judge that from the same cause proceedeth the continual Malice Rancour Rage Blasphemy of the Devil and many notorious wicked Men against God and Godliness Some may think Job uncharitable in suspecting not meerly that his Sons had sinned but that they had been so abominably wicked as to curse God in their Hearts Job 1.5 but Job well understood that if the guilt of any ordinary Sin lie upon the Conscience it will make the Soul to wish secretly that God were not or that he was not so just a Judge which is a secret Cursing of God that cannot be avoided until our Consciences be purged from the guilt of Sin by the offering of Christ for us which was then figured out by the Burnt-offerings of Job for his Sons Fifthly God hath abundantly discovered to us in his Word that his method in bringing Men from Sin to Holiness of Life is first to make them know that he loveth them and that their Sins are blotted out When he gave the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai he first discovered himself to be their God that had given them a sure Pledge of his Salvation by their Delivery from Egypt in the Preface Exod. 20.2 And during all the time of the Old Testament God was pleased to make the entrance into Religion to be by Circumcision which was not only a Sign but also a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith whereby God justifieth People while they are considered as ungodly Rom. 4.11.5 and this Seal was administred to Children of eight Days old before they could perform any Condition of sincere Obedience for their Justification that their Furniture for an holy Practice might be ready before hand Furthermore in the time of the Old Testament God appointed divers Washings and the Blood of Bulls and Goats and the Ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean to prepare and sanctifie them for other Parts of his Worship in his Tabernacle and Temple to figure out his purging of their Consciences from dead works by the Blood of Christ that they might serve the living God Heb. 9.9 10 13 14 22. This I say was then figurative Sanctification as the word Sanctification is taken in a large Sense comprehending all things that prepare us for the Service of God chiefly the Remission of Sin Heb. 10.10 14 18. Though if it be taken in a strict sence respecting only our Conformity to the Law it must necessarily be placed after Justification according to the usual Method of Protestant Divines God also minded them of the necessity of purging away their guilt first that their Service might be acceptable by commanding them to offer the Sin-offering before the Burnt-offering Levit. 5.8 and 16.3 11. And least the guilt of their Sins should pollute the Service of God notwithstanding all their particular Expiations God was pleased to appoint a general Atonement for all their Sins one day every Year wherein the Scape goat was to bear upon him all their Iniquities unto a Land not inhabited Levit. 16.22 34. Under the New Testament God useth the same Method in loving us first and washing us from our Sins by the Blood of Christ that he may make us Priests to offer the Sacrifices of Praise and all good Works to God even the Father He entreth us into his Service by washing away our sins in Baptism he seedeth and strengtheneth us for his Service by Remission of Sins given to us in the Blood of Christ at the Lord's Supper He exhorteth us to obey him because he hath already loved us and our Sins are already pardoned Forgive one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ hath loved us Ephes 4.32 and 5.1 2. I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven you for his name sake Love not the world neither the things of the world 1 Jo. 2.12 15. I might quote abundance of Texts of the same nature We may clearly see by all this that God hath accounted it a matter of great Importance and hath condescended to take wonderful care in providing plentiful means both under the Old and New Testament that his People might be first cleansed from guilt and reconciled to himself to fit them for the acceptable Practice of Holiness Away then with all the contrary Methods of the new Divinity The Third Endowment necessary to enable us for the Practice of Holiness without which a Perswasion of our Reconciliation with God would be of little efficacy to work in us a rational Propensity to it is that we be perswaded of our future Enjoyment of the everlasting heavenly Happiness This must precede our holy Practice as a cause disposing and alluring us to it This Affertion hath several sorts of Adversaries to oppose it some account that a Perswasion of our own future Happiness before we have persevered in sincere Obedience tendeth to Licentiousness and that the way to do good Works is rather to make them a Condition necessary for the procuring of this Perswasion Others condemn all Works that we are allured or stirred up to by the future Enjoyment of the heavenly Happiness as legal mercenary flowing from self-love and not from any pure Love to God and they figure out sincere Godliness by a Man bearing Fire in one hand to burn up Heaven and Water in the other to quench Hell intimating that the true Service of God must not proceed at all from hope of Reward or sear of Punishment but only from Love To establish the Truth asserted against these Errors that are so contrary to it and to each other I shall propose the ensuing Considerations First The nature of the Duties of the Law is such that they cannot be sincerely and universally practiced without this Endowment That this Endowment must be present in us is sufficiciently proved already by all that I have said concerning the necessity of the Perswasion of our firm Reconciliation with God by our Justification to prepare us for this Practice because that includeth a Perswasion of this future Happiness or else it is of little worth All that I have to add here is that sincere Obedience cannot rationally subsist except it be allured encouraged and supported by this Perswasion Let me therefore suppose a Sadducee believing no Happiness after this Life and put the Question Can such an one love God with his whole Heart Might and Soul Will he not think it reasonable rather to lessen and moderate his Love towards God lest he should be overmuch troubled to part with him by Death We account it most reasonable to sit loose in our Affections from things that we must part with Can such an one be satisfied with the Enjoyment of God as his Happiness Will he not rather account that the Enjoyment of God and all religious Duties are Vanities as well as other things because in a little time we shall have no more Benefit by them than if they had never been
in three particulars 1st The Grace of Faith is as well fitted for the Souls receiving of Christ and Union with him as any Instrument of the Body is for receiving and closing with things needful for it By the very act of hearty trusting or believing on Christ for all Salvation and Happiness the Soul heaveth and putteth away from itself every thing that keepeth it at a distance from Christ as all confidence in our own Strength Endeavours Works Privileges or in any Worldly Pleasures Profits Honours or in any humane Helps and Succours for our Happiness and Salvation Because such Confidences are inconsistent with our Confidence in Christ for all Salvation Paul by his Confidence in Christ was taken off from all Considence in the Flesh he suffer'd the loss of glorying in his Privileges legal Righteousness and counted all other Enjoyments in matters of the World or of Religion to be but Dung that he might win Christ and be found in him Phil. 3.3 6 7 8 9. the voice of Faith is Ashur shall not save us neither will we ride upon Horses neither will we say any more to the work of our hands ye are our God for in thee the Fatherless find mercy Hos 14.3 We have no might against this great company of our spiritual Enemies neither know we what to do but our eyes are upon thee 2 Chron. 20.12 I might multiply places of Scripture to shew what a self emptying Grace Faith is and how it casteth other Considences out of the Soul by getting above them to Christ as the only Happiness and Salvation The same act of trusting or believing on Christ or on God is the very manner of our Souls coming to Christ Joh. 6.35 drawing near to the Lord Psal 73.28 fleeing unto the Lord to hide us Psal 143.9 making our resuge in the shadow of his wings Psal 57.1 staying our selves and our minds upon the Lord Isa 50.10 26.3 laying hold of eternal life 1 Tim. 6.12 lifting up our selves to the Lord Psal 51.1 2. rolling our way and casting our burden upon the Lord Psal 37.5 55.22 and of our eating and drinking Christ as hath already appeared Let us consider that Christ and his Salvation cannot be seen or handled or attained to by any bodily motion but are revealed and promised to us in the Word Now let any invent if they can any way for the Soul to exercise any motion or activeness in receiving of this unseen promised Salvation besides believing the Word and trusting on Christ for the Benefit promised If Christ were to be earned by Works or any other kind of Conditional Faith than this yet a Faith must be instrumental to receive him Some think Love as sit to be the uniting Grace but I have shewed that Love to Christ's Salvation is an Ingredient into Faith And though Love be an Appetite unto Union yet we have no other likely way to fill this Appetite while we are in this World besides trust on Christ for all his Benefits as he is promised in the Gospel 2dly There is in this Saving-Faith a natural Tendency to furnish the Soul with an holy Frame and Nature and all Endowments necessary thereunto out of the Fulness of Christ An hearty affectionate trussing on Christ for all his Salvation as freely promised to us hath naturally enough to work in our Souls a rational bent and inclination to and ability for the Practise of all Holiness because it comprehendeth in it a trusting that through Christ we are dead to sin and alive to God and that our old man is crucified Rom. 6.2 6 4. and that we live by the spirit Gal. 5.25 and that we have forgiveness of sin and that God is our God Psal 31.14 and that we have in the Lord righteousness and strength whereby we are able to do all things Isa 45.24 Phil. 4.13 and that we shall be glortensly happy in the anjoyment of Christ to all eternity Phil. 3.20 21. When the Saints in Scripture speak so highly of such glorious spiritual Privileges as I have here named they acquaint us with the familiar fence and language of their Faith trusting on God and Christ and they give us but an Explication of the nature and contents of it and they speak of nothing more than what they receive out of the Fulness of Christ And how can we otherwise judge but that those that have an hearty Love to Christ and can upon a good ground think and speak such high things concerning themselves must needs be heartily disposed and mightily strengthened for the practice of Holiness 3dly Because Faith hath such a natural tendency to dispose and strengthen the Soul for the practise of Holiness we have cause to judge it a meet Instrument to accomplish every part of that Practice in an acceptable manner Those that with a due affection believe stedfastly on Christ for the free Gift of all his Salvation may find by experience that they are carried forth by that Faith according to the measure of its Strength or Weakness to love God heartily because God hath loved them first 1 Joh. 4.19 to praise him to pray unto him in the name of Christ Ephes 5.26 John 16.26 27. to be patient with cheerfulness under all afflictions giving thanks to the Father that hath called them to his heavenly inheritance Col. 1.11 12. to love all the children of God out of love to their heavenly Father 1 John 5.1 to walk as Christ walked 1 John 2.6 and to give themselves up to live to Christ in all things as constrained by his love in dying for them 2 Cor. 5.14 We have a Cloud of Witnesses concerning the excellent works that were produced by Faith Heb. 11. And though trusting on Christ be accounted such a slight and contemptible thing yet I know no Work of Obedience which it is not able to produce And note the excellent manner of working by Faith by it we live and act in all good Works as People in Christ as raised above our selves and our natural state by partaking of him and his Salvation and we do all in his name and on his account This is the Practice of that mysterious manner of living to God in Holiness which is peculiar to the Christian Religion wherein we live and yet not we but Christ liveth in us Gal. 2.20 And who can imagine any other way but this for such a Practice while Christ and his Salvation is known to us only by the Gospel The explanation that I have made of the Nature and Office of true Faith and of its Aptitude for its Office is sufficient to evidence that it is a most holy Faith as it is called Jude 20. and that such a trusting on Christ as I have described in its own nature cannot have any tendency to Licentiousness but only to Holiness and that it rooteth and groundeth us in Holiness more than the meer accepting of any terms of Salvation and consenting to have Christ for our Lord can do
we must perceive it to make us love him for if we look upon him as a God contrary to us that hateth us and will damn us our own innate Self-love will breed hatred and heart-risings against him in spite of our Hearts that love which is the end of the Law must flow from Faith unfeigned 1 Tim. 1.5 And if Hatred work in thee more than Love how canst thou expect good thoughts of God or any other than blaspheming or at least murmuring thoughts of him in this condition ill-will never speaketh or thinketh well The first right holy Thoughts thou canst have of God are thoughts of his Grace and Mercy to thy Soul in Christ which are included in the Grace of Faith Get these thoughts first by believing in Christ and they will breed in thee love to God and all good thoughts of him and free thee from blasphemous and murmuring Thoughts by degrees for love thinks no evil 1 Cor. 13.9 Then wilt thou be able to account God just and merciful if he had damned thee and extended his Grace to others and thou wilt be able to think well of his Holiness and of his Decrees which many cannot endure to hear of The way to get rid of thy raging Lusts is by Faith that purifieth the Heart and worketh by Love Act. 15.9 Gal. 5.6 The Soul must be brought to take pleasure in God and Christ by Faith or else it will lust after fleshly and worldly Pleasures and the more you strive against Lusts without Faith the more they are stirred up though you prevail so far as to restrain the fulfilling of them beg a holy Fear of God with fear of coming short of the promised Rest through unbelief Heb. 4.1 Such a Fear is an Ingredient of Faith and it will breed in us a reverential yea a Child-like fear of God and his Goodness Heb. 12.28 Hos 3.5 We must have Grace whereby we may serve God with Reverence c. It is in the Margent we must have or hold fast Grace and there is no other way to hold fast Grace but by Faith and this will quickly calm all pannick and tormenting Horror And if you would be free from carelesness and slightning the Wrath of God your way is first to avoid dispairing by believing for People grow careless by dispairing and for their own quiet they will endeavour to slight Evils which they have no hope to prevent according to the Proverb Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die 1 Cor. 15.32 True Humiliation for Sin is either a part or fruit of Faith for on our believing we shall remember our own evil ways and doings that were not good and shall loath our selves in our own sight for all our Abominations Ezek. 36.31 We shall also then willingly renounce our own Righteousness and account it but dung that we may win Christ by Faith Phil. 3.7 8. But Beggars will make the most of all their nasty Rags till they be furnished with better Cloaths and Cripples will not cast away their Crutches until they have a better support to lean on Godly Sorrow for Sin is wrought in us by believing the pardoning Grace of God as it is found by experience that a Pardon from a Prince will sometimes sooner draw tears from a stubborn Malefactor than the fear of a Halter will thus the sinful Woman was brought to wash Christ's Feet with her Tears Luke 7.37 38. We are not like to be sorry for grieving God with our Sins while we look upon him as an enemy that will ease himself well enough of his burthen and right himself upon us by our everlasting destruction The belief of God's pardoning and accepting Grace is a necessary means to bring us to an ingenuous Confession of Sins The People freely confessed their sins when they were baptized of John in Jordan for the remission of sins Mark 1.4 5. The Confession of Despairers is forced like the extorted Confessions and Cryings out of Malefactors upon the Rack A Pardon sooner openeth the Mouth to an ingenuous Confession than confess and be hanged or confess and be damned therefore if you would freely confess your sins believe first that God is faithful and just to forgive your sins through Christ 1 Joh. 1.9 And if you would pray to God or praise him with lively Affections you must first believe that God will hear you and give you what is best for you for Christ's sake Joh. 16.23 24. otherwise your praying will be only from the Teeth outward for how shall you call on him on whom you have not believed Rom. 10.14 You must come first to Christ the Altar by Faith that by him you may offer the Sacrifice of Praise to God continually Heb. 13.10 15. Finally to pass from Particulars to the general Assertion laid down in the Direction if you ask What shall we do that we may work the Works of God or get any saving Qualifications I must direct you first to Faith as the Work of Works and the great saving Preparatory to all good Qualifications by answering in our Saviour's words This is the Work of God that ye believe in him whom he hath sent Joh. 6.28 29. DIRECT VIII Be sure to seek for Holiness of Heart and Life only in its due order where God hath placed it after Vnion with Christ Justification and the Gift of the Holy Ghost and in that order seek it earnestly by Faith as a very necessary part of your Salvation EXPLICATION I Hope the Reader will observe warily in all these Directions that the Holiness aimed at as the great End in the whole Discourse consisteth not in the Grace or Act of Faith required peculiarly by the Gospel which though it be a saving Gift of Christ yet is here considered rather as a means precedent to the Reception of Christ and all his Salvation then a part of his Salvation received But the Holiness aimed at consisteth in Conformity to the whole Moral Law to which we are naturally obliged if their had never been any Gospel or any such Duty as believing in Christ for Salvation Now in this Direction three Things are contained that are very necessary to guide us to the attainment of this great End and therefore worthy of our serious Consideration First It is a Matter of high concern to be acquainted with the due Place and Order wherein God hath settled this holy Practice in the Mystery of our Salvation and a great Point of Christian Wisdom to seek it only in that order we know that God is the God of Order and that his infinite Wisdom hath appeared in appointing the Order of his Creatures which we are forced to observe for attainment of our ends in worldly things so also in Spiritual things God hath made an everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure 2 Sam. 23.5 the Benefits of it have an orderly dependence each upon other as Links of the same golden Chain though several of them and a Title to them
When the Gentiles heard the Word of God they were glad and as many as were ordained to eternal Life believed The Apostle Paul was constrained by the Love of Christ to give up himself to live to Christ 2 Cor. 4.14 15. I dare appeal to the Experience of any that obey God out of hearty Love let them examine themselves and consider whither they were brought to give up themselves to serve God in love without comfortable apprehensions of the Love of God towards them I dare say there are no such Prodigies in the new Birth Seventhly What comfortless Religion do those make that allow People no comfort before hand to strengthen them for holy Performances that are very cross displeasing and grievous to their natural Inclinations as the plucking out of a right Eye cutting off of a right Hand but would have them first to do such things with love and delight under all their present Fears Despondencies and corrupt Inclinations and to hope that by doing the Work throughly and sincerely they shall at last attain to a more comfortable State All true spiritual Comfort as well as Salvation is indeed quite banished out of the World if it be suspended upon the Condition of our good Works which hath already appeared to be the Condition of the Law that worketh no Comfort but Wrath Rom. 4.15 This makes the ways of Godliness odious to many they think they shall never enjoy a pleasant hour in this World if they walk in them and they had rather comfort themselves with sinful Pleasures then have no Comfort at all Others labour a while in such a comfortless Religion with inward fretting and repining at the Bondage of it and at last grow wearry and throw of all Religion because they know none better They that bind such heavy burthens upon Men and grievous to be born will plead that they are not to be blamed because they do but preach the Gospel of God and Christ whereas indeed they preach a Gospel of Man 's own forging contrary to the nature of the true Gospel of Christ which is glad tidings of great joy to all People Luk. 2.10 An uncomfortable Gospel cannot proceed from God the Father who is the Father of Mercies and the God of all Comfort 2 Cor. 1.3 Nor from Christ who is the Consolation of Israel Luk. 2.25 nor from the Spirit who is the Comforter Joh. 14.16 17. God meeteth him that rejoyceth and worketh Righteousness Isa 64.5 He will be served with gladness and singing as he shewed by the Type of variety of Musick and great numbers of Musicians in the Temple Christ speaks to us by his Gospel that his joy may abide in us and that our joy may be full Job 15.11 No sorrow is approved of by God except Godly sorrow which can never be in us without some comfort of the Love of God towards us They that are offended at the Uncomfortableness of a Religious Life never yet knew the true way of Religion else they would find that the ways of Wisdom arâ— ways of pleasantness and all her Paths peace Prov 3.17 DIRECT X. That we may be prepared by the Comforts of the Gospel to perform sincerely the Duties of the Law we must get some assurance of our Salvation in that very Faith whereby Christ himself is received into our Hearts Therefore me must endeavoar to believe on Christ confidently perswading and assuring our selves in the Act of believing that God freely giveth to us an Interest in Christ and his Salvation according to his gracious Promise EXPLICATION IT is evident that these Comforts of the Gospel that are necessary to an Holy Practice cannot be truly received without some assurance of our Interest in Christ and his Salvation for some of those Comforts consist in a good Perswasion of our reconciliation with God and of our future Heavenly Happiness and of Strength both to will and to do that which is acceptable to God through Christ as hath been before shewed Hence it will clearly follow that this assurance is very necessary to enable us for the Practice of Holiness as those Comforts that must go before the Duties of the Law in order of nature as the Cause goeth before the Effect tho' not in any distance of time My present work is to shew what this assurance is that is so necessary unto Holiness and which I have here asserted that we must act in that very Faith whereby we receive Christ himself into our Hearts even in justifying saving Faith This Doctrine seemeth strange to many that profess themselves Protestants a late days whereas it was formerly highly owned by the chief Protestants whom God made use of to restore the Purity of the Gospel and to maintain it against the Papists for many Years they commonly taught that Faith was a Perswasion or Considence of our own Salvation by Christ and that we must be sure to apply Christ and his Salvation to our selves in believing And this Doctrine was one of the great Engines whereby they prevailed to overthrow the Popish Superstition whereto doubtfulness of Salvation is one of the principal Pillars But many of the Successors of those Protestants have deserted them and left their Writings to be shamefully insulted over by the Papists and this innovation hath been of longer standing amongst us than several other parts of our new Divinity and maintained by those that profess to abhor that corrupt Doctrine which the Papist have built upon such Principles Modern Divines may think they stand upon the Shoulders of their Predecessors whose Labours they enjoy and that they can see farther than they as the School-men might have like thoughts of the ancient Fathers but for all this they may not be able to see so far if the eyes of their Predecessors were better enlightned by the Spirit of God to understand the Mystery of the Gospel and why may we not judge that it is so in the present Case The Eyes of Men in these late Years have been blinded in this point of Assurance by many false Imaginations They think that because Salvation is not promised to us absolutely but upon condition of believing on Christ for it therefore we must first believe directly on Christ for our Salvation and after that we must reflect our Minds upon our Faith and examine it by several Marks and Signs especially by the Fruit of sincere Obedience and if upon this examination we find out certainly that it is true saving Faith then and not before we may believe assuredly that we in particular shall be saved On this account they say that our Salvation is by the direct and our assurance by the reflect act of Faith and that many have true Faith and shall be saved that never have any assurance of their Salvation as long as they live in this World they find by Scripture and Experience that many precious Saints of God are frequently troubled with doubtings whither they shall be saved and whither their Faith and Obedience
walk according to the Principles and Practices of your old natural state and you will be moved thereby to yield to the Dominion of Sin and Satan to withdraw your selves from God and Godliness as Adam was moved from the sight of his own Nakedness to hide himself from God Gen. 3.10 Therefore your way to a holy practice is first to conquer and spoil such unbelieving thoughts by trusting confidently on Christ and persuading your selves by Faith that his Righteousness Spirit Glory and all his spiritual Benefits are yours and he dwelleth in you and you in him In the might of this Confidence you should go forth to the performance of the Law and you will be strong against Sin and Satan and able to do all things through Christ that strengthens you This consident perswasion is of great necessity to the right framing and disposing our Hearts to walk according to our new state in Christ The Life of Faith principally consisteth in it And herein it eminently appeareth that Faith is an Hand not only to receive Christ but also to work by him and that it cannot be effectual for our Sanctification except it contain in it some Assurance of our Interest in Christ as hath bin shewed Thus we act as those that are above the Sphear of Nature advanced to Union and Fellowship with Christ The Apostle maintained in his Heart a perswasion that Christ had loved him and given himself for him and hereby he was enabled to live to God in Holiness through Christ living in him by Faith He teacheth us also that we must maintain the like perswasion if we would walk holily in Christ We must know that our old man is crucified with him and we must reckon our selves dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 6.6 This is the means whereby we may be filled with the Spirit strong in the Lord and the power of his might which God would not require of us if he had not appointed the means Eph. 6. Christ himself walked in a constant perswasion of his excellent state he set the Lord always before him and was perswaded that because God was at his right hand he should not he moved Psal 16.8 How should it be rationally expected that a Man should Act according to this new state without Assurance that he is in it It s a rule of Common Prudence in all worldly Callings and Conditions that every one must know and consider well his own State lest he should act proudly above it or sordidly below it and it is a hard thing to bring some to a right estimate of their own worldly Conditions If the same rule were observed in Spiritual things doubtless the knowledg and perswasion of the Glory and Excellency of our new state in Christ would more elevate the hearts of Believers above all sordid Salvery to their Lusts and enlarge them to run chearfully the ways of Gods Commandments If Christians knew their own Strength better they would enterprize greater things for the Glory of God This Knowledge is difficultly attained it is only by Faith and spiritual Illumination the best know but in part and hence it is that the Conversation of Believers falleth so much below their holy and heavenly Calling 6. Consider what Endowments Priviledges or Properties of your new State are most meet and forcible to incline and strengthen your Heart to love God above all and to renounce all Sin and to give up your self to Universal Obedience to his Commands and strive to walk in the persuasion of them that you may attain to the Practice of these great Dutiesâ— I may well joyn these together because to love the Lord with all our Hearts Might and Soul is the first and great Commandment which influenceth us to all Obedience with a hatred and detestation of all Sin as it 's contrary and hateful to God The same effectual means that produceth the one will also produce the other and Holiness chiefly consisteth in these So the chief Blessings of our holy State are most meet and forcible to enable us for the immediate performance of them and are to be made use of to this end by Faith Particularly you must believe stedfastly that all your Sins are blotted out and that you are reconciled to God and have access into his Favour by the Blood of Christ and that he is your God and Father and altogether Love to you and your all-sufficient everlasting Portion and Happiness through Christ Such Apprehensions as these do present God as a very lovely Object to our Hearts and do thereby allure and win our Affections that cannot be forced by Commands or Threatnings but must be sweetly won and drawn by Allurements We must not harbour any Suspicions that God will prove a terrible everlasting Enemy to us if we would love him for there is no fear in Love but perfect Love casteth out Fear because Fear hath Torment he that feareth is not made perfect in Love we love him because he first loved us 1 Joh. 4.18 19. David loved the Lord because he was persuaded that he was his Strength Rock Fortress his God and the horn of his salvation Psal 18.1 2. Love that causeth Obedience unto the Law must proceed from a good Conscience purged from sin and this good Conscience must proceed from Faith unfeigned whereby we apprehend the remission of our sins our Reconciliation with God by the merits of the blood of Christ 1 Tim. 1.5 with Heb. 9.14 For the same end that your Hearts may be rightly fitted and framed for the performance of these principal Duties the Holy Scripture directeth you to walk in the perswasion of other principal Endowments of your new state As that you have fellowship with the Father and the Son 1 Joh. 1.3 That you are the Temple of the living God 2 Cor. 6.16 That you live by the Spirit Gal. 5.25 That you are called to Holiness and created in Christ Jesus unto good works That God will sanctisie you wholly and make you perfect in holiness at the last 1 Thes 5.23 24. Eph. 2.10 That your old man is crucified with Christ and through him you are dead unto sin and alive unto God and being made free from sin you are become the Servants of Righteousness and have your Fruit unto Holiness and the End Everlasting Life Rom. 6.6 22. You are Dead and your Life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is your Life shall appear then shall you also appear with him in Glory Col. 3.3 4. Such perswasions as these when they are deeply rooted and constantly maintained in our Hearts do strongly Arm and Encourage us to practise Universal Obedience in opposition to every sinful Lust Because we look upon it not only as our Duty but our great Priviledge to do all things through Christ strengthning of us and God doth certainly work in us both to will and to do by these Principles because they properly belong to the Gospel
they know at what time and by what Text of Scripture they were converted and can make large Discourses of the workings of God upon their Hearts and are prone to talk unseasonably with Vain-glorying of their own Experiences when at last all their Experiences are not sufficient to evidence that they ever attained to the least measure of true saving Faith Therefore that we may not unjustly condemn or justify our Faith by proceeding on in-sufficient Evidences in its Tryal our best way is to examine it by the inseparable Properties of a true saving Faith by putting to our selves such Questions as these Are we made throughly sensible of our Sinfulness and of the Deadness and Misery of our natural State so as to despair absolutely of ever attaining to any Righteousness Holyness or true Happiness while we continue in it Are the Eyes of our Understandings enlightned to see the Excellency of Christ and the alone Sufficiency and All-sufficiency of his Grace for our Salvation Do we prefer the Enjoyment of him above all things and desire it with our whole Heart as our only Happiness whatsoever we may suffer for his sake Do we desire with our whole Heart to be delivered from the Power and Practice of Sin as well as from the Wrath of God and the Pains of Hell Do our Hearts come to Christ and lay hold on him for Salvation by trusting him only and endeavouring to trust on him confidently notwithstanding all Fears and Doubts that assault us If you find in your self a Faith that hath these Properties though as small as a Grain of Mustard-Seed and opposed with much Unbelief and manifold Corruptions in your Soul you may conclude that you are in a state of Salvation at present and that your remaining work is to continue and grow in it more and more and to walk worthy of it you should also examine the Fruits of your Faith and try whether you can shew your Faith by your works as you are taught Jam. 2.18 that you may be sure not to be deceived in your Judgment concerning it And though it be true as I have noted that Doubts concerning your Faith will breed doubting concerning the Sincerity of other Qualifications that are Fruits thereof yet possibly you may get such clear Evidences of your Sincerity as may overcome and expell all your Doubts And here you are not only to enquire whether your Inclinations Purposes Affections and Actions be materially good and holy but also by what Principles they are bred and influenced Whether it be by slavish fears of Hell and mercenary hopes of getting Heaven by your Works which are legal and carnal Principles that can never breed true Holiness or by Gospel Principles as by love to God because God hath loved you first and to Christ because he hath dyed and by the hope of eternal Life as the free Gift of God through Christ and dependance on God to sanctify you by his Spirit according to his Promises Remember that the New Testament is the ministration of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.6 and the Spirit will sanctify us not by legal but by Gospel Principles Take notice further that you need not trouble your self to find out a multitude of Marks and Signs of true Grace if you can find a few good ones Particularly you may know That you are passed from death to life if you love the brethren 1 Joh. 3.14 i. e. if you love all whom you can in Charity judge to be true Believers and that because they are true Believers and for the Truth Sake that dwelleth in them As Solomon discerned the true Mother of the Child by her Affection towards her Child so the Mother Grace of Faith may be discerned by the Love that it breeds in us toward all true Believers To conclude this Point Happy are you if you can find so much Evidence of the Fruits of your Faith as may enable you to express your Sincerity in these moderate Terms Pray for us for we trust we have a good conscience in all things willing to live honestly Heb. 13.18 3. Meditation on the Word of God is of very great use and advantage for the attainment and practice of Holiness through Faith in Christ It is a Duty whereby the Soul doth Feed and Ruminate upon the Word as its Spiritual Food and digesteth it and turneth it into Nourishment whereby we are strengthned for every good Work Our Souls are satisfied therewith as with marrow and fatness When we remember God upon our Beds and meditate on him in the Night-watches Psal 68.5 6. The new Nature may well be called the Mind Rom. 7.25 because it liveth and acteth by minding of and meditating on spiritual things Therefore it is a Duty to be practised not only at some limited times but all the day Psal 119.97 yea day and night Psal 1.2 even in our ordinary Employments at home and abroad An habitual knowledge of the Word will not profit us without an active minding it by frequent Meditation Some think that much Preaching of the Word is not needful where a People are already brought to the knowledge of those things that are necessary to Salvation But they that are regenerated by the Word find by Experience that their Spiritual Life is maintained and encreased by often minding the same Word And therefore as new born Babes they desire the sincere milk of the Word that they may grow thereby 1 Pet. 2.2 and would by the Preachers be put often in remembrance of the same things that they may feed upon them by Meditation tho they know them already and are established in the present Truth 2 Pet. 1.12 But here our greatest Skill and chiefest Concernment lies in practising this Duty in such a manner as that it may be subservient and not at all opposite to the Life of Faith We must not rely upon the performance of a daily task of Meditation as a work of Righteousness for the procurement of the Favour of God instead of relying on the Righteousness of Christ as indeed we are prone to do to catch at any Straw rather than to trust only on the Free Grace of God in Christ for our Salvation And the end of our Meditation must not be meer Speculation and Knowledge of the Truth but rather the vigorous pressing it upon our Consciences and the stirring up our Hearts and Affections to the Practice of it And in stirring up our selves to holy Practice we must warily observe how far the several parts of the Truth of God are powerful and effectual for the attainment of this End that we may make use of them accordingly We must not imagine as too many do yea and some great Masters in the Art of Meditation that we can bring our Hearts effectually to the Love of God and Holiness and can work strange Metamorphoses and work or frame in our Hearts any holy Qualifications or Vertue meerly by working in our selves strong Apprehensions of God's eternal Power and God-head his
THE Gospel-Mystery OF SANCTIFICATION Opened in Sundry Practical Directions Suited especially to the Case of those who labour under the guilt and power of Indwelling Sin To which is added a Sermon of Justification 1 Cor. 1.27 28 29 30 31. God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty And base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen yea and things which are not to bring to nought things that are That no flesh should glory in his presence But of him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption That according as it is written He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. By Mr. WALTER MARSHAL late Preacher of the Gospel LONDON Printed for T. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1692. THE PREFACE READER MR. Walter Marshal Composer of these Directions how to attain to that practice and manner of Life which we call Holiness Righteousness or Godliness was Educated in New Colledge in Oxford and was a Fellow of the said Colledge and afterwards he was chosen a Fellow of the Colledge at Winchester but was put under the Bartholomew Bushel with nigh two Thousand more Lights a Sin not yet repented of whose illuminations made the Land a Goshen He was esteemed a Presbyterian and was called to be Pastor to a People at Gospert in Hampshire where he shined though he had not the Publick Oile the substance of these Meditations were there Spun out of his own Experiences he having been much exercised with troubled Thoughts and that for many Years and had by many Mortifying Methods sought Peace of Conscience but notwithstanding all his Troubles still increased Whereupon he consulted others particularly Mr. Baxter whose Writings he had been much conversant with who thereupon told Mr. Marshal he took them too Legally He afterwards consulted an Eminent Divine giving him an Account of the State of his Soul and particularizing his Sins that lay heavy on his Conscience who in his Reply told him He had forgot to mention the greatest Sin of all the Sin of Unbelief in not believing on the Lord Jesus for the Remission of his Sins and Sanctifying his Nature Hereupon he set himself to the studying and preaching of Christ and attained to eminent Holiness great peace of Conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost Mr. Marshal's dying Words were these The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord having but just before said to those about him that he now dyed in the full perswasion of the Truth and in the comfort of that Doctrine which he had Preached the sum whereof is contained in the ensuing Discourse Some time since he was translated by Death Elijah-like dropping these sheets as his Mantle for succeeding Elisha's to go forth with for the Conversion of Sinners and Comfort of drooping Souls These Papers are the profound Experiences of a studious Holy Soul Learned of the Father coming from his very Heart and smell of no Party or Design but for Holiness and Happiness yet it is to be feared they will scarcely go down with the heady Notionalists of this Age who are of the Tribe of Reuben wavering with every Wind of Modish Doctrine but in Judah it will be praised and we may hope that many Shrubs and Cedars hereby may advance in knowledge and comfort But not to detain thee longer read over all these Directions that you may fully understand the Author or read none if you do it with the serious humble spirit in which they were wrote it may be hop'd the matter being so weighty and from so able an Hand through the Grace of God they will sink into thy Conscience and make thee a solid Christian full of Faith Holiness and Consolation N. N. THE Author of these Directions was well known to me and was with me in my House a Month together above twenty years past and I esteem him a Person deserving the Character which this Preface giveth him T. Woodcock The GOSPEL MYSTERY OF SANCTIFICATION DIRECTION I. That we may acceptably perform the Duties of Holiness and Righteonsness required in the Law our first Work is to learn the powerful and effectual Means whereby we may attain to so Great an End EXPLICATION THIS Direction may serve instead of a Preface to prepare the Understanding and Attention of the Reader for those that follow And First It acquainteth you with the Great End for which all those Means are designed that are the principal Subject to be here treated of the Scope of all is To teach you how you may attain to that Practice and Manner of Life which we call Holiness Righteousness or Godliness Obedience True Religion and which God requireth of us in the Law particularly in the Moral Law Exod. 20. summed up in the Ten Commandments and more briefly in those Two great Commandments of Love to God and our Neighbour Mat. 22.37 39. and more largely explained throughout the Holy Scriptures My work is to shew how the Duties of this Law may be done when they are known therefore expect not that I should delay my intent to help you to the knowledge of them by any large Exposition of them which is a Work already performed in several Catechisms and Commentaries yet that you may not miss the Mark for want of discerning of it take notice in few words that the Holiness which I would bring you to is spiritual Rom. 7.14 It consists not only in external Works of Piety and Charity but in the Holy Thoughts Imaginations and Affections of the Soul and chiefly in Love from whence all other Good Works must flow or else they are not acceptable to God not only in refraining the execution of sinful Lusts but in lusting and delighting to do the Will of God and in a chearful Obedience to God without repining fretting grudging at any Duty as if it were a grievous Yoak and Burthen to you Take Notice further That the Law which is your Mark is exceeding broad Psal 119.96 and yet not the more easie to be hit because you must aim to hit it in every Duty of it with a performance of equal breadth or else you cannot hit it all Isai 2.10 The Lord is not at all loved with that Love that is due to him as Lord of all if he be not loved with all our Heart Spirit and Might We are to love every thing in him his Justice Holiness Sovereign Authority All-seeing Eye and all his Decrees Commands Judgments and all his Doings We are to love him not only better than other things but singly as Only Good the Fountain of all Goodness and to reject all fleshly and worldly Enjoyments even our own Lives as if we hated them when they stand in competition with our Enjoyment of him
meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand And shall we dare to rush into Battel against all the Powers of Darkness all Worldly Terrors and Allurements and our own inbred domineering Corruptions without considering whether we have sufficient Spiritual Furniture to stand in the Evil day Yet many content themselves with such an ability to will and do their Duty as they would have to be given to Men universally whereby they are no better enabled for the Spiritual Battel than the generality of the World that lie vanquished under the wicked One and therefore their standing is not at all secured by it It is an hard matter to find what this universal ability is that so many contend so earnestly for of what it consisteth by what means it is conveyed to us and maintained Bodily Ability hath Spirits Nerves Ligaments Bones to subsist by but this Spiritual Universal Ability seemeth to be some occult Quality that no sufficient Account can be given how it is conveyed or of what it is constituted That none may deceive themselves and miscarry in their Enterprizes for Holiness by depending on such a weak occult Quality I have here shewed four Endowments of which a true ability for the Practice of Holiness must necessarily be constituted and by which it must subsist and be maintained intending to shew afterward by what means they are given unto us and whether the inclination or perswasion here mentioned be perfect or imperfect And they are of such a mysterious nature that such as own the necessity of Endowments to frame them for Holiness are prone to think that less than these will serve and that some of these frame us rather for Licentiousness than Holiness as they are here placed before any actual performance of the Moral Law and that some things contrary to them would put us into a better frame for Holiness against all such surmises I shall endeavour such a demonstration of these Endowments particularly as may gain the assent of right Reason insisting on them in the same order wherein I have placed them in the Direction In the first place I assert that an Inclination and Propensity of the Heart to the Duties of the Law is necessary to frame and enable us for the immediate Practice of them and I mean not such a blind Propensity as inanimate Creatures and Brutes have to their natural Operations but such an one as is meet for intelligent Creatures whereby they are by the Conduct of Reason prone and bent to approve and chuse their Duty and averse to the Practice of Sin And therefore I have intimated that the Three other Endowments mentioned in the Direction are subservient to this as the chief of all which are sufficient to make it a rational Propensity This is contrary to those that out of Zeal for Obedience according to Knowledge contend so earnestly for Free-will as a necessary and sufficient Endowment to enable us to perform our Duty when once we are convinc'd of it and of our Obligation to it and that extol this Endowment as the great Benefit that Universal Redemption hath blessed all Mankind with though they Consider this Free-will without any actual Inclination to Good yea they cannot but acknowledge that in most of Mankind that have it it is encumbred with an actual Bent and Propensity of the Heart altogether to evil Such a Free-will as this is can never free us from Slavery to Sin and Satan and fit us for the Practice of the Law and therefore is not worthy the pains of those that contend so hotly for it Neither is the Will so free as is necessary for the Practice of Holiness until it be endued with an inclination and Propensity thereunto as may appear by the follow Arguments First The Duties of the Law are of such a nature that they cannot possibly be performed while there is wholly an aversness or mere indifferency of the Heart to the Performance of them and no good Inclination and Propensity toward the Practice of them Because the chief of all the Commandments is to love the Lord with our whole Heart Might and Soul to love every thing that is in him to love his Will and all his Ways and to like them as good and all Duties must be influenced in their Performance by this Love we must delight to do the Will of God it must be to us as our Meat and Drink we must long and thirst for it it must be sweeter to us than the honey or honey comb Psal 40.8.30.4 34. Psal 63 1. and 119.20 and 19.10 And this Love Likeing Delight Longing Thirsting Sweet-relishing must be continued to the end and the first indeliberate Motions of Lust must be regulated by Love to God and our Neighbour and Sin must be lusted against Gal. 5.17 and abhorred Psal 36.8 If it were true Obedience as some would have it to love our Duty only as a Market-man loveth foul Ways to the Market or as a Sick man loveth an unpleasant medicinal Potion or as a Captive Slave loveth his hard Work for fear of a greater Evil then it might be performed with averseness of Inclination but we must love it as the Market-man Gain as the Sick man Health as pleasant Meat and-Drink as the Captive Liberty Doubtless there can be no Power in the Will for this kind of Service without an Agreeableneâ—â— of our Inclination to the Will of God a Heart according to his own Heart an Averseness of our Hearts from Sin and a kind of Antipathy against Sin for we know the Proverb Like loveth like there must be an Agreeableness of the Person or thing beloved to the Disposition of the Lover Love to God must flow from a clean heart 1 Tim. 1.5 Cleansed from evil Propensities and Inclinations and Reason will tell us that the first Motions of Lust which fall not under our Choice and Deliberation cannot be avoided without a fixed Propensity of the Heart to Holiness 2ly The Image of God wherein God according to his infinite Wisdom judged it meet to frame the first Adam in righteousness and true holiness and uprightness Gen. 1.27 Ephes 4.24 Eccles 7.29 consisted in an actual Bent and Propensity of his Heart to the Practice of Holiness not in a mere Power of Will to chuse Good or Evil For this in it self is neither holy nor unholy but only a Ground-work on which either the Image of God or of Satan may be drawn nor in an indifference of Propensity to the choice of Sin or Duty for this is a wicked Disposition in an intelligent Creature that knoweth his Duty and fitteth us only to halt betwixt God and Baal God set Adam's Soul at first wholly in a right Bent and Inclination though Adam might act contrary to it if he would as we may be prevailed upon to do some things contrary to our natural or rational Inclinations and it is easie to fail of our Duty though great Preparation and Furniture be required for the Performance
Rom. 8.7 8. Therefore that they may be encouraged and rationally enclined to Holiness they must hope that God will work savingly in them Now I leave it to considerate Men to judge whether such an Hope can be well grounded without a good Perswasion of such a Reconciliation and Saving-love of God to us as dependeth not upon any precedent goodness of our Works but is a cause sufficient to produce them effectually in us Yea we know further if we know our selves sufficiently that our Death in Sin proceeded from the Guilt of the first Sin of Adam and the Sentence denounced against it Gen. 2.17 And that it is still maintain'd in us by the Guilt of Sin and the Curse of the Law and that Spiritual Life will never be given us to free us from that Dominion except this Guilt and Curse be removed from us which is done by actual Justification Gal. 3.13 14. Rom. 6.14 And this is sufficient to make us despair of living to God in Holiness while we apprehend our selves to be under the Curse and Wrath of God by reason of our Transgressions and Sins still lying upon us Ezek. 33.10 Thirdly The nature of Duties of the Law is such as requireth an Apprehention of our Reconciliation with God and his hearty Love and Favour towards us for the doing of them The great Duty is Love to God with our whole Heart and not such a contemplative Love as Philosophers may have to the Object of Sciences which they are concern'd in no further than to please their Fancies in the knowledge of them but a practical Love whereby we are willing that God should be absolute Lord and Governour of us and all the World to dispose of us and all others according to his Will as to our temporal and everlasting Condition and that he should be the only Portion and Happiness of all those that are happy a Love whereby we like every thing in him as he is our Lord his Justice as well as any other Attribute without wishing or desiring that he were better than he is and whereby we desire that his Will may be done upon us and all others whether for Prosperity or Adversity Life or Death and whereby we can heartily praise him for all things and delight in our Obedience to him in doing his Will though we suffer that which is never so grievous to us even present Death Consider these things well and you may easily perceive that our Spirits are not in a fit frame for the doing of them while we apprehend our selves under the Curse and Wrath of God or while we are under prevailing Suspitions that God will prove an Enemy to us at last Slavish Fear may extort some slavish hypocritical Performances from us such as that of Pharaoh in letting the Israelites go sore against his Will but the Duty of Love cannot be extorted and forced by Fear but it must be won and sweetly allured by an Apprehension of God's Love and Goodness towards us as that eminent loving and beloved Disciple testifieth 1 Job 4.18 19. There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear because fear hath torment He that feareth is not made perfect in love we love him because he first loved us Observe here that we cannot be before hand with God in loving him before we apprehend his Love to us And consult your own Experience if you have any true Love to God whether it were not wrought in you by a sense of God's Love first toward you All the goodness and excellency of God cannot render him an amiable Object to us except we apprehend him an agreeable good to us I question not but the Devils know the excellency of Gods Nature as well as our greatest Metaphysical Speculators and this doth but fill them the more with tormenting horror and trembling that is contrary to Love Ja. 2.19 The greater God's Excellency and Perfection is the greater Evil he is to us if he hate us and curse us and therefore the Principle of Self-preservation deeply rooted in our natures hindreth us from loving that which we apprehend as our own Destruction if a Man be an Enemy to us we can love him for the sake of our loving reconciled God because his Love will make Man's Hatred to work for our good but if God himself be our Enemy for whose sake can we love him Who is there that can free us from the evil of his Enemity and turn it to our Advantage until he be pleased to reconcile himself to us Fourthly Our Conscience must of necessity be first purged from dead works that we may serve the living God and this is done by actual Remission of Sin procured by the Blood of Christ and manifested to our Consciences as appeareth by Christ's dying for this end Heb. 9.14 15. and 10.1 2. 4. 14 17 22. That Conscience whereby we judge our selves to be under the guilt of sin and wrath of God is accounted an evil Conscience in Scripture though it perform its Office truly because it is caused by the evil of sin and will it self be a cause of our committing more sin until it can judge us to be justified from all sin and received into the Favour of God Love which is the end of the Law must proceed from a good Conscience as well as from any other cleanness of Heart 1 Tim. 1.5 David's Mouth could not be opened to shew forth the Praise of God until he was delivered from Blood-guiltiness Psal 51.14 15. This evil guilty Conscience whereby we judge that God is our Enemy and that his Justice is against us to our everlasting Condemnation by reason of our sins doth strongly maintain and increase the Dominion of Sin and Satan in us and worketh most mischievous effects in the Soul against Godliness even to bring the Soul to hate God and to wish there were no God no Heaven no Hell so we might escape the Punishment due to us It so disaffecteth People toward God that they cannot endure to think or speak or hear of him and his Law but strive either to put him out of their minds by fleshly Pleasures and worldly Imployments and thus they are alienated from all true Religion only blinding it and stopping the mouth of it It produceth Zeal in many outside religious Performances and also false Religion Idolatry and the most inhumane Superstitions in the World I have often considered by what manner of working any Sin could effectually destroy the whole Image of God in the first Adam and I conclude it was by working first an evil guilty Conscience in him whereby he judged that the just God was against him and cursed him for that one Sin and this was enough to work a shameful Nakedness by disorderly Lusts a turning his Love wholly from God to the Creature and a desire to be hidden from the Presence of God Gen. 3.8 10. which was a total Destruction of the Image of God's Holiness And we have cause to
How can such an one be willing to lay down his Life for the sake of God when by his Death he must part with God as well as with other things How can he willingly chuse Afflictions rather than Sin when he shall be more miserable in this Life for it and not at all happy hereafter I grant if Affliction come unavoidably upon such a Person he may reasonably judge that Patience is better for him than Impatience but it will displease him that he is forced to the use of such a Virtue and he will be prone to fret and murmure at his Creator and to wish he had never been rather than to endure such miseries and to be comforted only with vain transitory Enjoyments I think I have said enough to shew how unfurnished such a Man is for Holiness and he that will burn up Heaven and quench Hell that he may serve God out of Love doth thereby leave himself â— little better furnished than the Sadduce the one denieth them the other will not have them at all to be considered in this case Secondly The sure Hope of the Glory of Heaven is made use of ordinarily by God since the Fall of Adam for the Practice of Holiness as the Scripture doth abundantly shew Christ the great pattern of holiness for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame Heb. 12.2 And though I cannot say that the first Adam had such a sure Hope to preserve him in Innocency yet he had instead of it the present Possession of an earthly Paradice and an happy Estate in it which he knew would last if he continued in Holiness or be changed into a better Happiness The Apostles did not faint under Affliction because they knew that it worked for them a more exceeding eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.16 17. The believing Hebrews took joyfully the spoiling of their Goods knowing in themselves that they had an Heaven a better and more enduring Substance Heb. 10.34 The Apostle Paul accounts all his Sufferings unprofitable were it not for a glorious Resurrection and that Christians would be of all Men most miserable and that the Doctrine of the Epicures were rather to be chosen Let us eat and drmk for to morrow we shall die And he exhorts the Corinthians to be abundant in the work of the Lord knowing that their labour shall not be in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 As worldly Hope keepeth the World at work in their various Employments so God giveth his People the Hope of his Glory to keep them close to his Service Heb. 6.11 12. 1 Joh. 3.3 And it is such a sure Hope as shall never make them ashamed Rom. 5.28 Those that think it below the excellency of their Love to work out of Hope of the Heavenly Reward do thereby advance their Love beyond the Love of the Apostles and Primitive Saints and even of Christ himself 3dly This perswasion of our future enjoyment of everlasting Happiness cannot tend to Licentiousness if we understand well that perfect Holiness is a necessary part of that Happiness and that tho' we have a Title to that Happiness by free Justification and Adoption yet we must go to the possession of it in a way of Heliness 1 Jo. 3.1 2 3. Neither is it legal or mercenary to be moved by this Perswasion seeing the Perswasion it self is not gotten by the Works of the Law but by free Grace through Faith Gal. 5.5 And if it be a working out of self-love yet for certain it is not that carnal self-love which the Scripture condemneth as the Mother of Sinfulness 2 Tim. 3.2 but an holy self-love enclining us to prefer God above the Flesh and the World such as God directeth us unto when he exhorteth us to save our selves Acts 2.40 And it is so far from being contrary to the pure Love of God that it brings us to love God more purely and entirely The more good and beneficial we apprehend God to us to all Eternity doubtless the more lovely God will be to us and our Affections will be the more enflamed towards him God will not be loved as a barren Wilderness a Land of Darkness to us neither will he be served for nought Jer. 2.31 Is 45.19 He would think it a Dishonour to him to be owned by us as our God if he had not prepared for us a City Heb. 11.16 And he draweth us to love him by the Cords of a Man such Cords as the Love of Men useth to be drawn by even by his own Love to us in laying his Benefits before us Hos 11.4 Therefore the way for us to keep our selves in the Love of God is to look for his Mercy unto eternal Life Jude 21. The last Endowment for the same end as the former is that we be well perswaded of sufficient Strength both to will and perform our Duty acceptably until we come to the Enjoyment of the heavenly Happiness This is contrary to the Error of those that account it sufficient if we have strength to practice Holiness if we will or to will it if we please and this is the sufficient strength which they earnestly contend for as a great Benefit bestowed on all Mankind by universal Redemption It is also contrary to the Error of those that think the Practice of Godliness and Wickedness to be alike easie excepting only some difficulty in the first Alterations of vicious Customs and in bearing Persecutions which they account to be a rare Case since the Kingdoms of the World have been brought to the Profession of Christianity or that think that God requireth of Men only to do their Endeavour that is what they can do and it is nonsence to say they cannot do what they can do According to their Judgment it is needless to concern our selves much about sufficient Strength for holy Practice For the confirmation of the Assertion against these Errours take these Arguments First We are by nature dead in Trespasses and Sins unable to will or do any thing that is spiritually good notwithstanding the Redemption that is by Christ until we be actually quickened by Christ Ephes 2 1â— Rom. 8.7 8 9. Those that are sufficiently enlightned and humbled know themselves to be naturally in this Case and that they do not want only executive Power to do good but chiefly an Heart to will it and to be pleased with it and that if God work not in them both to will and to do they shall neither will nor do any thing pleasing to him Phil. 2.13 And that if he leave them to their own Corruption after he hath begun the good Work they shall certainly prove vile Apostates and their latter end will be worse than their beginning We may conclude from hence that whosoever can couragiously attempt the Practice of the Law without being well perswaded of a sufficient Power whereby he may be enabled to be heartily willing as well as to perform when he is
after the Spirit Rom. 8.3 4. Observe here that though Christ died that we might be justified by the Righteousness of God and of Faith not by our own Righteousness which is of the Law Rom. 10.4 5 6. Phil. 3.9 yet he died also that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us and that by walking after his Spirit as those that are in Christ Rom. ibid. He is resembled in his Death to a Corn of Wheat dying in the Earth that it may propagate its own nature by bringing forth much Fruit Joh. 12.24 to the Passover that was slain that a Feast might be kept upon it and to Bread broken that it may be Nourishment to those that eat it 1 Cor. 5.7 8. and 11.24 To the Rock smitten that Water may gush out of it for us to drink 1 Cor. 10.4 He died that he might make of Jew and Gentile one New Man in himself Ephes 2.15 and that he might see his seed i. e. such as derive their holy Nature from him Is 53.10 Let these Scriptures be well observed and they will sufficiently evidence that Christ died not that we might be able to form an holy Nature in our selves but that we might receive one ready prepared and formed in Christ for us by Union and Fellowship with him By his Resurrection he took Possession of Spiritual life for us as now fully procured for us and made to be our Right and Property by the Merit of his Death and therefore we are said to be quickned together with Christ even when we were dead in sins and to be raised up together yea and to be made to sit together in heavenly Places in Christ Jesus as our Head while we continue upon Earth in our own Persons Ephes 2.5 6. His Resurrection was our Resurrection to the Life of Holiness as Adam's Fall was our Fall into spiritual Death and we are not our selves the first makers and formers of our new holy Nature any more than of our Original Corruption but both are formed ready for us to partake of them And by Union with Christ we partake of that spiritual Life that he took Possession of for us at his Resurrection and thereby we are enabled to bring forth the Fruits of it as the Scripture sheweth by the Similitude of a Marriage Union Rom. 7.4 We are married to him that is risen from the Dead that we might bring forth Fruit unto God Baptism signifieth the Application of Christ's Resurrection to us as well as his Death we are raised up with him in it to newness of Life as well as buried with him and we are taught thereby that because he died unto sin once and liveth unto God we should likewise reckon our selves to be dead indeed unto Sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 6.4 5 10 11. Fourthly Our Sanctification is by the Holy Ghost by whom we live and walk holily Rom. 15.16 Gal. 5.25 Now the Holy Ghost first rested on Christ in all fulness that he might be communicated from him to us as was signified to John the Baptist by the Similitude of the descending of a Dove from the opened Heavens resting on Christ at his Baptism Joh. 1.32.33 And when he sanctifieth us he baptizeth us into Christ and joyneth us to Christ by himself as the great Bond of Union 1 Cor. 12.13 So that according to the Scriptural Phrase it is all one to have Christ himself and to have the Spirit of Christ in us Rom. 8.9 10. He glorifieth Christ for he receiveth those things that are Christ's and sheweth them to us Joh. 16.14 15. He giveth us an experimental Knowledge of those spiritual Blessings which he himself prepared for us by the Incarnation Death and Resurrection of Christ Fifthly The effectual Causes of those four principal Endowments which in the foregoing Direction were asserted necessary to furnish us for the immediate Practice of Holiness are comprehended in the fulness of Christ and treasured up for us in him and the Endowment themselves together with their Causes are attained richly by Union and Fellowship with Christ If we be joyned to Christ our Hearts will be no longer left under the Power of sinful Inclinations or in a meer indifferency of Inclination to good or evil but they will be powerfully endued with a Power Bent and Propensity to the Practice of Holiness by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us and inclining us to mind spiritual things and to lust against the Flesh Rom. 8.1 4 5. Gal. 5.17 And we have in Christ a full Reconciliation with God and an Advancement into higher Favour with him than the first Adam had in the State of Innocency because the Righteousness that Christ wrought out for us by his Obedience unto Death is imputed to us for our Justification which is called the Righteousness of God because it was wrought by one that is God as well as Man and therefore it is of an infinite value to satisfie the Justice of God for all our sins and to procure his Pardon and highest Favour for us 2 Cor. 5.21 Rom. 1.19 And that we may be perswaded of this Reconciliation we receive the Spirit of Adoption through Christ whereby we cry Abba Father Rom. 8.15 Hereby also we are perswaded of our future Enjoyment of the everlasting heavenly Happiness and of sufficient Strength both to will and to perform our Duty acceptably until we come to that Enjoyment For the Spirit of Adoption teacheth us to conclude that if we be the Children of God then we are heirs of God joynt-heirs with Christ And that the Law of the Spirit of Life that is in Christ Jesus maketh us free from the Law of Sin and Death and that nothing shall be against us nothing shall separate us from the Love of God in Christ but in all opposition and difficulties that we meet with we shall be at last more than conquerours through him that loved us Rom. 8.17.23 35 37 39. Furthermore this comfortable Perswasion of our Justification and future Happiness and all saving Priviledges cannot tend to licentiousness as it is given only in this way of Union with Christ because it is joyned inseparably with the Gift of Sanctification by the Spirit of Christ so that we cannot have Justication or any saving Priviledge in Christ except we receive Christ himself and his Holiness as well as any other Benefit as the Scripture testifieth that there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8.1 Sixthly Whereas it may be doubted whether the Saints that lived before the coming of Christ in the Flesh could possibly be one Flesh with him and receive a new Nature by Union and Fellowship with him as prepared for them in his fulness we are to know that the same Christ that took our Flesh was before Abraham Joh. 8.58 and was fore-ordained before the Foundation of the World to be sacrificed as a Lamb
by meer conviction of the Truth such as wicked Men and Devils may be brought to when they had rather it were false Neither must our believing on Christ be only constrained for fear of Damnation without any hearty Love and Desire towards the enjoyment of him but we must receive the Love of the Truth by relishing the Goodness and Excellency of it and we must account all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord and count them but dung that we may win Christ and be found in him 2 Thess 2.10 Phil. 3.8 9. esteeming Christ to be all our Salvation and Happiness Col. 3.11 in whom all fulness doth dwell Col. 1.19 And this Love must be to every part of Christ's Salvation to Holiness as well as Forgiveness of Sins We must desire earnestly that God would create in us a clean Heart and right Spirit as well as hide his face from our sins Psal 51.9 10. not like many that care for nothing in Christ but only Deliverance from Hell Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled Mat. 5.6 The former of these Acts doth not immediately unite us to Christ because it is terminated only on the means of Conveyance the Gospel yet it is a saving Act if it be rightly performed because it enclineth and disposeth the Soul to the latter Act whereby Christ himself is immediately received into the Heart He that believeth the Gospel with hearty love and liking as the most Excellent Truth will certainly with the like heartiness believe on Christ for his Salvation They that know the name of the Lord will certainly put their trust in him Psal 9.10 Therefore in Scripture Saving-Faith is sometimes described by the former of these Acts as if it were a meer believing the Gospel sometimes by the latter as a believing on Christ or in Christ Rom. 10.9 If thou believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved 11 the Scripture saith Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed 1 John 5.1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God 13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God For the better understanding of the nature of Faith let it be further observed that the Second and Principal of it believing on Christ includeth believing on God the Father Son and Holy Ghost because they are one and the same infinite God and they all concurr in our Salvation by Christ as the only Mediator betwixt God and us in whom all the promises of God are yea and amen 2 Cor. 1.20 By him as mediator we believe on God that raised him from the dead and gave him glory that our faith and hope might be in God 1 Pet. 1.21 And it is the same thing with trusting on God or on the Lord which is so highly commended in the whole Scripture especially in the Old Testament as may easily appear by considering that it hath the same Causes Effects Objects Adjuncts Opposites and all the same Circumstances excepting only that it had a respect to Christ as promised before his Coming and now it respecteth him as already come in the Flesh Believing in the Lord and trusting on his Salvation are equivalent terms that explain one another Psal 78.22 I confess that trusting on things seen or known by the meer Light of Reason as on our own Wisdom Power Riches on Princes or any Arm of Flesh may not so properly be called believing on them but trusting on a Saviour as discovered by a Testimony is properly believing on him It is also the same thing that is expressed by the terms of resting relying leaning staying our selves on the Lord because it is the Ground of that Expectation that is the proper Act of Hope though our Believing and Trusting be for the present as well as future benefit of this Salvation The reason why it is so commonly expressed in the Scriptures of the New Testament by the terms of believing on Christ might be probably because when that part of Scripture was written there was cause in a special manner to urge believing the Testimony that was then newly revealed by the Gospel Having thus explained the nature of Faith I come now to assert its proper Use and Office in our Salvation That it is the Means and Instrument whereby we receive Christ and all his Fulness actually into our Hearts This excellent Use and Office of Faith is encountered by a multitude of Errors men naturally esteem that it is too small and slight a thing to produce so great effects as Naaman thought washing in Jordan too small a matter for the cure of his Leprosie They contemn the true means of entring in at the streight Gate because they seem too easie for such purpose and thereby they make the Entrance not only difficult but impossible to themselves Some will allow that Faith is the sole Condition of our Justification and the Instrument to receive it according to the Doctrine maintained formerly by the Protestants against the Papists but they account that it is not sufficient or effectual to Sanctification but that it rather tendeth to Licentiousness if it be not joyned with some other means that may be powerful and effectual to procure an holy Practice They commend this great Doctrine of Protestants as a comfortable Cordial for Persons upon their Death-beds or in Agonies under Terrors of Conscience but they account that it is not good for ordinary Food and that it is Wisdom in Ministers to preach it seldom and sparingly and not without some Antidote or Corrective to prevent the licentiousness to which it tendeth Their common Antidote or Corrective is That Sanctification is necessary to Salvation as well as Justification and that though we be justified by Faith yet we are sanctified by our own performance of the Law and so they set up Salvation by works and make the Grace of Justification to be of none effect and not at all comfortable If it had indeed such a malignant influence upon Practice it could not be owned as a Doctrine proceeding from the most holy God and all the Comfort that it affords must needs be ungrounded and deceitful This Consequence is well understood by some late Refiners of the Protestant Religion and therefore they have thought fit to new-model this Doctrine and to make Saving-Faith to be only a Condition to procure a Right and Title to our Justification by the Righteousness of Christ which must be performed before we can lay any good claim to the enjoyment of it and before we have any right to the actual receiving of it and this they call an accepting of or receiving Christ And that they may the better secure the practice of Holiness by their Conditional Faith they will not have trusting on God
continue without it for some considerable time Ephes 2.12 And though some may have the Spirit of Faith given to them from their Mothers Womb as John the Baptist Luke 1.15.44 yet even in them there is a natural Being by Generation before there can be a Spiritual Being by Regeneration 1 Cor. 15.46 Hence ariseth the Consideration of two States or Conditions of the Children of Men in Matters that appertain to God and Godliness the one of which is vastly different from the other Those that have the Happiness of a New-birth and Creation in Christ by Faith are thereby placed in a very excellent State consisting in the Enjoyment of the Righteousness of Christ for their Justification and of the Spirit of Christ to live by in Holiness here and Glory for ever as hath already appeared Those that are not in Christ by Faith cannot be in a better State than that which they received together with their Nature from the first Adam by being once born and created in him or than they can attain to by the Power of that Nature with any such help as God is pleased to afford to it This latter I call a Natural State because it consisteth in such things as we have either received by natural Generation or can attain to by natural Power through Divine Assistance as the Scripture calleth Man in this State the natural Man 1. Cor. 2.14 The former I call a new State because we enter into it by a new Birth in Christ and I may call it a Spiritual State according to the Scripture because it received from Christ the quickening Spirit and the Natural and Spiritual Man are opposed 1 Cor. 2.14 15. though some call both these States Spiritual because the everlasting Weal or Woe of the Soul or Spirit of Man is chiefly concerned in them It is a common Error of those that are in a corrupt natural State that they seek to reform their Lives according to the Law without any thoughts that their State must be changed before their Lives can be changed from Sin to Righteousness The Heathen that knew nothing of a new State in Christ were urged by their own Consciences to practice several Duties of the Law according to the Knowledge they had by the Light of Nature Rom. 2.14 15. Israel according to the Flesh had a Zeal of God and Godliness and endeavoured to practice the written Law at least in external Performances while they were Enemies to the Faith of Christ and Paul attainted so far that he was blameless in these external Performances of the Righteousness of the Law while he persecuted the Church of Christ Phil. 3.6 Some are so near the Kingdom of God while they continue in a Natural State that they are convinced of the Spirituality of the Law that it bindeth us principally to love God with all our Heart Soul Mind and Strength and to love our Neighbour as our selves and to perform universal Obedience to God in all our inward Thoughts and Affections as well as in all our outward Actions and to do all the Duties that we owe to our Neighbour out of this hearty Love Mark 12 33 34 And they struggle and labour with great earnestness to subdue their inward Thoughts and Affections to the Law of God and to abstain not only from some Sins but from all known Sins and to perform every known Duty of the Law with their whole Heart and Soul as they think and are so active and intent in their devout Practice that they overwork their natural Strength and so servent in their Zeal that they are ready even to kill their Bodies with Fastings and other Macerations that they may kill their sinful Lusts They are strongly convinced that Holiness is absolutely necessary to Salvation and deeply affected with the Terrours of Damnation and yet they were never so much enlightened in the Mystery of the Gospel as to know that a new State in Christ is necessary to a new Life therefore they labour in vain to reform their natural State instead of getting above it in Christ And some of these when they have mispent many Years in striving against the Stream of their Lusts without any Success do at last fall miserably into Despair of ever attaining to Holiness and turn to wallowing in the mire of their Lusts or are fearfully swallowed up with horrour of Conscience There are several false Opinions whereby such ignorant Zealots encourage themselves in their fruitless Endeavours Some of them judge that they are able to practice Holiness because they are not compelled to sin and may abstain from it if they will To this they add That Christ by the Merit of his Death hath restored that Freedom of Will to good which was lost by the Fall and hath set Nature upon its Legs again and that if they endeavour to do what lieth in them Christ will do the rest by assisting them with the Supplies of his saving Grace so they trust upon the Grace of Christ to help them in their Endeavours They plead further That it would not consist with the Justice of God to punish them for Sin if they could not avoid it and that it would be in vain for the Ministers of the Gospel to preach to them and exhort them to any saving Duty if they cannot perform it They produce Examples of I leathens and of such as had the name of Christians without any acquaintance with the Faith that I have described who have attained to a great Excellency in religious Words and Works My Work at present is to deliver those ignorant Zealots from their fruitless tormenting Labours by bringing them to despair of the Attainment of Holiness in a natural State that they may seek it only in a new State by Faith in Christ where they may certainly find it without such tormenting Labour and Anxiety of Spirit For this end I shall confirm the Truth asserted in the Direction and fortifie it against the forementioned false Opinions by the ensuing Considerations First The Foundation of this Assertion is firmly laid in the Directions already explained and confirmed by many Places of Scripture For if all Endowments necessary to enable us for an holy Practice be to be had only in a State of Union and Fellowship with Christ by Faith and Faith it self not by the natural Power of Free-will but by the Power of Christ coming into the Soul by his Spirit to unite us with himself who seeeth not that the Attainment of true Holiness by any of our most vigorous Endeavours while we continue in our natural Condition is altogether hopeless I need add no more were it not to shew more sully what abundance of Light the Scripture affordeth to guide us aright in this part of our way that those that wander out of it by following any false light of their own or others corrupted Judgments may find themselves the more inexcusable Secondly It is evident that we cannot practice true Holiness while we continue in
themselves for the Lords Supper that so they may make their Peace with God and trust securely on Christ for his Salvation but all Resolutions of that kind are vain and hypocritical sooner broken than made Those that know the Plague of their own hearts do find that their mind is enmity unto the Law of God and Christ and cannot be subject unto it Rom. 8.7 and that they can as soon remove a mountain as give up themselves sincerely to Obedience before they trust on Christ for his Salvation and for the gift of a new heart whereby they may be enabled both to will and to do any thing that is acceptable to God We should have been sufficiently obliged to all obedient purposes resolutions and resignations if Christ had never come into the World to save us but he knew that we could perform nothing holily except he made us first Partakers of Salvation and that we shall never obey him as Law-giver until we receive him as Saviour He is a saving Lord trust on him first to save you from the guilt and power of sinâ— and dominion of Satan and to give you a new spiritual Disposition then and not till then the Love of Christ will constrain you to resign up your self heartily to live to him that died for you 2 Cor. 5.14 and you will be able to say with an unfeigned Resolution O Lord truly I am thy servant I am thy servant and the son of thy handmaid thou hast loosed my bonds Psal 116.16 4thly It seemeth to them evident that some good works are necessary before we can trust on Christ safely for the forgiveness of sins because our Saviour teacheth us that if we forgive not men their Trespasses neither will our heavenly Father forgive our Trespasses and directeth us to pray Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Mat. 6.12 15. Restitution also was to be made of things wrongfully gotten from others before the Sacramental Atonement was made by the Trespass offering Lev. 6.5 7. This is sufficient to prove that forgiving others and Restitution according to our ability or at least a sincere desire and purpose so to do are very closely joyned with the forgiveness of our sins and are very necessary to fit us for Prayer and for Sacramental Applications of pardoning Grace to our selves A lively Faith cannot be without these Fruits and therefore we cannot pray or partake of Sacraments in Faith without them but yet if we strive to do either of these before we trust on Christ for our Pardon and Salvation we shall do them slavishly and hypocritically not in any holy acceptable manner Our forgiving others will not be accompanied with any hearty Love to them as to our selves for the sake of God and our Restitution will be but a forced act like Pharaoh's letting the Children of Israel go or like Judas restoring the thirty pieces of Silver being compelled thereunto by terror of Spirit and when the terror that forced us is removed we shall be as ready to recal our Forgiveness and to wrong others again as Pharaoh was to bring the Israelites again into bondage after he had let them go Exod. 14.5 If you would forgive others heartily so as to love them again you must first apprehend the love and mercy of God towards your selves by Faith in Christ and then you will be able according to the Apostle's Instruction to be kind tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you Ephes 4.32 The readiness of Zaccheus to make Restitution followed upon a discovery of Christ's love to him and his joyful receiving Christ into his house was fruit whereby he did evidence the Truth of that Faith that was already wrought in his heart 5thly I shall reckon up together several other Qualifications that distressed Souls would find in themselves that they may be duly prepared to trust on Christ for their Salvation and when they have laboured anxiously a long time and cannot get them at last they lie down in sorrowful Despondence not daring to apply the Consolations of the grace of God in Christ to their wounded Consciences Let perplexed Souls mark the particulars and observe whether the condition of their own Souls be reached in any of them O thou afflicted tossed with tempests and not comforted what good Qualifications is it that thou wouldest have that thou mayest be encouraged to lay hold on Christ for Salvation It is likely thou wilt answer in the bitterness of thy Soul O let me have first some love to God and Godliness in mine heart and freedom from mine hateful heart-risings against him and his Service Let me have some good thoughts of God his Justice Mercy Holiness that I may be able to justifie him tho' he damn me and that I may not be filled with murmuring and hellish Blasphemies in my mind against him let the raging of my lusts be abated and the stinking kennel of my wicked heart a little cleansed let me have some holy reverential Fear of God and not only a pannick tormenting horror I would be more affected with the wrath of God and not be of a slighting heedless Spirit I would be more humbled for Sin loath it and be ashamed of it and be sorry for it with a godly Sorrow not meerly because of the Punishment but because it grieveth and vexeth the holy Spirit of God I would be able to make a willing and ingenious Confession of sin and to pour out my Soul to the Lord in lively affectionate Prayer for Forgiveness and to praise and glorifie him heartily and not to be like a lifeless stone in the duty of Prayer as I am Are these the things thou desirest O poor distressed Soul The best Reply I can make for thy speedy comfort is to inform thee that the things are good but thy desires are not well timed it is unreasonable for thee to expect these holy Qualifications whilst thou art in thy natural State under the guilt of Sin and the apprehension of the Wrath of God before thou hast received the Atonement and the new Spiritual Life that is by Christ through Faith in his Name thou dost but exasperate thy Corruptions and harden thy Heart and make thy wounds to stink the more because of thy foolishness such good Qualifications are included in the Nature of Faith and for the most part they follow after it so that they cannot possibly be obtained before thou trustest in Christ for thy Salvation as I shall shew concerning them particularly in their Order A love to the Salvation of God and to the free Gift of Holiness is included in the Nature of Faith so that it cannot be hearty without it Act Faith first with this kind of Love and the Apprehension of God's Love to thy Soul will sweetly allure and constrain thee to love God and his Service universally We love him because he loved us first 1 Joh. 4.19 We cannot be before-hand with God in love and
all are given to us at one and the same time and I think enough hath been said already to shew in what order God brings us to the Practice of the Moral Law he maketh us first to be in Christ by Faith as Branches in the Vine that we may bring forth much fruit Joh. 15.5 He first purgeth our Consciences from dead Works by Justification that we may serve the living God Heb. 9.14 He maketh us first to live in the Spirit and then to walk in the Spirit Gal. 5.25 This is the Order prescribed in the Gospel which is the Power of God unto Salvation though the Law prescribeth a quite contrary Method that we should first perform its Commandements that so we may be justified and live and thereby it proveth a killing Letter to us Now mark well the great Advantages you have for the Attainment of Holiness by seeking it in a right Gospel-Order you will have the Advantage of the Love of God manifested toward you in forgiving your Sins receiving you into Favour and giving you the Spirit of Adoption and the Hope of his Glory freely through Christ to perswade and constrain you by sweet allurements to love God again that hath so dearly loved you and to love others for his sake and to give up your selves to the Obedience of all his Commandments out of hearty love to him you will also enjoy the Help of the Spirit of God to incline you powerfully unto Obedience and to strengthen you for the Performance of it against all your Corruptions and the Temptations of Satan so that you will have both Wind and Tide to forward your Voyage in the Practice of Holiness contrariwise if you rush upon the immediate performance of the Law without taking Christ's Righteousness and his Spirit in the way to it you 'll find both Wind Tide against you Your guilty Conscience and corrupt dead Natures shall certainly defeat and frustrate all your Enterprizes and Attempts to love God and serve him in Love and you will but stir up sinful Lusts instead of stirring up your selves to true Obedience or at best you will but attain to some slavish hypocritical Performances Oh that People would be perswaded to consider the due place of Holiness in the Mystery of Salvation and to seek it only there where they have all the Advantage of Gospel-Grace to find it Many miscarry in their zealous Enterprizes for Godliness and after they have spent much Labour in vain God maketh a Breach upon them even to their everlasting Destruction as he did upon Uzzah to a Temporal destruction because they sought him not after a due order 2 Chron. Secondly We are to look upon Holiness as a very necessary part of that Salvation that is received by Faith in Christ some are so drenched with a Covenant of Works that they accuse us for making good Works needless to Salvation if we will not acknowledge them to be necessary either as Conditions to procure an Interest in Christ or as Preparatives to fit us for the receiving of him by Faith and others when they are taught by the Scriptures that we are saved by Faith through Faith without Works do begin to disregard all Obedience to the Law as not at all necessary to Salvation and do account themselves obliged to it only in point of Gratitude if it be wholly neglected they doubt not but Free-grace will save them harmless yea some are given up to such strong Antinomian Delusions that they account it a part of the Liberty from the Bondage of the Law purchased by the Blood of Christ to make no Conscience of breaking the Law in their Conversation One cause of these Errors that are so contrary one to the other is that many are prone to imagine nothing else to be meant by Salvation but to be delivered from Hell and in heavenly Happiness and Glory hence they conclude that if good Works be a means of Glorification and precedent to it they must also be a precedent Means of our whole Salvation and that if they be not a necessary Means of our whole Salvation they are not at all necessary to Glorification But though Salvation be often taken in Scripture by way of Eminency for its perfection in the State of heavenly Glory yet according to its full and proper Signification we are to understand by it all that freedom from the Evil of our Natural corrupt State and all those holy and happy Enjoyments that we receive from Christ our Saviour either in this World by Faith or in the World to come by Glorification Thus Justification the Gift of the Spirit to dwell in us the Priviledges of Adoption are parts of our Salvation which we partake of in this Life Thus also the Conformity of our Hearts to the Law of God and the Fruit of our Righteousness with which we are filled by Jesus Christ in this Life are a necessary part of our Salvation God saveth us from our finful uncleanness here by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost as well as from Hell hereafter Ezek. 36.29 Tit. 3.5 Christ was called Jesus i.e. A Saviour because he saved his People from their Sins Mat. 1.21 therefore it is part of our Salvation to deliver us from our Sins which is begun in this Life by Justification and Sanctification and perfected by Glorification in the Life to come Can we rationally doubt whither it be any proper part of our Salvation by Christ to be quickned to live to God when we were by nature dead in Trespasses and Sins and to have the Image of God in Holiness and Righteousness restored to us which we lost by the Fall and to be freed from a vile dishonourable Slavery to Satan and our own Lusts and made the Servants of God and to be honoured so highly as to walk by the Spirit and bring forth the Fruits of the Spirit And what is all this but holiness in Heart and Life Conclude we then that Holiness in this Life is absolutely necessary to Salvation not only as a Means to the end but by a nobler kind of Necessity as part of the end it self Though we are not saved by good Works as procuring Causes yet we are saved to good Works as fruits and effects of Saving-grace which God hath prepared that we should walk in them Eph. 2.10 It is indeed one part of our Salvation to be delivered from the Bondage of the Covenant of Works but the end of this is not that we may have liberty to sin which is the worst of Slavery but that we may fulfil the royal Law of Liberty and that we may serve in newness of Spirit and not in the oldness of the Letter Gal. 3.13 14. Rom. 7.6 Yea Holiness in this Life is such a part of our Salvation as is a necessary Means to make us meet to be partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in heavenly Light and Glory without Holiness we can never see God Heb. 12.14 and
is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.5 They that are perswaded of the Free-grace of God toward them in Christ are not indeed sollicitous about earning their Salvation by their own legal Works and Satan is ready to suggest to them that this is a sinful Carelesness and tendeth to Licenciousness but they that will believe this false Suggestion of Satan shew plainly that they do not yet know what it is to serve God in Love and that they are held in to all their Obedience by the Bit and Bridle of slavish Fear as the horse and mule that have no understanding Psal 32.9 Thirdly Beware of thinking so highly of this Assurance as if it were inconsistent with any doubting in the same Soul A great Reason why many Protestants have receded from the Doctrine of their Ancestors in this Point is because they think there can be no true Assurance of Salvation in any that are troubled with Doubtings as they find many be whom they cannot but own as true Believers and precious Saints of God True indeed this Assurance must be contrary to Doubtings in the nature of it and so if it be perfect in the highest Degree it would exclude all Doubting out of the Soul and it doth now exclude in some Degree But is there not Flesh as well as Spirit in the best Saints on Earth Gal. 5.17 Is there not a law in their members warring against the law of their minds Rom. 7.23 May not one that truly believeth say Lord help my unbelief Mark 9.24 Can any on Earth say they have received any Grace in the highest Degree and that they are wholly free from the contrary Corruption Why then should we think that Assurance cannot be true except it be perfect and free the Soul from all Doubtings The Apostle accounts it a great Blessing to the Thessalonians that they had much Assurance intimating that some true Assurance might be in a less Degree 1 Thess 1.5 Peter had some good Assurance of Christ's Help when he walked on the Water at Christ's Command and yet he had some Doubtfulness in him as his Fear shewed when he saw the Wind boisterous He had some Faith contrary to doubting though it were but little as Christ's Words to him shew O thou of little faith wherefore didst thou doubt Matth. 14.29 30 31. It is strange if the Flesh and the Devil should never oppose a true Assurance and assault it with Doubtings A Believer may be sometimes so overwhelmed with Doubtings that he may not be able to perceive an Assurance in himself he is so far from knowing his Place in Heaven already as some scoffingly object that he will say that he knoweth not any Assurance that he hath of being there and needeth diligent self-examination to find it out yet if at that time he can blame his Soul for doubting Why art thou cast down O my soul why art thou disquieted within me hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him Psal 42.11 If he can condemn his Doubtings as sinful and say with himself This is mine infirmity Psal 77.10 These Doubtings are of the Flesh and of the Devil if he still endeavour to call God Father and complain to him that he doubteth whether he be his Father and pray that God will give him the Assurance of his Fatherly Love which he is not sensible of and dispel those Fears and Doubtings I say that such an one hath some true Assurance though he must strive to grow to a higher Degree for if he were not perswaded of the Truth of the Love of God towards him he could not rationally condemn his Fears and Doubts concerning it as sinful neither could he rationally pray to God as his Father or that God would assure him of that Love that he doth not think to be true Do but grant that it is the Nature of saving Faith thus to resist and struggle with slavish Fears of Wrath and doubting of our own Salvation and you grant in effect that there is and must be something of Assurance of our Salvation in Saving faith whereby it resisteth Doubtings and you are in effect of the same Judgment with me in the Assertion however strange my Expressions seem to you If this that I have said concerning our Imperfection in Assurance as well as in other Graces were well considered this ancient Protestant Doctrine would be freed much from Prejudice and gain more Esteem among us Fourthly In the last place let it be well observed that the Reason why we are to assure our selves in our Faith that God freely giveth Christ and his Salvation to us particularly is not because it is a Truth before we believe it but because it becometh a certain Truth when we believe it and because it will never be true except we do in some measure perswade and assure our selves that it is so We have no absolute Promise or Declaration in Scripture that God certainly will or doth give Christ and his Salvation to any one of us in particular neither do we know it to be true already by Scripture or Sense or Reason before we assure our selves absolutely of it yea we are without Christ's Salvation at present in a state of Sin and Misery under the Curse and Wrath of God Only I shall prove that we are bound by the Command of God thus to assure our selves and the Scripture doth sufficiently warrant us that we shall not deceive our selves in believing a Lie but according to our Faith so it shall be to us Matth. 9.29 This is a strange kind of Assurance far different from other Ordinary kinds and therefore no Wonder if it be found weak and imperfect and difficult to be obtained and it be assaulted with many Doubtings We are constrained to believe other things on the clear Evidence we have that they are true and would remain true whether we believe them or no so that we cannot deny our Assent without rebelling against the Light of our Sences Reason or Conscience but here our Assurance is not impressed on our Thoughts by any Evidence of the thing but we must work it out in our selves by the Assistance of the Spirit of God and thereby we bring our own Thoughts into Captivity to the Obedience of Christ None but God can justly require of us this kind of Assurance because he only calleth those things that are not as tho they were Rom. 4.17 He only can give Existence to things that yet are not and make a thing to be true upon our believing it that was not true before He only can make good that Promise What things soever ye desire when ye pray believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them Mark 11.24 Who is he that saith and it cometh to pass when the Lord commandeth it not Lament 3.37 Therefore this Faith is due to God only and greatly redowndeth to his Glory Men will often require a Believing something like it as when one says I will forgive your Offence
long accustomed to seek Salvation by the procurement of our own works and to account the way of Salvation by Free Grace foolish and pernicious when our Lusts encline us strongly to the things of the flesh and the World when Satan doth his utmost by his own suggestions and by false Teachers and by worldly Allurements and Terrors to hinder the sincere performance of this Duty Many works that are easie in their own nature prove difficult for us to perform in our Circumstances To forgive our enemies and to love them as our selves is but a motion of the mind easie to be performed in its own nature and yet many that are convinced of their Duty find it a hard matter to bring their hearts to the performance of it It is but a motion of the mind to cast our Care upon God for worldly things and rich Men may think that they can do it easily but poor Men that have great Families find it a hard matter That easie comfortable Duty which Moses exhorted the Israelites to when Pharoah with his Chariot and Horse-men overtook them at the Red Sea Be ye not afraid stand still and see the Salvation of the Lord which he will shew you this day Exod. 14.13 was not easily performed The very easiness of some Duties makes their performance difficult as Naaman the Assyrian was hardly brought to wash and be clean because he thought it to be too slight and easie a Remedy for the Cure of his Leprosie 2 Kings 5.12 13. even in this very case people are offended at the Duty of Believing on Christ as too slight and easie a remedy to Cure the Leprosie of the Soul they would have some harder thing enjoyned them to the attainment of so great an end as this everlasting Salvation The performance of all the moral Law is not accounted work enough for this end Mat. 19.17 20. However easie the work of Believing seemeth to many yet common Experience hath shewed that Men are more easily brought to the most burdensome unreasonable and inhumane Observations as the Jows and Christian Galatians were more easily brought to take upon their Necks the Yoke of Moses's La w which none were able to bear Acts 15.10 The Heathens were more easily brought to burn their Sons and their Daughters in the Fire to their Gods Deut. 12.31 The Papists are brought more easily to the Vows of Chastity and Poverty and Obedience to the most rigorous rules of Monastick Discipline to macerate and torture their Bodies with Fastings Scourgings and Pilgrimages and to bear all the excessive Tyranny of the Papal Hierarchy in a multitude of burdensome superstitious and ridiculous Devotions They that slight the work of Faith for its easiness shew that they were never yet made sensible of innumerable sins and terrible Curse of the Law and Wrath of God that they lye under and of the darkness and vanity of their Minds the corruption and hardness of their Hearts and their bondage under the power of Sin and Satan and have not bin truly humbled without which they can't Believe in a right manner Many sound Believers have found by experience that it hath bin a very hard matter to bring their Hearts to the Duty of Believing it hath cost them vigorous struggles and sharp conflicts with their own Corruptions and Satans Temptations It is so difficult a work that we can't perform it without the mighty working of the Spirit of God in our Hearts who only can make it to be absolutely easie to us and doth make it easie or suffer it to be difficult according as he is pleased to communicate his Grace in various degrees unto our Souls 3. Tho we cannot possibly perform this great work in a right manner until the Spirit of God work Faith in our Hearts by his mighty Power yet it is necessary that we should endeavour And that before we can find the Spirit of God working Faith effectually in us or giving strength to Believe We can perform no holy Duty acceptably except the Spirit of God work it in us and yet we are not hereby excused from working our selves but we are the rather stirred up to the greater diligence Work out your Salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. 2.12 13. The way whereby the Spirit works Faith in the Elect is by stirring them up to endeavour to Believe and this is a way suitable to the means that the Spirit useth i. e. The Exhortations Commands and Invitations of the Gospel which would be of no force if we were not to obey them until we find Faith already wrought in us Neither can we possibly find that the Spirit of God doth effectually work Faith or give strength to Believe until we Act it for all inward Graces as well as all other inward Habits are discerned by their Acts as Seed in the Ground by its Springing We cannot see any such thing as Love to God or Man in our Hearts before we Act it Children know not their Ability to stand upon their Feet until they have made trial by endeavouring so to do so we know not our spiritual Strength until we have learned by Experience from the use and exercise of it neither can we know or assure our seives absolutely that the Spirit of God will give us Strength to Believe before we Act Faith for such a Knowledge and Assurance if it be right is saving Faith it self in part and whosoever trusteth on Christ assuredly for strength to believe by his Spirit doth in effect trust on Christ for his own Salvation which is inseparably joyned with the Grace of saving Faith Tho the Spirit worketh other Duties in us by Faith yet he worketh Faith in us immediately by hearing knowing and understanding the Word Faith cometh by Hearing and Hearing by the Word of God Rom. 10.13 And in the Word he makes no absolute Promise or Declaration that he will work Faith in this or that unbelieving Heart or that he will give strength to Believe to any one in particular or begin the work of Believing in Christ for Faith it self is the first Grace whereby we have a particular Interest in any saving Promise It is a thing hidden in the secret Counsel and Purpose of God concerning us whether he will give us his Spirit and saving Faith until our Election be discovered by our Believing actually Therefore as soon as we know the Duty of Believing we are to apply our selves immediately to the vigorous performance of the Duty and in so doing we shall find that the Spirit of Christ hath strengthned us to Believe tho we knew not certainly that it would do it before-hand The Spirit cometh undiscernably upon the Elect to work Faith within them like the Wind that bloweth where it lists and none knoweth whence it cometh and whither it goeth but only we hear the sound of it and thereby know it when it is
mis-spending the precious time of their Health and Strength which is most meet for the performance of this great Work They highly provoke God never to give them Time or Grace to Repent hereafter Others imagine that after they have heard the Gospel of Salvation by Christ they may lawfully defer the Believing of it until they have sufficiently examined the Truth of some other different Doctrin or until God be pleased to afford them some other means to assure them fully of the Truth of the Gospel Thus they that are called Seekers mis-spend the day of Grace ever learning but never coming to the knowledg of the Truth 2 Tim. 3.7 But the Truth of the Gospel doth so clearly evidence its self by its own Light That if People do not wilfully shut their Eyes or blind themselves by their own Pride and love of their Lusts they would easily perceive that it is the Truth of God because the Image of his Grace Mercy Power Justice and Holiness appears manifestly engraven upon it It is a sign People are Proud when they consent not to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Doctrine which is according to Godliness 1 Tim. 6.3 If they were humble and sincerely inclined to do the Will of God they would know whether the Doctrine be of God or no Joh. 7.17 They would quickly be persuaded of the Truth by Moses and the Prophets Christ and the Apostles spoken to them in the Scripture and if they will not hear them neither will they not be persuaded tho one rose from the dead or whatever other Miracle be wrought to confirm the Divine Authority of the Gospel Luke 16.31 Another sort of People there are that delay the great work of Believing to the ruin of their Souls upon the outward means of Grace and Salvation instead of any endeavours to receive Christ by Faith tho they be convinced of the Truth of the Gospel This they call waiting upon God at the doors of his Grace and Salvation in the use of Means appointed by him and sitting under the droppings of the Sanctuary But let them know that this is not the right waiting on God required in Scripture it is rather disobedience to God and to the Name of his appointment which requires that we should be doers of the Word and not hearers only deceiving our selves Jam. 1.22 and that we should come in to the spiritual Feast Luke 14.23 and not only stand at the door or sit under the droppings of the House of God lest Christ repute us no better than eve-droppers That holy waiting on the Lord commended to us in Scripture is ever accompanied with Believing and Hoping in the Lord and dependeth thereon I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living Psal 23.13 14. It is good that a Man should both hope and quietly wait for the Salvation of the Lord Lam. 3.26 What is it that these deluded ones wait for before they perform the Duty of Believing Is it for more knowledge of the Gospel The way to encrease thy Knowledge as well as any other Talent is to make use of what thou hast received already Believe heartily on Christ for all thy Salvation according to that little knowledge of the Gospel which thou hast and thou wilt have an interest in the promise of knowledge contained in the New Covenant They shall all know me from the least to the greatest of them saith the Lord Jer. 31.34 Is it for the appointed time of thy Conversion that thou waitest then thou waitest as those impotent folk lay at the Pool of Bethesda waiting for the Season when the Angel would come down and move the Water know then that if thou enter into Christ now by Faith thou shalt find in him Waters of Life and the Spirit moving them for the Healing and Quickning of thy Soul God hath appointed by his Word that it shall be thy Duty to endeavour that the present time should be the time of thy Conversion as the Holy Ghost saith To day if thou wilt hear his Voice harden not thy Heart Heb. 3.7 8. and thou shalt never know at what time God hath purposed in his Secret Counsel to give Faith to thee until thou dost actually believe Dost thou wait for any Manifestations or Flowings in of Gods saving Love to thy Soul Then the way to obtain it is to believe that the God of Peace may sill thee with all Joy and Peace in Believing Rom. 15.13 Thou hast sufficient Manifestation of Gods Love to thy Soul by the free Promises of Life and Salvation by Christ do but trust on the Name of the Lord and stay upon thy God when thou walkest in Darkness and seest no Light of sensible Comforts any other way Otherwise thou waitest for Comfort in vain and this thou shalt have at the Lords hand thou shalt lye down in Sorrow Isa 50.10 11. Dost thou wait for any Qualifications to prepare thee for the work of Believing If they be good and Holy Qualifications thou canst not have them before Faith but they are either included in the Nature of Faith or they are Fruits of it as hath been largely proved If they be bad and Sinful it 's strange that any should wait for them and yet no more strange than true Some foolishly wait to be terrified with the Sense of Gods Wrath and despairing Thoughts and these they call the Pangs of the New Birth tho in their own Nature they are rather the Pangs of the Spiritual Death and bring forth Hatred to God rather than Holiness and therefore we should strive to prevent them by believing Gods Love in Christ rather than to wait for them It is true that God maketh these despairing Thoughts as well as other Sins work for good to them that are delivered from them by Faith in Christ they are moved thereby to hate Sin and to prize Christ the more and the Comforts of his Gospel and to loath and abhor themselves yet many are brought to Christ without them by Gods giving them the knowledge of their own Sins and of Christ's Salvation together several Examples of these were above mentioned who received the Word with Joy at the first hearing of it And we must not desire or wait for any evil of Sin such as these despairing thoughts are that good may come of it Neither should we expect to be worse before we be better when we may and ought to be better presently by believing on Christ 4. In the direction it is that we should continue and increase in the most Holy Faith and that we may we must not think that when we have once attained to the Grace of saving Faith and thereby are begotten anew in Christ our Names are up in Heaven and perfect we may lye in Bed till Noon but as long as we continue in this Life we must endeavour to continue in the Faith grounded and setled not moved away from the
hope of the Gospel Col. 1.23 and to hold the beginning of our Confidence and the rejoycing of hope stedfast to the end Heb. 6.14 and build up our selves in the most Holy Faith Jude 20. abounding therein with Thanksgiving Col. 2.7 Tho we receive Christ freely by Faith yet we are but Babes in Christ 1 Cor. 3.1 and we must not account that we have already attained or are made perfect Phil. 3.12 13. but we must strive to be more rooted and built up in him until we come to the perfect Man to the measure of the Stature of the fullness of Christ Eph. 4.13 If the new Nature be really in us by Regeneration it will have an Appetite to its own continuance and Increase until it come to Perfection as the New Born Babe 1 Pet. 2.2 And we are not only to receive Christ and a new Holy Nature by Faith but also to live and walk by it and to resist the Devil and to quench all his fiery Darts by it and also to grow in Grace and to perfect Holiness in the fear of God for we are kept by the mighty Power of God through Faith unto Salvation 1 Pet. 1.5 as all our Christian Warfare is the good Fight of Faith 1 Tim. 6.12 All Spiritual Life and Holiness continue grow or decay in us according as Faith continueth groweth or decayeth in Vigour but when this Faith beginneth to sink by Fears and Doubtings the Man himself beginneth to sink together with it Matt. 14.29 31. Faith is like the Hand of Moses while it is held up Israel prevails when it is let down Amaleck prevails Exod. 17.11 this continuance and growth in Faith will require our Labour and Industry as well as the beginning tho we â—â—e to ascribe the Glory of all to the Grace of God in Christ who is the Finisher as well as the Author of it Heb. 12.2 The Church meeteth with great Difficulties in her marching through the Wilderness of this World to the Heavenly Canaan as well as in her first Deliverance from Egyptian Bondage yea we often meet with greater Difficulties in going to Perfection than we did in the beginning of the Good Work The Wisdom and Mercy of God so ordering it that we shall be exercised with the sharpest Dispensations of Providence and the fiercest Assaults of our own Corruptions and Satans Temptations after we have Grace given us to stand in the Evil Day You must therefore endeavour to continue and go on in the same â—ight manner as I have taught you to begin this great Work of Believing in Christ that your Faith may be of the same Nature from the Beginning to the End though it increase in Degrees for our Faith is imperfect and joyned with much Unbelief in this World and we had need to pray still Lord I believe help my Vnbelief Mar. 9.24 and therefore we have need to strive for more Faith that we may receive Christ in greater Perfection If you find your Faith hath produced good Works you should thereby increase your Confidence in Christ for Salvation by his meer Grace But take heed of changing the nature of your Faith from trusting on the Grace and Merits of Christ to trusting on your own Works according to the Popish Doctrin that our first Justification is by Grace and Faith only but our second Justification is also by Works Beware also of trusting on Faith it self as a work of Righteousness instead of trusting on Christ by Faith If you do not find that your Believing in such a right manner as I have described doth produce such Fruits of Holiness as you desire you ought not to diminish but rather to increase your Confidence in Christ knowing that the weakness of your Faith hindereth its Fruitfulness and the greater your Confidence is concerning the Love of God to you in Christ the greater will be your Love to God and to his Service If you fall into any gross Sin after the work is begun in you as David and Peter did think not that you must cast away your Confidence and expect nothing but Wrath from God and Christ and that you must refuse to be comforted by the Grace of Christ at least for some time for thus you would be the more weak and prone to fall into other Sins but rather strivo to believe more confidently that you have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous and that he is the Propitiation for our Sins 1 Joh. 2.1 2. and let not the guilt of Sin stay at all upon your Conscience but wash it away with all speed in the Fountain of Christs Blood which is opened for us that it may be ready for our use on all such incident Occasions that so you may be humbled for your Sins in a Gospel way and may hate your own Sinfulness and be sorry for it with Godly Sorrow out of Love to God Peter might have been ruined for ever by denying of Christ as Judas was by betraying him if Peter's Faith had not been upheld by the Prayer of Christ Luke 22.32 If a Clould be cast over all your inward Qualifications so that you can see no Grace at all in your selves yet still trust on him that justifyeth the Ungodly and came to seek and to save them that are lost If God seem to deal with you as an Enemy by bringing on you some horrible Affliction as he did upon Job beware of demning your Faith and its Fruits as if they were not acceptable to God but rather say with holy Job Though he slay me yet will I trust in him but I will maintain mine own ways before him Strive to keep and to increase Faith by Faith i. e. by acting Faith frequently by trusting on God to keep and increase it being confident that he that hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ Phil. 1.6 DIRECT XII Make diligent use of your most holy Faith for the immediate Performance of the Duties of the Law by walking no longer according to your old natural State or any Principles or Means of Practice that belong unto it but only according to that New State which you receive by Faith and the Principles and Means of Practice that properly belong thereunto and strive to continue and increase in such manner of Practice This is the only way to attain to an acceptable Performance of those Holy and Righteous Duties as far as it is possible in this present Life EXPLICATION HEre I am guiding you to the manner of Practice wherein you are to make use of Faith and of all other effectual means of Holyness before treated of which Faith layeth hold on for the immediate Performance of the Law which is the great end aimed at in this whole Treatise And therefore this deserveth to be diligently considered as the principal Direction to which all the foregoing and following are subservient As for the meaning of it I have already shewed that our old natural
in vain when you utter Petitions for the coming of his Kingdom and doing of his Will and yet hate Godliness in your Heart This is Lying to God and slattering with your Lips but no true Prayer and so God takes it Psal 78.36 and you must have a sense of your wants and necessities and that God only can supply 2 Chron. 20.12 And fervency in those desires is required Jam. 5.16 And you must pray with attention minding your selves what you pray or else you cannot expect that God should mind it 1 Pet. 4.7 Watch to it Dan. 9.3 Set your selves to this Duty intently God seeth where your Heart is wandring when you pray without attention Ezek. 33.31 When you say never so many prayers without Understanding Attention Affection it is not praying at all but sinning and playing the Hypocrite as Papists mumble over their Latin Prayers upon the Beads by Tale prating like Parrots what they cannot understand And thus ignorant People say over their Forms of English Prayers and account they have well-discharged their Duty tho their Heart prayed not at all and were minding other things This is a meer Lip-labour and bodily Exercise offering a dead Carcass to God plain deceit Mal. 1.13 14. a form of Godliness with denying the Power 2 Tim. 3.5 whereby Popery hath cheated the World of the Power of this and all other Holy Ordinances They say God minds and knows what they speak and approves it I answer He doth so as to Judg them for Hypocrites and profane persons for not knowing minding and approving what they utter themselves He hath no pleasure in Fools Eccles 5.1 2. They would not deal so with an Earthly Prince 2. You must pray in the Name of Christ for the Spirit glorifies Christ Joh. 16. and leadeth us to God through Christ Eph. 2.18 As I have shewed that walking in the Spirit and walking in Christ is all one so praying in the Spirit and by and through Christ And as we are to walk in the Name of the Lord and to do all things in his Name as is commanded Joh. 14.13 14. It is not enough to conclude our Prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord but we must come for Blessings in the Garments of our elder Brother and must depend upon his Worthyness and Strength for all So also we must praise God for all things in his Name as things received for his sake and by him Eph. 5.20 We must lay hold on his Strength only and plead nothing and own nothing for our Acceptance but him We must not plead our own works arrogantly like the proud Pharisee Luk. 18.11.12 except only as Fruits of Grace and Rewards of Grace Isa 38.1 2. Praying in the Spirit is upon Gospel not legal Principles Rom. 7.6 with 2 Cor. 6.3 with great Humiliation and sense of Unworthyness Psal 51. with a broken Spirit with Despair of Acceptance otherwise than upon Christ's Account Dan. 9.18 If your Enlargements Struglings Meltings have been never so great yet without this all is Abominable 3. Hence you must not think to be accepted for the Goodness of your Prayers and trust on them as works of Righteousness which is making Idols of your Prayers and putting them into the place of Christ quite contrary to praying in the Name of Christ Thus Papists hope to be sav'd by saying their Tale of Prayers upon their Bead-Rows and they have Indulgences granted upon their saying so many Prayers and of such a sort Yea some ignorant Protestants trust on their Prayer as Duties of Righteousness and they think one Prayer to be more acceptable than another by reason of the Holiness of the Form if it were made by Holy Men especially the Lords Prayer which they use to help them in any Exigence or Danger how little soever they can apply it to their own Case they make an Idol of it And some use it and other places of Scriptures as a Spell or Charm to drive away the Devil And others think their Prayers more acceptable in one place than in another by reason of the Holiness of the place Joh. 4.21 24.1 Tim. 2.8 Others trust on their much speaking Mat. 6. which they call the enlarging of their Hearts They think to put off God and stop the Mouth of Conscience with a few Prayers and so to live as they list 4. Pray to God as your Father through Christ as your Saviour in Faith of Remission of Sins and your acceptance with God and the obtaing of all other things which you desire of him as far as is necessary for your Salvation Jam. 1.5 6 7. ch 5.15 1 Joh. 5.14 15. Mar. 11.24 Heb. 10.24 and Psal 62.8 and 86.7 and 55.16 and 57.1 2. and 17.6 This is praying in Christ Eph. 3.12 and by the Holy Ghost the Spirit of Adoption Rom. 8.16 Gal. 4.6 Without this Prayer is Lifeless and Heartless and but a dead Carcass Rom. 10.14 Psal 77.4 By this you may judge whether you have prayed rightly more than by your melting Affection or largeness in Expression Though you be not assured that you shall have every thing that you ask yet every thing that is good This Faith you must endeavour to act and therefore if any Sin lye on Conscience you must strive first to get the Pardon of it Psal 32.1.5 and 51.14 15. and Purisication from it by Faith that you may lift up holy hands without wrath and doubting 1 Tim. 2.8 The sin of wrath there is especially mentioned because that is contrary to Love and forgiving others Here lyes the Strength Life and Powerfulness of Prayer Set Faith on work and you will be powerful and prevail 5. You must strive in Prayer to stir up and act every other sanctifying Grace through Faith moving you thereunto Thus your Spikenards will yield their Smell as godly sorrow Psal 38.18 peace Isa 27.8 joy Psal 105.3 hope Psal 71.5 desire and love to God Psal 4.6 and love to all his commands Psal 119.4 5. and to his people out of love to him Psal 122. you must seek the Spirit it self in the first place Luk. 11.13 Psal 37.5 and all spiritual things Mat. 6.33 Praying only for carnal things shews a carnal Heart and leaves it carnal Pray for faith Mar. 9.24 and for such things as may serve most for the glorifying God 2 Chron. 1.11 12. and for outward things you must act in submission to his Will and thus Prayer sets you in a holy frame Mat. 26.42 Luk. 22.42 43. Hallowing Gods Name must be your aim Mat. 6. not your Lusts Jam. 4.3 6. Strive to bring your Soul into order by this Duty however disordered by Guilt Anguish inordinate Cares or Fears Psal 32.1 5. and 55.16 17 20 22. and 69.32 Phil. 4.6 7.1 Sam. 1. A Watch must be often wound up you must wrestle in Prayer against your Unbelief Doubting Fears Cares Reluctancy of the Flesh to that which is good against all Evil Lusts and Desires Coldness of Affection Impatience trouble of Spirit every
therefore we have directed to seeking of Holiness by the Spirit of Christ and willing good freely by a spiritual Power as new Creatures partakers of a divine Nature in Christ Yea it s necessary to know the first Adam that we may know the second Rom. 5.12 To believe the fall and original Sin that we may be stirred up to fly to Christ by Faith for Holiness by free Gift knowing that we cannot attain it by our own Power and Free Will 2 Cor. 1.9 Mat. 9.12 13. Rom. 7.24 25. 2 Cor. 3.5 Eph. 5.14 There were no need of a new Man or a new Creation if the old were not without strength and Life Joh 3.5 6 Eph. 2.8 But original Deadness cannot hinder Gods working Faith and Hungrings and Thirstings after Christ by the Spirit through the Gospel in those that God chooseth to walk holily and blamelessly before him in Love 1 Thes 1.4 5. Act. 26.18 And so we are made alive in a new Head and become Branches of another Vine living to God by the Spirit not by Nature 2. It confirms us in the Doctrin of Predestination which many deny because they say it takes Men off from Endeavours as fruitless by telling Men that all Events are predetermined This Argument would be more forcible against Endeavours by the power of our own Free Will but not at all against Endeavours for Holiness by the Operation of God giving us Faith and all Holiness by his own Spirit working in us through Christ we are to trust on Christ for the Grace of the Elect and Gods good Will towards Men Matt. 3.17 Luke 2.14 Psal 106.4 5. Election by Grace destroys seeking by Works but not by Grace Rom. 11.5 6. And we are here taught to seek for Salvation only in the way of the Elect and we may conclude that Holiness is to be had by Gods Will and not by our own and it may move us to desire Holiness by the Will of God Rom. 9.16 Psal 109.32 And seeing it appears by this Doctrin of Sanctification through Christ that we are Gods Workmanship as to all the good wrought in us Phil. 2.12 13. Eph. 2.10 We may well admit that he hath appointed his Pleasure from Eternity without infringing the Natural Liberty of our corrupt Wills which reacheth not unto good Works Acts 15.18 compare with 30. Mans Natural Free Will may well consist with Gods Decree as in Paradise Decretum radii contingentia 3. It confirms us in the true Doctrin of Justification and Reconciliation with God by Faith relying on the Merits of Christs Blood without any Works of our own and without considering Faith as a Work to procure Favour by the Righteousness of the Act but only as a Hand to receive the Gift or rather as the very Eating and Drinking of Christ actually than any kind of Condition intitling us to him as our Food This great Doctrin of the Gospel many hate as breaking the strongest Bonds of Holiness and opening a way to all Licentiousness for they reckon that the Conditionality of Works to attain Gods Favour and avoid his Wrath and the necessity of them to Salvation are the most necessary and effectual Impulsives to all Holiness and they account that the other Doctrin opens the Flood-gates to Licentiousness And truly this Consideration would be of some weight if People were to be brought to Holiness by Moral Suasion and their natural Endeavours stirred up by the Terms of the Law and by slavish Fears and Mercenary Hopes for the Force of these Motives would be altogether enervated by the Doctrin of Justification by Free Grace but I have already shewed that a Man being a guilty dead Creature cannot be brought to serve God out of love by force of any of these Motives and that we are not sanctified by any of our own Endeavours to work Holiness in our selves but rather by Faith in Christ's Death and Resurrection even the same whereby we are justified and that the urging of the Law stirs up Sin and that Freedom from it is necessary to all Holiness as the Apostle teacheth Rom. 6.11 14. and 7.4 5. And this way of Sanctification confirms the Doctrin of Justification by Faith as the Apostle informeth Rom. 8.1 For if we are Sanctified and so restored to the Image of God and Life by the Spirit through Faith it is evident that God hath taken us into his Favour and pardoned our Sins by the same Faith without the Law or else we should not have the Fruits and Effects of his Favour thereby to our eternal Salvation Rom. 8.2 Yea his Justice would not admit his giving Life without Works if we were not made Righteous in Christ by the same Faith And we cannot trust to have Holiness freely given us by Christ upon any rational Ground except we can also trust on the same Christ for free Reconciliation and Forgiveness of Sins for our Justification Neither can guilty cursed Creatures that cannot work by reason of their Deadness under the Curse be brought to a rational love of God except they apprehend his loving them first freely without Works 1 John 4.19 The great Objection and Reason of so many Controversies and Books written about it is because they think that Men will trust to be saved however they live But Sanctification is an Effect of Justification and floweth from the same Grace and we trust for them both by the same Faith and for the former in order to the latter And such a Faith be it never so confident tendeth not to Licentiousness but Holiness And we grant that Justification by Grace destroys Holiness by legal Endeavours but not by Grace So that there is no need to live a Papist and die an Antinomian 4. It confirms us in the Doctrin of Real Union with Christ so plentifully held forth in Scripture which Doctrin some count a vain Notion and cannot endure it because they think it worketh not Holiness but Presumption whereas I have shewed that it is absolutely necessary for the Enjoyment of Spiritual Life and Holiness which is treasured up in Christ and that so inseparably that we cannot have it without a real Union with him 2 Cor. 13.5 1 John 5.12 John 6.53 ch 15.5 1 Cor. 1.30 Col. 3.11 The Members and Branches cannot live without Union with the Vine and Head nor the Stones be part of the living Temple except they be really joyned mediately or immediately to the Corner-stone 5. In the Doctrin of certain final Perseverance of the Saints John 3.36 c. 6.37 5.24 1 John 3.9 1 Thess 5.24 Phil. 1.6 John 10.23 29. c. 4.14 They think this Doctrin maketh People careless of good Works I answer It maketh People careless of seeking them by their own Natural Strength and in a way of slavish Fear but careful and couragious in trusting on the Grace of God for them when they are brought by Regeneration heartily to desire them Rom. 6.14 Numb 13.30 setting upon the doing of them in that Grace 1 Thess 5.8
be laid down and cleared out of the Text and confirmed particularly and then I shall make use of them all together Observ I. They who are justified are Sinners such who are come short of the Glory of God i. e. of God's Approbation Joh. 5.44 of Gods Image of Holiness 2 Cor. 3.1 Eph. 4.24 Eternal Happiness 1 Thess 2.12 Rom. 5.2 2 Cor. 4.17 1. The Law condemns all Sinners and strikes them dead as with a Thunderbolt Rom. 3.20 and adjudgeth them to Shame Confusion and Misery instead of Glory and Happiness by the strict terms of it Rom. 2.6 9.11 12. which none fulfils neither can do Rom. 8.7 neither Jews nor Gentiles there is no hope if free Grace restore them not 2. Christ came only to save Sinners and died for this end Rom. 5.6 when we were yet without strength in due time Christ dyed for the Ungodly and 1 Tim. 1.15 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the World to save Sinners of whom I am the chief Mat. 9.13 I am not come to call the Righteous but Sinners to Repentance Mat. 18.11 The Son of man is come to save that which is lost And God must be believed on to Salvation as a God that justifieth the Ungodlsy he must believe as one that worketh not on him that justifieth the Ungodly Rom. 4.5 Observ II. Sinners of all sorts without difference whether Jews or Gentiles that believe are the Subjects of this Justification This is the Scope of the Apostle to shew that whereas Jews and Gentiles were universally condemned by the Light and Law of Nature or the Law written so the Righteousness of God is upon them all that believe ver 21 22. without difference This was a great point to be defended against the Jews in the Apostles times who appropriated Justification to themselves in a legal way and such were Proselites to the Law and Circumcision and therefore the Apostle Paul vehemently urged it Rom. 10.11 12. and it was a point newly revealed to the Apostles that the Gentiles might be accepted without turning Jews and much prized as a very Glorious Revelation Act. 10.28 45. Eph. 3.4 5 18. Col. 1.25 26 27. and it is confirmed 1. Because notwithstanding the Jews priviledg of the Law by reason of breaking the law they had as much need of Free Justification as the Gentiles and no worthyness above the Gentiles by their works but rather greater sinners Rom. 2.23 24. and when there is equal need and worth God might righteously justify one as well as another Rom. 3.9 2. God is the God of the Gentiles as well as the Jews Rom. 3.29 as he promised Rom. 13.9 12. Gal. 3.8 Isa 19.25 Zach. 14.9 3. Abraham was justified before he was circumcised that he might be the Father of those that believe though uncircumcised that they might inherit the same Blessing Rom. 4.10 11 12. 4. This will appear further by shewing that Justification is only by Faith and without dependance upon the Law meerly by the righteousness of another and so Jews and Gentiles are alike capable of it Observ III. That the Justifier or efficient cause of Justification is God It 's an Act of God Rom. 8.33 It is God that justifieth he only can justify Authoritatively and Irreversibly 1. Because he is the Lawgiver and hath power to save and destroy Jam. 4.12 this Case concerns God's Law and can only be tried at his Tribunal he is the Judge of the World Gen. 18.25 It is a small worthless thing to be justified by Man or by our selves meerly 1 Cor. 4.3 4. 2. To Him the Debt of suffering for Sin and acting Righteousness is owed And therefore he only can give a discharge for payment or release of the Debtor Psal 51.4 Mar. 2.7 Observ IV. God Justifieth Souls freely by his Graec. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 freely by his Grace one of these Expressions had been enough but this redoubling of it sheweth the Importance of the truth to quicken our attention the more Here is the Impulsive cause of Justification and his free manner of bestowing it accordingly And this signifies Gods free undeserved Favour in opposition to any works of our Righteousness whereby it might be challenged as a Debt to us Rom. 4.4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt Chap. 11.6 if by Grace then it is no more of works otherwise Grace is no more Grace but if it be of Works then it is no more Grace otherwise Work is no more Work Eph. 2.8 9. By Grace are ye saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the Gift of God Not of works least any man should boast 2 Tim. 1.9 Who hath saved us and called us with an Holy Calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace which he hath given us in Christ Jesus before the World began Ver. 10. But is now made manifest by the appearing c. Grace is mercy and love shewed freely out of Gods proper motion shewing mercy because he will shew mercy and loving us because he will love us Rom. 9.15 and this is confirmed 1. Because there was not nor is any thing in us but what might move God to condemn us for we have all sinned Eph. 2.3 Ezek. 16.6 2. Because God would take away boasting and have his Grace Glorified and Exalted in our Salvation He will have all the Praise and Glory though we have the Blessedness Eph. 2.7 9. that in the Ages to come he might shew the exceeding Riches of his Grace in his kindness toward us through Jesus Christ and so Rom. 3.27 Observ V. God Justifieth Sinners through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth for a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood This is the effecting means or material cause of our Justification viz. Redemption and Propitiation through the Blood of Christ which is the Righteousness of God treasured up in him By Redemption is meant properly such a deliverance as is by paying of a Price and so the Words Redeem and Redemption are frequently used Exod. 13.13 Numb 3.48 49 51. Lev. 5.24 51 52. Jer. 32.7 8 Neh. 5.8 from this proper Signification it is borrowed to signifie a deliverance without Price Luke 21.28 Eph. 1.14 Chap 4.30 or rather by a Metonimy of the Cause put for the highest effect the state of Glory so that state of Glory is called Redemption as being the compleating and crowning effect of Christs Redemption therefore it 's called the purchased Possession By a Propitiation is meant that which appeaseth the wrath of God for Sin and wins his Favour and this Propitiation of Christ was two ways typified First in the propitiatory Sacrifices whose Blood was shed and the Mercy-seat which was called the Propitiation because it covered the Ark wherein was the Law and the Blood of the Sacrifices for Atonement was sprinkled by the High Priest before it and
on thy sin and misery and Christs excellency that so thou may'st be inclined in thy heart to believe Song 1.3 Gal. 2.16 Ps 9.10 for this is the way God useth to beget faith Isa 55.3 But if thou hast a desire and inclination to fly from thy self to Christ in the bent of thy heart so that thou preferrest Christ above all then the spirit hath begun and will carry on the work so that now thou mayst pray confidently for faith Cant. 1.4 Luk. 11.13 Mar. 9.24 Obj. III. But without holiness no Man shall see God Heb. 12.14 And how shall I do to get holiness And I cannot sanctifie my self and this confidence you speak of may slacken my diligence A. If thou hast Righteousness in Christ God will make thee holy and this confidence is the only way to get Holiness because of that Righteousness Rom. 5.21 The new Covenant is confirmed in him which promiseth a new Heart if sin be forgiven thou shalt be delivered from the power and quickned by the same Death and Resurrection of Christ whereby thou art Justified Col. 2.12 13. Exhort III. It Exhorteth them that are justified by Faith 1. To walk humbly as nothing of themselves to acknowledge themselves Enemies to God by Nature and acknowledge sins in the greatness and heinousness of them that they are saved freely by a Righteousness of another not by their own yea so far fallen that the Justice of God would have been against them if it had not been satisfied Psal 71.16 Rom. 3.27 but now see that Christ hath satisfied and his Righteousness is above their Sins Ezek. 26.31 2. To praise and glorifie God through Christ for this Grace Oh! what abundant grace and love appears in Gods washing and cleansing us by his Sons blood Rev. 1.5 Gal. 2.20 and in making his Son Sin and Curse for us Rom. 5.5 8. 1 Joh. 4.9 10. Ch. 3.16 2 Cor. 8.9 and what a glorious excellent Righteousness hath God given us in Christ Isa 61.10 3. To walk comfortably upon the account of this Righteousness Isa 40.1 2. Triumph over Sin and Affliction Rom. 8.33.39 Be confident in expecting great things from God Heb. 10.22 for though you be unworthy and grace will shew you your own unworthiness yet you stand upon the Righteousness of Christ glory in the hope of Gods glory for if Christ died to reconcile you when you were Enemies much more will he save you by his life now you are reconciled Rom. 5.3 10. Ask boldly for what you want for God is in Christs Manhood as the Mercy-seat when ever Sin stings you and objections trouble you look to the Brazen Serpent confess Sin and trust for Pardon meditate on Christs Righteousness and the abundance of grace in him Rom. 8.32 If you find never so much Ungodliness no good qualifications yet Christ is at hand for your comfort Isa 50.10 2 Thes 2.16 17. In all your Sins apply your selves to this Fountain Zach. 13. 1 Joh. 1.7 If Sin lye on conscience it weakens peace and spiritual strength lye not under guilt with a slavish fear you have a Righteousness to deliver you from it applying it by Faith that you may have no more conscience of Sin as condemning Heb. 10.2 Psal 32. you have a better Righteousness than any Perfectionists can have Exhort IV. Hold fast this way of Justification notwithstanding all the noise that is made in the World against it for the Devil will strive to scare you out of it or steal it from you as he did from the Jews from the Galatians the Papists and many Protestants Gal. 1.6 And the Apostle reckons it 's by a Spiritual bewitchery he will strive to get you to trust on Works and tell you it is for the promoting of Holiness and to trust on Works to get Christ and to lay Works lowest in the foundation If you lose this Righteousness of Christ under any colour or pretence whatever you lose all Gal. 5.2 3. Do not so dishonour Christ as to think of procuring that by Works which you have fully in Christ think not that the Gospel requires another Justification to gain this for the Gospel is no legal Covenant but a Declaration of the Righteousness of Faith and we being Justified are Heirs by Adoption and Promise Gal. 3.25 This is the Doctrine which glorifieth God and abaseth the Creature which is a great mark of its truth Beware therefore of carnal reason which will go quite contrary and make Christs righteousness a stumbling Stone to thee 1 Pet. 2.8 Rom. 9.32 â—3 V. Walk as one that enjoys the favour of God in Christ Let him have the honour of it walk therefore in Holiness knowing by what price you are redeemed 1 Pet. 1.17 18. 2 Cor. 5.14 15. 2 Pet. 1.5 11. 1 Cor. 6. last Love God that hath loved you first 1 Joh. 4.19 Psal 116.16 Believe that God will inable to Holiness Rom. 6.14 Particularly walk in Love to the Saints exercise forgiveness to your Enemies sense of your own Sins and Gods forgiving you will cause you to pity and forgive others else you cannot pray or trust for forgiveness of your own Sins upon reasonable grounds Eph. 4.31 32. Mat. 6.14 15. Mat. 18.21 Desire grace may be exalted upon others and wait patiently for the full Declaration of Justification at the great day Gal. 5.5 Act. 3.19 for here your Justification is known only by Faith but in outward things you are dealt with as a Sinner then your Righteousness shall appear openly and you shall be dealt with according to it FINIS
without blemish that he might redeem us from all iniquity by his precious Blood 1 Pet. 1.18 19 20. and he had the same Spirit then which filled his humane Nature with all its fulness afterwards and raised it from the dead and he gave that Spirit then to the Church 1 Pet. 1.11 3.18 19. Now this Spirit was able and effectual to unite those Saints to that Flesh which Christ was to take to himself in the fulness of Time because he was the same in both and to give out to them that Grace with which Christ would afterwards fill his Flesh for their Salvation as well as ours Therefore David accounted Christ's Flesh to be his and spake of Christ's Death and Resurrection as his own before hand as fully as any of us can do since their Accomplishment Psal 16.9 10 11. My flesh also shall rest in hope for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption thou wilt shew me the path of life Yea and Saints before Davids time did all eat of the same spiritual meat and drink of the same spiritual drink even of the same Christ as we do and therefore were Partakers of the same Priviledge of Union and Fellowship with Christ 1 Cor. 10.3 4. And when Christ was manifested in the Flesh in the fulness of time all things in Heaven and on Earth all the Saints departed whose Spirits were then made perfect in Heaven as well as the Saints that then were or should afterward be on Earth were gathered together in one and comprehended in Christ as their Head Ephes 1.10 And he was the chief corner-stone in whom the building of the whole Church upon the foundation of the Prophets before and the Apostles after his comming being fitly fromed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord Ephes 2.20 21. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to day and for ever Heb. 13.8 His incarnation death and resurrection were the cause of all the Holiness that ever was or shall be given to Man from the Fall of Adam to the end of the World and that by the mighty Power of his Spirit whereby all Saints that ever were or shall be are joyned together to be Members of that one mystical Body whereof he is the Head DIRECT IV. The Means or Instruments whereby the Spirit of God accomplisheth our Vnion with Christ and our Fellowship with him in all Holiness are the Gospel whereby Christ entereth into our Hearts to work Faith in us and Faith whereby we actually receive Christ himself with all his Fulness into our Hearts And this Faith is a Grace of the Spirit whereby we heartily believe the Gospel and also believe on Christ as he is revealed and freely promised to us therein for all his Salvation EXPLICATION THAT which I asserted in the foregoing Direction concerning the necessity of our being in Christ and having Christ in us by a mystical Union to enable us for an holy Practice might put us to a stand in our Endeavours for Holiness because we cannot imagine how we should be able to raise our selves above our natural Sphere to his glorious Union and Fellowship until God be pleased to make known to us by supernatural revelation the means whereby his Spirit maketh us Partakers of so high a Privilege But God is pleased to help us at a stand to go on forward by revealing two Means or Instruments whereby his Spirit accomplisheth the mystical Union and Fellowship betwixt Christ and us and whereby rational Creatures are capable of attaining thereunto by his Spirit working in them One of these Means is the Gospel of the Grace of God wherein God doth make known to us the unsearchable Riches of Christ and Christ in us the hope of Glory Eph. 3.8 Col. 1.27 and doth also invite us and command us to believe on Christ for his Salvation and doth encourage us by a free Promise of that Salvation to all that believe on him Acts 16.31 Rom. 10.9 11. This is God's own Instrument of Conveyance wherein he sendeth Christ to us to bless us with his Salvation Acts 3.26 It is the ministration of the spirit and of righteousness 2 Cor. 3.6 8 9. Faith cometh by the hearing of it and therefore it is a great instrument whereby we are begotten in Christ and Christ is formed in us Rom. 10.16 17. 1 Cor. 4.15 Gal. 4.19 There is no need for us to say in our Hearts Who shall ascend into Heaven to bring Christ down from above Or who shall descend into the deep to bring up Christ from the dead that we may be united and have fellowship with him in his death and resurrection For the word is nigh to us the Gospel the word of Faith in which Christ himself graciously condescendeth to be nigh to us so that we may come at him there without going any further if we desire to be joyned to him Rom. 10.6 7 8. The other of these means is Faith that is wrought in us by the Gospel This is our Instrument of Reception whereby the Union betwixt Christ and us is accomplished on our part by our actual receiving of Christ himself with all his Fulness into our Hearts which is the principal Subject of the present Explanation The Faith which Philosophers commonly treat of is only an Habit of the Understanding whereby we assent to a Testimony upon the Authority of the Testifier Accordingly some would have Faith in Christ to be no more than a believing the truth of things in Religion upon the authority of Christ testifying them but the Apostle sheweth that the Faith whereby we are justified is Faith in Christ's Blood Rom. 3.24 25. not only in his Authority as a Testifier And tho' a meer assent to a Testimony were sufficient Faith for knowledge of things which the Philosophers aimed at yet we are to consider that the Design of Saving Faith is not only to know the Truth of Christ and his Salvation testified and promised in the Gospel but also to apprehend and receive Christ and his Salvation as given by and with the Promise Therefore Saving Faith must necessarily contain two Acts believing the Truth of the Gospel and believing on Christ as promised freely to us in the Gospel for all Salvation By the one it receiveth the Means wherein Christ is conveyed to us by the other it receiveth Christ himself and his Salvation in the Means As it 's one act to receive the Breast or Cup wherein Milk or Wine are conveyed and another act to suck the Milk in the Breast and to drink the Wine in the Cup and both these acts must be perform'd heartily with an unfeigned love to the Truth and a desire of Christ and his Salvation above all things this is our spiritual Appetite which is necessary for our eating and drinking Christ the Food of Life as a natural Appetite is for Bodily Nourishment Our assenting unto or believing the Gospel must not be forced