE thy Neighbour as thy self Gal. 5.13 14. And speaking again of the Laws concerning our Neighbour he tells us that LOVE worketh no ill to his Neighbour and therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 Thus rare and heavenly a Religion is that of our Saviour Christ a Religion that is not content to have only great and eminent measures of goodness in it but is perfectly made up of LOVE and good Nature All that it requires from us is only to be kind-hearted and full of good Offices both towards God and men Every man of a loving good nature is enclined by his temper to do all that is demanded by Gods Law so that he has nothing remaining to turn his temper into obedience but to direct his intention and to exert all the effects of love for the sake of Gods Command which he is otherwise strongly excited to by the natural propensions of his own mind His passion and his God require the same service and that which is only a natural fruit of the first may become if he so design it a piece of Religion and Obedience to the latter For the particular effects of Love are the particulars of our Duty Love is the great and general Law as ill-will and enmity are the prime transgression and the instances of Love are the instances of our obedience as all the particular effects of ill-will are those very instances wherein we disobey So that by running over all the special effects of love or ill-will we may quickly find what are the Particulars of Duty and Transgression Now the prime and most immediate Effects of Love are 1. To do no evil to the persons beloved nor to take away from them any thing which is theirs and which they have a right to And this founds all the Duties of Justice But 2. To do all good offices and show kindness to them which founds all the Duties of Charity And these two take in our whole Duty both in Piety towards God and also in Righteousness towards men 1. The proper and genuine effect of love to God is to do no evil but in great readiness to do all the good and service which we can for him in which two are implied all the branches of piety which is the great and general Duty towards him To be kind and serviceable to God is nothing more than to honour him For his Nature is so perfect and self-sufficient that it cannot receive and ours so impotent
and poor that we cannot give any thing else but honour to him As on the other side to do evil to him is only to dishonour him For he is out of our power as for any other injury and there is no way possible left for us to reach him but only by our contumelious usage and disrespect of him To do no evil I say but to be kind and serviceable to God is nothing more but to honour him It implies our having in our minds honourable opinions of him and expressing in our carriage and behaviour a respect and acknowledgment of those glorious Attributes and Perfections which are in him The former viz. the high opinion of his Excellencies those particularly which are instances of Power and Goodness in our minds is called Honour The latter viz. the expressions of this honourable opinion and acknowledgment in our thoughts words or actions is called worship And this worship is an acknowledgment either 1. Of his Truth and Knowledge in believing his Word and taking things upon his Authority seeing he neither can be deceived himself nor will deceive us which is Faith 2. Of his Power and Goodness 1. In our good-will or kind affection for him as a most beneficial and lovely Being which is called LOVE And this as it effects a warm concernedness for his honour chiefly when any thing opposes it is zeal 2. In relying on him for the supply of our wants as one that is most able and ready to relieve them which is trust and dependance A particular effecâ— whereof is a hopeful making known our desires to him in begging such good things at his hands as we stand in need of which is Prayer 3. Of his bounty and beneficence in a grateful sense and affectionate owning that all the good things which we receive proceed from him which is thankfulness 4. Of his Power and Justice in an awful backwardness to offend him in regard he will not excuse and can most severely punish all Offenders which is fear 5. Of his Wisdom and Rule or Authority 1. In acquiescing in his Disposals as being most wise and most authentick which is submission or resignedness 2. In performing his Commands as requiring things most fit for us and most due from us which is obedience These are those particular effects which flow from our love of God and which make up that part of Duty which he requires from us towards himself And opposite to this love of God and these effects and expressions of it which are made our Duty and particularly commanded under this Head are our hatred and ill-will at him with all the particular ways of expressing it which are the contrary instances of sin and those very Vices that are forbidden Now God as I said being out of our reach as to any possible way of being injured by us or suffering evil from us otherwise than by our vilifying him and lessening of his honour the prime effect of our hatred of him can be no other than our dishonouring him And this may be instanced 1. In denying either his Being or Existence that he is God which is Atheism or his Cognizance and Government of the World which is Epicurism or denying Providence 2. In thinking or speaking reproachfully of him which is blasphemy And this when it is such a disfiguration of his Being or Nature as makes him an arbitrary foolish and odious God is superstition 3. In having other Gods besides him or worshipping him alone by false and lying Similitudes and limiting Resemblances as are all material Images not in true and spiritual manner as he is a God which is Idolatry And for the former sort of Idolatry viz. worshipping other Gods besides him if it be a worshipping of wicked Spirits and that by contracting with them it is witchcraft or sorcery 4. In acting cross to all his honourable Attributes and Perfections and behaving our selves in such disrespectful sort as instead of honouring and acknowledging doth disown and reproach them And these Actings are either 1. Inwardly in our minds when by some work of theirs we deny or reproach either 1. His Truth and Knowledge by giving no heed nor taking any notice of what he says but continuing ignorant of his word and pleasure which the Apostle calls foolishness An effect whereof is acting against it rashly and inconsiderately which is headiness Or when we do know it by giving no credit or assent to it but doubting or distrusting it which is unbelief 2. His Power and Goodness 1. By our ill-will and wishes to him when we grieve at any thing that makes for him and take delight in such things as we our selves or others can devise either against himself or against Vertue and Goodness which as bearing his own Image he ownes above all things and is most tender of and this is called hating of God Which as 't is shown in an unconcernedness at such things as dishonour and affront him or his Religion is coldness or want of zeal 2. By our distrust of him and his Providence when we dare not rely upon him for a supply of those things which we stand in need of as if he were either careless and mattered not what becomes of us or envious and grudged to have any of those good things which we want to befal us which is distrust One effect whereof is our omitting to seek unto him as expecting nothing from him which is not praying to him 3. His bounty and beneficence by an utter disregard of what he doth for us when we either wholly overlook or after some small time forget it and are not touched with any grateful sense or affectionate resentments upon it which is unthankfulness 4. His Power and Justice by a bold venturing upon any thing that offends him as if we neither valued his favour nor displeasure which is fearlessness 2. Outwardly In our lives and practice when by something in them we reproach and vilifie either 1. His Wisdom and Authority 1. In disputing and striving against his Disposals when we quarrel at them as unwisely ordered and would correct and better them our selves which is contumacy or repining 2. In breaking his Commands when we reject his pleasure and prefer our own which is disobedience 2. His Name when we use it irreverently by invoking or calling upon him to judge us according to our faithfulness in what we speak either customarily and lightly upon trivial or no occasions which is common swearing Or falsly when we either at present mean or afterwards perform no such thing as we promised or affirmed before him which is perjury 3. His Word or Ministers or other things consecrated to him when we treat and use them as vile and common things in a careless unmannerly way or as it often happens in mirth and mockery which is prophaneness And these are such expressions and effects of our hatred of God as make up the Body of impiety or transgressions immediately against God himself all which
he has most strictly forbidden So that for our whole Duty towards God which is implied in the general Law of piety or godliness it contains in it all these effects of LOVE which are commanded Duties as ungodliness or impiety contains all these expressions of hatred which are so many particular forbidden sins The Laws commanding are the Law of honour of worship of faith of love of zeal of trust and dependance of prayer of thankfulness of fear of submission and resignedness of obedience And the Laws forbidding are the Law against dishonour against atheism against denying Providence against blasphemy against superstition against idolatry against witchcraft and sorcery against foolishness against headiness against unbelief against hating God against want of zeal against distrust of him against not praying to him against unthankfulness against fearlesness against contumacy or repining against disobedience against common swearing against perjury against prophaneness And then as for the 2. Sort of Love our love to men it implies in it all the Duties contained in the third Branch of S t Paul's Division viz. righteousness as shall be shewn in the next Chapter CHAP. III. Of the particular Duties contained under Justice and Charity The CONTENTS Of the particular Duties contained under Justice and Charity Both are only expressions of Love which is the fulfilling of the Law Of the particular sins against both Of scandal Of the combination of Justice and Charity in a state that results from both viz. Peace Of the several Duties comprehended under it Of the particular sins reducible to unpeaceableness Of the latitude of the word Neighbour to whom all these dutiful expressions are due It s narrowness in the Jewish sense It s universality in the Christian. FOR the third general Duty righteousness or our Duty towards our Neighbour our love of men will lead us into the several Laws which it containeth For the first effect of love our doing no hurt or injury to any man founds all the Laws of Justice and the latter our doing good and showing all kindness founds all the particular Laws of Charity in which two are comprehended all those several Duties which God has enjoyned towards other men The first I say founds all the particular Laws of Justice For in that we do no evil or injury to our Neighbour nor hurt him by prejudicing his just Rights or taking away from him any thing that is his is implied that we do not wrong or endammage him 1. In his Life by taking it away either 1. In private force and violent assassination which is murder 2. Under colour of Justice by a false charge of capital crimes which is false witness 2. In his reputation by sullying or impairing it through a lying and false imputation of disparaging things to him which is slander or calumny 3. In his belief and expectation by reproaching and abusing it either 1. By deceiving him against his Right to his hurt in a false speech of what is past or present which is lying 2. By frustrating his expectations which were raised by our promise of something that is to come which is unfaithfulness or perfidy 4. In his Bed by invading that which the Contract of Marriage has made inviolable which is adultery 5. In his Goods or Estate and all wrong herein proceeds from our unsatisfiedness with our own and our greedy longing and ungovernable desire of that which is his which is covetousness The effects and instances whereof are 1. In taking away from him that which is his either 1. Directly By secret or open force and without his knowledg and consent which is stealing or robbery 2. Indirectly or by forcing his allowance and extorting a necessitated consent from him Which is done by taking advantage 1. Of his impotence and inability to resist and contend with us which is oppression 2. Of his necessity when he cannot be without something which we have and so is forced to take it upon our own terms which is extortion and depressing in bargaining 3. Of his ignorance when we outwit him and trepan and over-reach him in Bargaining and Commerce which is circumvention fraud or deceit The wiliness and subtle Art wherein is called craftiness 2. In denying all kindnesses and good things to him in unmercifulness uncharitableness c. Of which I shall discourse under the next Head All these Particulars of Justice now mentioned are natural effects of love to our Neighbour in as much as it makes us keep off from offering any injury or doing any evil to him Upon which account S t Paul says of it that as for these particular Laws of Justice it fulfils them all Which he shows by an induction of such Particulars as I have named He that loveth another saith he hath fulfilled the Law viz. that part of it which requires Duties of Justice towards others For this Thou shalt not commit adultery thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal thou shalt not bear false witness thou shalt not covet which are the five last Commandments of the Decalogue and if there be any other Commandment it is briefly comprehended in this Saying Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self Now Love worketh no ill neither these nor any other to his Neighbour therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.8 â— 10. And as this first effect of Love to our Neighbour viz. it s keeping us back from offering any injury or doing any evil to him contain in it all the Laws of Justice so doth its other effect our doing all good offices and shewing kindness to them comprehend in it all the particular Laws of Charity wherewith we stand obliged towards other men Love is not only innocent and harmless and careful to create no trouble nor occasion any prejudice but moreover it is all kindness benevolence and good nature and diligent in creating all the pleasure and delight it can to it s beloved Now this goodness kind-heartedness or desire to please and delight others will be an universal cause of beneficence or doing good to them and make us cast to please them in so many ways and advantage them in so many relations as we can at any time be placed in In particular it will effect these Vertues in the Cases following 1. As to what we see them to be in themselves and in this respect it produces in us 1. If they are worthy and vertuous a great opinion and venerable esteem for them which is honour 2. If they have honest hearts but yet are weak in judgment and knowledg a compassionate sense of their weakness and an endeavour to relieve them which is pity and succour And if this weakness be instanced in judging those things to be a matter of sin and so unlawful for them to do which no Law of God has forbidden and which therefore we who better understand it see plainly that we lawfully may do and our practice of it before them who distrusting their own skill are swayed more by
uncourteousness against stiffness or uncondescension against unhospitableness against surliness against malignity against turbulence and unquietness against unthankfulness against anger and passionateness against debate and variance against bitterness against clamour and brawling against hatred and malice against implacableness against revenge against cursing or reproaching enemies and imprecation of them against hastiness to punish against rigour All which Instances and Opposites both of Justice and Charity are most natural effects of Love and Hatred towards other men and so many Particulars of Duty and of sin And from both these general Laws of Justice and Charity to our Neighbour or our keeping off from all things that may offend and injure and doing all that may please or any way delight him will result that state of good agreement and intercourse of friendliness which is called peace Which as it implies an union of minds oposite to Controversies and Disputes is called unanimity and as containing an agreeableness and mutual correspondence of hearts and affections concord In order to the procurement of this peace is required 1. In the temper such a mixture of Love and quietness as renders men tame and contented under the present state of things and averse from contention and controversie which is peaceableness 2. In the practice a doing such things as 1. Prevent strife whether that be done 1. Towards our Equals and Inferiors by complying and bearing with their weaknesses and going down from our own liberty where the exercise of it would give offence and cause difference which is condescension and compliance 2. Towards our Governours by keeping within our own sphere and medling only with those things which are parts of our own Duty not incroaching upon their Office or thrusting our selves into their Administration which is doing our own business 2. Compose and put an end to it and this is done by making amends and recompencing that contumely or wrong which occasion'd it which is satisfaction for injuries And a care not only thus to preserve peace our selves but also to maintain it amongst others by an industrious endeavour to keep up a right understanding and agreement amongst men and when they happen to differ to reconcile them and make them friends again is peace-making And then from the two general transgressions opposite to these viz. injustice and uncharitableness to our Neighbour or an industrious averseness from all things that may please and advantage and a forwardness in all things to hurt and vex him will arise that state of difference and intercourse of ill Offices that is called enmity which as it implies a separation and clashing of hearts and affections is called discord To the production of this evil state concur 1. In the temper such a mixture of heat and ill nature as renders men restless under their present state and pleased and delighted in scuffling and strife which is unpeaceableness 2. In the practice a doing such things as at first raise and engender and afterwards foment and maintain it and of this sort besides all the instances of wrong and injustice which we heard of before is 1. An envious strife of being better thought of and out-doing one another which is emulation or provoking one another 2. A going beyond our own place or business and either usurping upon other mens Offices or sawcily intermedling with their affairs which is pragmaticalness or being busie bodies And this when it is taken up in reporting between the Parties at odds such things as we have heard or seen which are fit still more to exasperate their minds and to widen the breach is tale-bearing Which when it is of things not only seen but even suspected and in a secret dissembled manner is whispering And if the difference was at first occasioned by injury and wrong that which goes most directly to continue it is avowing what was done and making no amendment which is not satisfying for injuries And for the outward effects and exdressions of this enmity and discord it shews it self 1. In a strugling for mastery and victory which is strife or contention 2. In separating themselves into Parties and Companies according to the difference of their love or hatred and their espoused interests which is Division or Faction And this in religious affairs when the obstinate espousal that leads on to it is of damnable opinions is heresie when of needlesly separated Parties it is schism 3. A rude concourse of Parties in scuffling and blows which is tumult So that besides all the Particulars above mentioned which are contained under the general Heads Justice and Charity there is included moreover in this third Head of Duty righteousness all these Laws of peace which results from the combination of them both And the effects of love or commanding Laws in this are the Law of peace and concord with all its Train as are the Law of peaceableness of condescension and compliance of doing our own business of satisfying for injuries of peace-making And opposite to them the effects of hatred or forbidding Laws are the Law against enmity and discord with all its Particulars as are the Law against unpeaceableness against emulation or provoking one another against pragmaticalness or being busie bodies against tale-bearing against whispering against not satisfying for injuries against strife or contention against division and faction in the State against heresie and against schism in the Church against tumult So that in this third Branch of Duty righteousness or our Duty towards our Neighbour are implied all these several whether commanding or forbidding Laws which are comprehended under these three general Vertues viz. Justice Charity and Peace And as for all the things which are commanded or forbidden by all these Laws they are due to our Neighbour in the greatest latitude and utmost generality of that Name as it signifies any whom we have to do with of all mankind The Jews indeed were of a narrower Spirit and of a more contracted kindness They thought themselves bound to exercise all that Justice and Charity which their Law required towards the men of their own Nation or such of the Gentiles who leaving their heathen Idolatries would become Proselytes and turn to their Religion But as for all the world besides they accounted themselves disobliged from all expressions of kindness and good affection towards them nay even from all intercourse of common civility and conversation with them They would not so much as come under their Roof or eat with them at the same Table or either give or receive any civilities or friendly expressions from them S t Peter when he entred into the house of Cornelius a Gentile Centurion told them that they all knew very well how it is not LAWFVL for any man that is a JEW to KEEP COMPANY or COME IN unto one of ANOTHER NATION for which cause he himself had not come to them had not God taught him to correct his Country-custom and to call no man of what Nation soever common or unclean
them not praying at all or using passionate and modish curses or imprecations which is imprecating or praying against them 2. In Children towards their Parents it will cause besides the want of natural affection 1. A low esteem and undervaluing opinion of them in their minds which is dishonour And this if it be joined with a contemptuous disregard and fearless behaviour towards them is irreverence Which is expressed 1. In disowning or disregarding them by reason of their meanness which is being ashamed of them 2. In entertaining their weaknesses and infirmities not with pity and sorrow but with sport and delight turning them into a matter of mirth and laughter This is a mixture of hatred and scorn and is called mocking them 3. In divulging in words and instead of concealing and excusing publishing their faults and defects with reproaching of them and inveighing against them upon the account of them which is malediction or cursing of them 2. Whilst they are under them a spiting and going cross 1. To their Commands by not performing what they require but doing against it which is disobedience 2. To their impositions by not submitting to that restraint and burthen which they lay upon them which is contumaciousness or casting off subjection 3. To their interest by embezilling or secret wasting of their substance which is robbing them 3. When either they are under them or gone from them not recompencing their care and kindness by their relief and service when their Parents need requires it which is not requiting them 4. And instead of praying for them not praying at all or hasty wishing ill to them which is imprecation So that the effects of hatred in this relation or forbidding Laws are to the Parents the Law against want of natural affection against not providing for those of their own house against irreligious and evil education against provoking their Children to anger against not praying for them and imprecation of them To the Children besides that against want of natural affection the Law against dishonour against irreverence against being ashamed of their Parents against mocking them against cursing or reproach and speaking evil of them against disobedience against contumaciousness against robbing them against not praying for them or imprecation of them 3. The third sort of domestick relation that includes some instances of Love that are not due towards all men indifferently but peculiarly towards some is the relation of Brethren and Sisters And these being so nearly allied and partaking of the same blood Love betwixt them will exert it self 1. In a most passionate concern and tender affection for each other which because we seem to be carried on to it by the very force and instinct of our nature without any help of reason or need of being argued up to it is called natural affection 2. And as an effect of this a helping each other by a reciprocal service and when occasion requires by communicating mutually of their substance which S t Paul calls a providing for those of our own Family 1 Tim. 5.8 And in those things which they cannot afford themselves seeking them mutually for each other by prayer And opposite to these are the effects of hatred betwixt them which will effect 1. An unconcernedness for each other or a want of natural affection 2. A not helping of each others needs or not providing for them and not praying to God in each others behalf but making ill wishes mutually which is imprecation So that the effects of Love or commanding Laws in this relation are the Law of natural affection of providing for our Brethren of praying for them and opposite to them the effects of hatred or forbidding Laws are the Law against want of natural affection against not providing for our Brethren against not praying for them and imprecation or praying against them 4. The fourth and last relation is that of Masters and Servants And in this the effects of Love are either 1. From the Masters to the Servants Where Love will produce 1. A care of their Servants as of Members of their own Families both 1. Of their Bodies in provision and maintenance 2. Of their Souls in religious instruction and admonition 2. A Government of them that is not harsh and severe but kind and gentle such as we expect and desire that God who is our Master should use over us which therefore is called by the Apostle our dealing justly and equally with them i. e. so as we would have our Master to deal with us Col. 4.1 In particular observing 1. In our Commands to them Mercy as well as Justice in requiring nothing that God forbids which is unlawful nothing for imperiousness and commands sake only that we may create them work though we our selves receive no benefit which is unprofitable and even where we are advantaged by it nothing lastly which is either above or at least very hard and oppressive to their power and strength which is unproportionable And this is kindness and equity in commanding 2. In our threatnings and punishments tenderness and pity in not threatning and punishing out of will and power or either more or oftener than need requires which the Apostle calls forbearing or moderating threatning Ephes 6.9 3. In our rewards paying them punctually and justly what they have wrought for which is punctual payment of the wages of the Hireling 4. And besides all the kindness which we can do for them our selves whether by rewarding or promoting them procuring moreover all the good which we can for them at Gods hands by praying for them 2. From the Servants to the Masters And the nature of service being a setting over all our powers and abilities for the time to their benefit whom we are to serve the effects of Love in this relation will be 1. An opinion and esteem in the mind of their Masters preheminence and lordship over them which is honour And this being joined with an awfulness and fear of offending him who has both Authority to command and Power to punish is reverence 2. In things which they know he desires and delights in a forward care and ready industry to please him by doing them before they are bidden which is observance And this among other things effects 1. As for his or his Families defects at home concealing or excusing them 2. As for his reputation abroad when 't is injured vindicating and defending it 3. A care of their Masters Goods and carrying suitably to his pleasure always exercising 1. In those things which their Master intrusts them with a true discharge of that trust and the things committed to it which is fidelity 2. In those things which their Master commands a ready performance and execution of them which is obedience The vigorous application of themselves to the dispatch whereof is diligence Which they are to shew not only from the terrour of their Master so long as his eye is over them which the Apostle calls eye-service but from the ready
three more is comprized the Body of our whole Duty If we adde two or three more I say for besides the several Laws already mentioned there are three particular Duties yet remaining of a more positive and arbitrary nature which Christ has bound all Christians to observe and they are the Law of Baptism of the Lords Supper and of Repentance Baptism is our incorporation into the Church of Christ or our entrance into the Gospel Covenant or into all the duties and priviledges of Christians by means of the outward Ceremony of washing or sprinkling in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost The Eucharist or Lords Supper is our Federal Vow or repetition of that engagement which we made at Baptism of performing faith repentance and obedience unto God in expectation of remission of sins eternal happiness and those other promises which by Christ's death are procured for us upon these terms which engagement we solemnly make to God at our eating Bread and drinking Wine in remembrance and commemoration of Christs dying for us Repentance is a forsaking of sin or an amendment of any evil way upon a sorrowful sense and just apprehension of its making us offend God and subjecting us to the danger of death and damnation And if to all the forementioned instances of those three grand Vertues which by the Apostle Tit. 2.12 13 are made the summ of our Christian Duty we join these three positive and additional Laws we have all that whereby God will judge us at the last Day even all those particular Laws whereto our obedience is required as necessary to salvation And thus we have seen what those particulars Laws are which the Gospel indispensably requires us to obey They are no other than those very instances which I have been all this while recounting and describing But because the Catalogue of them hitherto has been broken and interrupted and therefore cannot be run over so easily as might be desired in a matter of that importance I will here repeat them all again for the greater ease of all such pious souls as desire to try themselves by them and place them all in one view and all together The commanding Laws then whereby at the last Day we must all be judged are these that follow The Law of sobriety towards our selves with all its Train which are the Law of humility of heavenly-mindedness of temperance of sobriety of chastity of continence of contempt of the world and contentment of courage and taking up the Cross of diligence and watchfulness of patience of mortification and self-denial The Law of piety towards God with all its Branches which are the Law of honour of worship of faith and knowledge of love of zeal of trust and dependance of prayer of thankfulness of fear of submission and resignedness of obedience The Law of Justice towards men in all its parts which will be seen by the contrary prohibitions of injustice The Law of Charity in all its instances which are the Law of goodness or kindness of honour for our Brethrens Vertues of pity and succour of restraining our Christian Liberty for our weak Brothers edification of friendly reproof of brotherly kindness of congratulation of compassion of almes and distribution of covering and concealing their defects of vindicating their reputation of affability or graciousness of courtesy and officiousness of condescension of hospitality of gentleness of candor of unity of thankfulness of meekness or lenity of placableness of forgiving injuries of doing good to enemies and when nothing more is in our power praying for them and blessing or speaking what is good of them when we take occasion to mention them of long-suffering of mercifulness The Law of Peace and Concord with all its Train as are the Law of peaceableness of condescension and compliance of doing our own business of satisfying for injuries of peace-making The Law of love to Kings and Princes in all its Particulars which are the Law of honour of reverence of paying Tribute and Customes of fidelity of praying for them of obedience of subjection The Law of love to our Bishops and Ministers with all its expressions which are the Law of honour or having them highly in esteem for their works sake of reverence of maintenance of praying for them of obedience The Law of Love in the particular relation of Husband and Wife with all its Branches which are on both sides the Law of mutual concern and communicating in each others bliss or misery of bearing each others infirmities of prayer of fidelity On the Husbands towards his Wife the Law of providing for her of protecting her of flexible and winning Government of compliance and condescension On the Wives towards her Husband the Law of honour of reverence of observance and obedience of subjection The Law of Love in the particular relation of Parents and Children with its several effects which are from the Parents towards their Children the Law of natural affection of maintenance and provision of honest education of loving Government of bringing them up in the institution and fear of God of prayer for them From the Children towards their Parents besides the Duty of natural affection common to both the Law of honour of reverence of obedience of subjection of requiting upon occasion their care and kindness of prayer for them The Law of Love in the particular relation of Brethren and Sisters with all its instances which are the Law of natural affection of providing for our Brethren of praying for them The Law of Love in the particular relation of Master and Servant with its several expressions which are on the Masters side the Law of maintenance of religious instruction of a just and equal Government of them of kindness and equity in commanding of forbearance and moderation in threatning of punctual payment of the wages of the Hireling of praying for them On the Servants the Law of honour of reverence of observance of concealing and excusing their Masters defects of vindicating their injured reputation of fidelity of obedience of diligence of willing and hearty service of patient submission and subjection of praying for them To all which we may add the two arbitrary institutions and positive Laws of the Gospel Baptism and the Eucharist or Lords Supper and when we transgress in any of the instances forementioned that great and only remedy of Christs Religion the Law of repentance This so far as I can call to mind at present is a just enumeration of those particular Injunctions and Commands of God whereto our obedience is indispensably required and whereby at the last Day we must all be judged either to live or dye eternally But supposing that some particular instances of Love and Duty are omitted in this Catalogue yet need this be prejudicial to no mans happiness since that defect will be otherwise supplied For as for such omitted instances where there is an occasion for them and an opportunity offered to exercise
although he do not define the particular proportion of the compensation doth yet establish this satisfaction and reconciliation of our selves to our injured Brother in the general as an indispensable Duty without which nothing not our very Prayers or Oblations shall be accepted If thou bring thy gift to the Altar and there remembrest that thy Brother hath ought against thee having been injured by thee leave there thy gift and go thy way first be reconciled to thy Brother by giving him satisfaction for thy offence and then come and offer thy gift Matth. 5.23 24. Which Command is moreover one of those whose sanctions is the loss of Heaven ver 19. Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God Matth. 5.9 And thus we see of all the Laws which make any thing due to God our selves or all mankind in general whether they are instances of sobriety piety justice charity or peace that our obedience unto them all is made necessary unto life and that they are bound upon us by all our hopes of happiness and Heaven And the sanction is the same for all those Laws which make some things due in particular relations likewise For as for the Laws that bind us in the particular relation of Subjects to our Kings their sanction appears plainly from these places Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no Power but of God whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Wherefore you must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake Render therefore to all their Dues as these following are to Kings Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custom to whom Custom Fear or Reverence to whom Fear Honour to whom Honour Rom. 13.1 2 5 7. And all these are only part of that Catalogue of Laws which he begins to reckon up and declares to them by his Apostolical Authority chap. â—2 ver 3. These things speak and exhort rebuke with all Authority and let no man despise thee who shall surely be punished as a Contemner of Christ if he do Put them in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers to obey Magistrates Tit. 2. ver ult chap. 3. ver 1. I exhort therefore first of all that prayers of all sorts supplications intercessions petitions and giving of thanks be made for all Kings and such as are in Authority for this is in it self and will render us good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour 1 Tim. 2.1 2 3 and a proof moreover of that good conscience which Timothy is charged to keep chap. 1. ver 19. And for Fidelity and Allegiance this may suffice to shew its necessity that among the men of corrupt minds who are reprobate concerning the Faith and who should render the last times perillous S t Paul reckons Traitorâ— 2 Tim. 3.1 4 8. So that as for all the forementioned Duties of this relation we see their indispensable necessity and that as ever we hope to be saved by them we must perform and obey them And so it is in the particular Laws of the next relation that of people towards their spiritual Governours viz. their Bishops and Ministers as is plain from these Texts following We beseech you Brethren to know them who labour among you and are set over you in the Lord and to esteem or honour them very highly or more than abundantly in love for their works sake 1 Thess. 5.12 13. And this is one of those Precepts which are pressed upon them as they would be Children of light and not of darkness ver 5 and as they are to avoid wrath and to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ ver 9. Let him who is taught or catechized in the Word communicate unto him that teacheth or catechizeth in all good things Be not deceived God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth in this and other things that shall he also reap Gal. 6.6 7. Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls Pray for us Heb. 13.17 18. Which are part of those Precepts that are enjoined as the way whereby to serve God acceptably who is a consuming fire to destroy and devour all that dare offend him chap. 12.2 last verses And for the necessity of the several Laws in the particular relation of Husband and Wife that will appear by what follows For as for that love which is strictly required betwixt them it ought says S t Paul agreeably to the words of God at the institution of Marriage They two shall be one Flesh to be such as people have for their own Bodies Ephes. 5.28 31. Which cannot imply less than an affectionate concern and communicating in each others joy or sorrow for if one member of a mans Body suffer all the rest as the Apostle observes suffer with it and if one be honoured all the rest rejoyce with it the Members all having the same care one for another 1 Cor. 12.25 26. And also a bearing with each others infirmities as every man will do with those of his own Body and praying for each other And for particular Duties we are told in the same fifth Chapter to the Ephesians that the Husband must condescend and comply with his Wife and part not only with his own self-will but even with his own life to serve her Husbands love your Wives saith he even as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it So ought men to love their Wives as their own Bodies And how that is we all experience for no man ever yet hated his own Flesh but protecteth it and provideth well and duly for it or nourisheth and cherisheth it ver 25 28 29. In which love of his Wife as of his own Flesh is implied moreover that his Government of her be flexible and obliging nothing being more contrary to our self-love than to be commanded in peremptoriness and rigour And then as for the particular Duties of the Wife she is bid to be observant or to take care how to please her Husband 1 Cor. 7.34 To submit her will to his and to be ready to perform what he enjoins as she is to do what God commands her Wives submit your selves unto your own Husbands as unto the Lord for the Husband is the Head of the Wife as Christ is of the Church therefore as the Church is subject unto Christ so let the Wives be unto their own Husbands in every thing Ephes. 5.22 23 24. And this submission she must shew in respectful carriage and such behaviour as argues in her a fear to give offence Let the Wife see that she reverence her Husband ver 33. And all these Commands enjoining Duties both on one side and on the other
are better known to us in their fruits and effects than in their own natures foâ—â—he greater ease in judging whether we do intend Godâ—s Service most of all or no I shall before I conclude this Point lay down a plain and certain mark whence any man of common apprehension may easily discern whethâ—◠〈◊〉 doth indeed design God's service most and whâ—â—â—er his heart and obedience be sincere or no. And the Rule which I shall lay down whereby certainly to try and examine that is this If our obedience be intire it cannot but be sincere likewise For he that obeys God in all times and iâ— all instances cannot but serve him with both these ingredients of sincerity viz. Truth and Preheminence He must needs intend God's service really and above all who intends it so as to serve him constantly and universally And the reason is this Because although our temporal interest and present advantage be for the most part united with Gods service yet always it is not but sometimes in all instances of obedience and at most times in some it is separated and divided from it So that as long as we are true to our own Principle of acting which we may safely conclude we always are if we either design not God's service at all through hypocrisie or design it not above all through a corrupt mixture of intention at those times when these instances happen we shall not be acted by the Command but through the love of our own interest which we intend really and design more we shall certainly act against it For our actions go where our wills lead them and our wills always follow that which is the prevailing motive to them and has most power with them And therefore if we still chuse God's service in all its parts and in all times whether it make for our present advantage or against it we may be assured that we intend his service truly and also that we intend it most since we serve him when no bye-interests of our own can be served and disserve all other interests for his sake He must needs be our highest aim because where we may please him though no secular advantages concur we chuse any thing and where he would be offended though all other advantages invite we chuse nothing So that in the matter of obedience our integrity is the great and last measure of our acceptance And if upon examination we find that our obedience is intire we need not doubt but that it is sincere also And this is that very mark from which according to that version of the Psalms which is used in our Liturgy the Psalmist himself concludes concerning the obedience of the Israelites For he collects it to have been a dissembled and unsincere because it was not a whole and intire service They did but flatter him with their mouth saith he and dissembled with him in their tongue for their heart was not whole or intire with him Psal. 78.36 37. To clear up this enquiry then What qualifications of our obedience to all the forementioned Laws of God must render it acceptable to him and available to our salvation at the last day I shall proceed to discourse of the second condition of all acceptable obedience viz. integrity of which in the next Chapter CHAP. II. Of the second qualification of all acceptable obedience viz. integrity The CONTENTS Of the second qualification of an acceptable obedience viz. integrity The Notion of integrity or uprightness A three-fold integrity Of the integrity of our powers and faculties Or of the obedience with our minds affections wills and bodily powers How God is to be obeyed with the first faculty our minds or understandings God is to be obeyed with the second faculty our affections This Question stated How God and his Laws which are spiritual things are proportionate objects for our love and affections which are bodily faculties Of the difference betwixt our love of God and of the World that this is more warm and sensible that more lasting and powerful An account of what measures of obedience in our minds and affections is necessary to the acceptance of our service That contrivances and consultations for evil things and such mere apprehensions as are particularly forbidden are deadly and damning but that all other bare apprehensions and that all our affections after good or evil things will be rewarded or punished not merely for themselves but only as they are Causes and Principles of good or evil choice and practice God to be obeyed with the third faculty our wills He cannot be served without them Men are guilty of sin if they chuse it and consent to it though they cannot act it All this service of our inward faculties is in order to our outward works and operations INtegrity of obedience is such a perfection and compleatness of it as excludes all maimedness and defects Which is well intimated by S t James when he explains intire by wanting nothing Let patience have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and intire which you will be by wanting nothing Jam. 1.4 And this in another word is ordinarily expressed in Scripture by uprightness For in the most common Metaphor of the holy Books our course of life is called our way our actions steps and our doing walking And to carry on the Metaphor our course of obedience is called our right or straight path our course of sin and transgressions a crooked path our committing sin stumbling and falling and our doing our duty walking uprightly So that for a man to be upright in God's ways is not to stumble or fall by sin and disobedience i. e. to be perfect and intire or wanting nothing in our obedient performances Now this integrity or uprightness which is necessary to our obedience that it may stand us in stead at the last Day is three-fold 1. An integrity of our powers or faculties which I call an integrity of the Subject 2. An integrity of seasons and opportunities which is an integrity of Time 3. An integrity of the particular Laws of Duty and instances of obedience which is an integrity of the Object And all these are necessary to render our performance of God's Laws an acceptable service For if ever we expect that he should reward our obedience at the last Day we must take care beforehand that it be the obedience of our whole man in all times to the whole Law of God To begin with it 1. That our obedience of the forementioned Laws may avail us to life and pardon at the last Day we must take care to obey with all our powers and faculties which is an integrity of the Subject And for this the very Letter of the Law is express For when the Lawyer asks What shall I do to inherit eternal life Christ sends him to what is written in the Law and repeats that to him for an Answer Thou shalt love and serve as it is Deut. 11.13 the Lord thy God
with all thy heart or will and with all thy soul or affections and with all thy strength or executive and bodily powers and with all thy mind or understanding Luke 10.25 26 27 28. Obedience with all these powers and with our whole Nature is the means of life and the indispensable condition of our eternal happiness First We must keep all Gods Commandments with our minds or understandings It is a dangerous conceit for any man to phansie that he may be as sinful as he will in his thoughts so long as he only loves and chuses projects and contrives for the forbidden instance in his mind but doth not proceed so far as to obey it in his outward practice For at the last Day we must be called to account and justified or condemned by the counsels and imaginations of our minds as well as by the works of our lives For not only the works and practice but also the thoughts of the wicked or of wickedness are an abomination to the Lord Prov. 15.26 The thought of foolishness is sin Prov. 24.9 And since God forbids and hates them as ever we hope for his favour we must repent of them and forsake them Let the wicked man forsake his thoughts saith the Prophet and turn them from his sin unto the Lord and then he will have mercy upon him and abundantly pardon him Isai. 55.7 For the warfare that God has set us after which we are to attain the reward of eternal happiness is a casting down imaginations as the Apostle tells us and bringing into captivity every rebellious thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.4 5. In particular this obedience of our minds to the Law of God must be as a doing what he enjoins so likewise a keeping off from every thing which he forbids First In our imaginations We must not phansie it in our minds with love and delight nor indulge to any thoughts of it with such pleasure as may be a bait to our choice and weaken our aversation and hatred of it and thereby ensnare us into the practice of it Our warfare as we have heard from the Apostle must not be against actions only but against imaginations also and insnaring phancies of evil casting down rebellious imaginations and making every thought obedient to the Laws of Christ 2 Cor. 10.4 5. And in the old world when the imaginations of mens thoughts were always evil it repented the Lord that he had made man insomuch as he resolved to destroy him Gen. 6.5 6 7. Secondly In our counsels and contrivances We must not study what means are fittest what times are best and what manner is most advantageous for the acting of our sins They must no more have our care and contrivance than our service and obedience For if we cast about in our thoughts and consult about the most commodious way of committing any sin although all our designs be defeated before we come to any effect yet shall we be damned for our contrivance as well as we should for the compleat action And this our Lord himself has plainly determined in one instance and the Case is the same in all the rest For of the contrivances and machinations of murther he assures us That they as well as murther it self are of the number of those things which pollute a man and so utterly unfit him for Heaven where nothing can ever enter that is polluted or unclean Out of the heart saith he proceed evil thoughts or murtherous machinations and besides them compleat murthers adulteries c. and these defile the man Matth. 15 19. And as for that particular sort of contriving for sin which is the height and perfection of villany viz. the inventing of new and before unknown ways of transgressing it of all others is sure to meet with the severest punishment and to thrust men down into the deepest Abyss of Hell Of this sort are all invention of new Oaths new Nick-names or evil speakings new frauds and methods of couzenage new incentives of lust new modes of drinking and arts of intemperance But of these and of all others that are like unto them God will one day exact a most rigorous and terrible account For he that deviseth to do evil saith Solomon although he himself doth not act but only devise it he shall be called and dealt with as a mischievous and wicked person Prov. 24.8 And S t Pauls words are full to this purpose For he tells us expresly that in the judgment of God inventers of evil things shall be declared worthy of death Rom. 1.30 32. As for our minds or understandings then they are one faculty which is plainly implied in the Integrity of our service and without the obedience whereof at the last day God will not accept us And another faculty implied in it likewise is Secondly Our Soul or Affections It is a vain thing for any man to love and set his heart upon any particular sin and yet for all that to expect that God should love and reward him If I regard iniquity in my heart saith the Psalmist the Lord will not hear me Psal. 66.18 No man as our Saviour sayes can serve two masters for if he love the one for his sake when their interests enterfere he will hate the other so that we cannot serve God if with our affections we continue to serve sin Mat. 6.24 To pretend obedience to God and yet to love what he sorbids to make a show of his service and yet in our very hearts to hanker after his vilest enemies whom above all things his soul abhors this surely is not honestly to serve but grosly to collogue and slatly to dissemble with him For in very deed if any man love sin he sides with Gods enemy but for the service and fear of the Lord it is to hate evil Prov. 8.13 If ever we expect that God should accept our works we must offer up our affections with them For if our hearts go along with our lusts whilst our practice is against them we serve God only against our wills we submit to him as a slave doth to a tyrannous Lord not through any kindness for him but through a hatefull fear of him We utterly dislike what he bids us but yet we do it only because we dare not do otherwise But now this is such a way of performing obedience as God will never endure to accept of For he scorns to be served by a slavish fear and an unwilling mind he will never look upon a heartless sacrifice but it is the affection that we do it with which makes him set a price upon any thing that we do and our love that he regards more than our performance For this is that very thing which was thought fit to be mentioned in the command it self Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart with all thy soul and with all thy mind Mat. 22.37 'T is true indeed we do not find our affection so quick and
sensible for God and his Laws as it uses to be for the things of the world neither can we reasonably expect it should For our affections are bodily powers and it is their very nature as Philosophy instructs us to be a vehement sensation upon some certain commotions of our bodily spirits so that God and his Laws which are things immaterial and insensible are no proper and proportionate object for them For it is only matter that is able of it self to affect matter and material and sensible objects which can excite our material and sensitive passions and appetites One bodily faculty is no more fit in its own nature to be moved by a spiritual object than another and we may as well expect that our eye should see or our fingers handle it as that our affections should of themselves issue out upon it either to love or desire or delight in it So that considering things barely in themselves I say and the natural agreeableness that is betwixt them which is the ground of their natural operations it is only bodily pain or pleasure that is of it self fit to move our bodily passions But as for spiritual and insensible objects such as God and Virtue are whatever fitness to work upon our affections they may have upon other accounts yet in themselves they have none Virtue and Obedience which are spiritual things may gain upon our wills and understandings which are spiritual and rational faculties but upon our bodily appetites and affections for their own sakes barely they never can But that which makes our affections to issue out upon God and Virtue is not the spiritual nature of God and Virtue themselves but those sensible and bodily things which flow from them and are annexed to them For although God be immaterial in himself yet infinite are those material and bodily delights which we receive from him And although Virtue and Obedience are in their own natures spiritual and insensible yet exceeding great and exceeding many are the sensible goods and pleasures that are annexed to them For Heaven and eternal life which are promised to our obedience will give a full delight not only to our souls and spirits but even to all our senses likewise It will endlesly entertain our eyes with most splendid sights and glorious objects it will feast our ears with melodious songs and most ravishing halelujahs and refresh our whole bodies with a most exalted and everlasting ease and pleasure As on the other side hell and eternal misery which are the established punishment of all sin and disobedience will bring not only upon our spirits but upon our bodies too as full a scene of most exquisite pain and sorrow For so violent and intolerable will the torments of our bodies there be that God could find nothing too high to set them out by but has expressed them by one of the most raging and tormenting things in nature eternal fire Now as for Heaven and Hell they indeed are such things as can of themselves stir our affections and bodily passions with a witness When they are set before us they are able to make us love God and our Duty above all things else and to hate nothing so much as Sin and Disobedience For no Sin can promise us so much bodily delight as is to be injoyed in Heaven neither can Obedience in any possible instance expose us to so great bodily pains as the damn'd for ever undergo in Hell So that when once Heaven and Hell are proposed to our affections and act upon them they will prevail with them more than any thing else can and make nothing so dear to them as the performance of their duty nor any thing so hatefull as the transgression of it And thus may God and Virtue become a fit object even of our bodily passions and a most cogent matter of love desire and joy as on the contrary sin and wickedness are of sorrow slight and hatred They are most powerfull to excite all these affections although not in their bare spiritual selves yet in their bodily dependants and annexed consequences For the greatest bodily joys shall one day crown our Obedience and the acutest bodily torments will certainly befall us if we disobey And these although as yet they are at a distance and future to us are most fit to work upon us and most strongly to affect us For we are Creatures endowed with understanding and have Reason given to us to set future things before us and to think our selves into passions and affections and not to be idle and altogether passive like the brute and unreasonable Creatures and suffer the bare force of outward and present objects to excite them in us So that with our bodily affections we may love and delight in God and Religion which are spiritual things because of their bodily joys and attendancies and sensibly hate and grieve at our sins and disobedience which are moral and immaterial evils because of their sensible pains and punishment And we may love the one and hate the other above all things else because no bodily joys are in any the least comparison so great as those which are laid up for the good in heaven nor any bodily pains so tormenting as those which are prepared for the damn'd in hell And since God has given to our bodily affections even in their own way the greatest motives to love him above all and above all things to hate sin it is the highest Reason that he should require it of us and demand the preeminent service not only of our spirits but also of our lower soul or affections also But although our bodily affections when they are employed about Vice and Virtue which are spiritual things by reason of this supereminence of sensitive rewards in the one and punishments in the other be more strong and powerfull yet are they not as I said so warm and sensible as they use to be when they issue out upon sensible and bodily objects We feel one in our own souls and are affected in them much more violently than we are in the other And that it must needs be so is plain For our affections for worldly things are raised in us by the things themselves and by those impressions which they make upon us and they act to the highest and according to the utmost of their power But our affections for spiritual things are to be raised in us by our own Reason we are to argue and think our selves up to them and our thoughts are free and go no further than we please to suffer them And indeed we find so much difficulty in fixing them upon any thing and there are so many other things obtruding daily upon them to divert and call them off from these that we seldom stay so long upon them or are so well acquainted with them as to be wrought up into a very warm and inflamed affection for them Besides what is the chief Reason of all that Good and Evil
in worldly things which affects us is present with us and therefore our passions for or against them are raised in us by our sense and feeling But as for spiritual things and those bodily joys and sorrows that are annexed to them for the sake whereof we are sensibly affected with them they are not present with us but future and at a distance and therefore our passion for them cannot be raised by our sense whose object are only present things but meerly by our fancy and imagination But now as for the sensible warmth and violence of a passion it is nothing near so quick when it is excited by fancy as when it is produced by sense For no man is so feelingly affected with hearing a sad story as he would be by seeing of it A man will be moved abundantly less by imagining a battle a murder or any other dreadfull thing than by beholding it And the reason is because the impressions upon our sense are quick and violent and their warmth is communicated to our affections which are raised by them whereas our imaginations are calm and faint in comparison and the passions which flow from them partake of their temper and are more cold and less perceptible So that our passions for worldly things being passions upon sense and our passions for things spiritual with their bodily pain or pleasure annexed being only upon fancy and imagination we must needs be more warmly and sensibly although not more powerfully affected with the things of this world than of the other But that which is to distinguish our passion for God and Virtue above all things else from our passion for worldly things is not the warmth and sensibleness but the power and continuance of it For it must be a prevalent affection which doth more service although it make less noise It must be such a setled and overpowering Love answerable to the prevailing strength and surpassing greatness of its motive as gets the upper hand in competition and makes us when we must despise one to disregard all things else and to adhere to Gods service what other things soever be lost by it What it wants in warmth it has in permanency and power it sticks faster to us and can do more with us than our love of any thing besides For in our affections we must needs prefer God and his service before every other thing when they stand in competition or we have none of that Love with the whole soul which the Commandment requires of us as will be shewn more fully afterwards And because our thoughts and affections have in them a great latitude and in a matter of so high concern every good soul will be inquisitive after some determinate accounts of that compass and degree of them which is necessary to our acceptance before I conclude this Point I will set down what measures of obedience in these two faculties what thoughts and imaginations of our minds and what degrees of love and delight in our affections shall be judged sufficient at the last Day to save or to destroy us As for our thoughts there is one more elaborate and perfect sort of them viz. our counsels and contrivances And when they are employed about the compassing of forbidden things they are our sin and without repentance will certainly prove our condemnation For he that deviseth to do evil saith Solomon he shall be called and dealt with as a mischievous person Prov. 24.8 The machinations of murther are joined in guilt and punishment with murtherous actions themselves Matth. 15.19 And as for that particular sort of Contrivers the inventers of evil things they are pronounced by S t Paul to be worthy of death Rom. 1.30 32. And as for other of our thoughts which are not come up to the height of a contrivance or consultation but are only simple apprehensions some of them also are properly and directly good or evil and an Article of our life or death God has imposed several Laws which he has backed both with threats and promises upon our very thoughts themselves Of which sort there are some to be met with under all the three general Parts of Duty viz. to God our Neighbour and our selves For our thoughts of God are bound up by the Law of honour which forbids us to lessen or prophane him by dishonourable Notions and Opinions our thoughts of our Neighbour by the Laws of Charity and Candour which suffer us not either to reproach or injure him by under-valuing Ideas or groundless suspicions and our thoughts of our own selves by the Law of humility which prohibits us to be exalâ—ed in our own conceits through false and over-high apprehensions of our own excellence Pious and charitable opinions both of God and men and humble and lowly conceits of our own selves are Duties incumbent upon our very minds themselves And all the opposite vices of impious and reproachful Ideas of God of censorious suspicious and lessening thoughts of other men and of proud and arrogant conceits of our own worth are transgressions within the sphere and compass even of our understandings For the exercise of the first is not only a Cause and Principle but a part and instance also of obedience and an Article of life as the exercise of the other is an instance of disobedience and an Article also of damnation As for these Instances then of bare thought and naked apprehension they are essential parts and necessary instances of an acceptable obedience and the wilful transgression of any one of them without repentance is dangerous and damning So that as for all our perfected and studied thoughts of evil viz. our counsels and contrivances and as for all such simple thoughts and â—ore apprehensions as have particular Laws imposed upon them they are not only principles but parts and instances of disobedience and if we are guilty of them unless we retract them by repentance we shall be condemned for them But then there are several other bare imaginations and simple apprehensions which are not under any of these particular Laws that are imposed upon our thoughts themselves but are employed upon things commanded or forbidden by any of the other Laws forementioned And as for all these apprehensions in themselves they are neither sin nor Duty nor a matter either of reward or punishment but so far only as they are causes and principles either of a sinful or obedient choice and practice of those good or evil things which they are employed upon In themselves I say these mere apprehensions are neither sin nor Duty We may perceive sin in our minds and have it in a thought or notion without ever being guilty of it or liable to answer for it For the Sun shines upon a Dunghil without being defiled by it and God sees all the wickedness in Hell but is not tainted with it And so long as we sojourn in a World of iniquity every good man must needs know and behold all the vices
and pains in fixing of our thoughts and raising of our desires through some bodily indisposition or unforeseen accidents which we cannot help our minds run sometimes still astray and our desires are cold and languid this unwill'd dulness and distraction shall not influence our main state it is a thing which we cannot help and no man living is perfectly free from it and therefore God will not be severe upon it but in great mercy he will pity and connive at it For as for the attention of our minds and the fixedness of our thoughts either in prayer or in any other business it is a thing which is not always in our own power but may be hindred and interrupted by many accidents whether we will or no. For any thing that makes our bodily spirits tumultuary and restless renders our attention small and interrupted Any high motion of our blood any former impression upon our spirits either by our precedent studies or our crowd of business will make great variety of thoughts and roving fancies obtrude themselves upon us and this is our natural frame and constitution which we must submit to and cannot remedy We can no more prevent it than we can prevent our dreams but our fancies will be struck and diverting thoughts will be thrown into us whether we will or no. For from the natural union of our souls and bodies our minds in their most spiritual operations of thinking and understanding go along with our bodily spirits and apprehend after their impressions and we can as well refuse to see when our eyes are open or to taste what is put into our mouths as we can refuse to have a thought of those things which are impressed upon our bodily fancy or imagination The connexion betwixt these is necessary and natural and there is no breaking or avoiding it So that let us be either at our prayers or at any other exercise if any temper of our bodies any accidental motion of our blood any former impressions of foregoing studies or other business stir in our fancies our thoughts must needs be diverted and our attention disturbed by them Nay in our prayers we are more apt to find it thus than in any other thing For there men oft-times use violence and screw up the fixedness of their minds and the fervency of their hearts to the highest pitch and then their bodily spirits being overstrained are liable not only to be discomposed by outward accidents but also to give back and fall of themselves and when in this manner they withdraw there is room made till they can be again recollected for other thoughts to arise instead of them All this I say happens from the very nature and frame of our bodies and from that dependance which our minds and thoughts themselves have upon them so that we cannot prevent or overcome it wholly We may and ought indeed to strive against these distractions as much as we can and to compose our thoughts as much as our natural temper or our present circumstances will suffer us when they wander in our prayers as soon as we discern it we may recollect them and when other thoughts intrude as soon as they are observed we may reject them but then this is all that we can do or that God requires we should do for we cannot pray perfectly and continuedly without them And then as for the zeal and fervency of our affections whether in our prayers or in any thing else they are fickle and very changeable and do not depend so much upon the choice of our wills as upon the temper of our bodies Some upon every occasion are more warm and eager in their passions either of love or hatred hopes or fears joy or sorrow than other men either are or can be For there is a difference in tempers as well as in palates and mens passions do no more issue out upon the same things in the same eagerness than their stomachs do after the same food with the same degrees of appetite So that as for a great fervency and a vehement affection every man cannot work himself up to it because all tempers do not admit of it For zeal and affectionateness in Devotion as in other things is more a mans temper than his choice and therefore it is not to be expected that all people should be able to raise themselves up to a transporting pitch in it but only that they should who are born to it Nay even they whose natural temper fits them for a great fervency and a high affection are not able to work themselves up to it at all times For no mans temper is constant and unchangeable seeing our very bodies are subject to a thousand alterations either from things within or from others that are without us If a mans blood is put into an irregular ferment either by a cold air or an inward distemper or any discomposing accident it spoils not only the fixedness of his thoughts but the zeal of his affections likewise Let there be any damp or disorder any dulness or indisposition either upon a mans blood or spirits and the discomposure of his body is presently felt in his soul for his thoughts flag and his passions run low and all his powers are under a cloud and suffer an abatement And this every man finds in himself when he labours under a sickly and crazy temper an aking head or any other bodily indisposition For our passions are bodily powers and are performed altogether by bodily instruments they live and dye with them and are subject to all their coolings and abatements their changes and alterations And therefore as long as our bodily tempers and dispositions alter and by reason of a number of accidents whether from without or from within themselves are still changeable and unconstant the zeal and fervency of our affections must needs be so too Thus is some distraction of mind and chilness of affection either in our prayers or in pursuit of any other thing most necessarily incident to all men We cannot wholly prevent them or live altogether free from them but sometimes they will break in and seize upon us do what we can And since we cannot help them God will not be always angry or eternally torment us for them No he knows that we are flesh and blood and his love and favour to us doth not alter as our unsetled thoughts or bodily tempers do He measures us not by the fixedness of our thoughts or by the fervency of our affections which are not always in our own power but by our wills and actions which are So that if we are careful to will and chuse what is pleasing to him and from our hearts entirely to obey him we need not doubt but that whatever involuntary distractions there may be sometimes in our thoughts or abatements in our bodily tempers whilst we are at our prayers we shall still be accepted by him We shall be accepted I say and the blessings