in Charity draw out thy Alms and with them thy Soul give outward Things and which is more thy Self in real compassion Cast thy Bread upon the Waters upon the Tears of the Poor that it may be carried into the Ocean of Eternity and there found again in a glorious Reward When an Object of Charity meets thee Say not Go and come again pass not by as the Priest and Levite did but as the good Samaritan immediately pour in thy Wine and Oyl into the Wounds of thy Brother omit no Season of Charity Now is thy Seed-time scatter thy good Works Sow upon Blessings as the Phrase is 2 Cor. 9.6 Now Christs Bank is open put in thy Money upon holy Usury and God himself will be thy Pay-Master Be still a-doing of good that in thy little sphere thou mayst resemble him who doth good in the great sphere of Nature His Sun shines and Rain falls every-where Be as like him as thou canst shining in good Works and dropping in Charities upon all occasions Give a Portion to seven and also to eight saith the Preacher Eccles 11.2 From this Text the Jews ground a Custom to give an Alms to seven or eight poor people every day However that be we should be much in Charity Look on the Poor as Gods Altars erected on purpose That upon their Backs and Bellies thou mayst offer up thy Charity as an Odour of a sweet smell a Sacrifice acceptable well-pleasing to God Be rich in good Works ready to distribute willing to communicate laying up a good Foundation against the time to come This is the way to Assurance Works of Mercy and Charity make Faith visible and withal put the Believer into a nearer capacity to have the Love of God manifested to him They make Faith visible no Assurance can be had unless that Query Whether we be in the Faith be resolved in the Affirmative That cannot be done unless Faith become visible and more visible it cannot be than in such good Works which as the holy Blossoms of it prove that there is Life at the root The Mercy and Charity which hang upon it may tell thee That thou hast indeed closed by Faith with the infinite Love and Grace above and from thence brought down all those drops and models of Goodness which thou sheddest forth in thy Conversation The Fruit may prove thy standing in Christ the true Root of fatness and sweetness The Image of Goodness limmed and drawn out upon thy Life shews it self to be from the pure Spirit St. John exhorting the little children to a real practical Love adds this as a singular Comfort 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In this Love we know that we are of the Truth and shall assure our hearts before him 1 John 3.18 19. It thou love thy Brother in Deed and in Truth assure thy self that thou art of the Truth That the holy truth of the Gospel is mixed with faith in thy Heart and there grows up into the Divine life and likeness Say not That thy Faith is dead or idle as long as it can shew forth the Coats and Garments the Alms and good Works which it hath done these shew the life and labour of it Nay further these put thee into a nearer capacity to have the Love of God manifested to thee God in the Prophet commands them to deal their bread to the hungry to cover the naked not to hide themselves from their own flesh and immediately after lets out himself in sweet Promises to them Thy righteousness shall then go before thee Isa 58.8 that is thy Graces shall visibly appear to thee And again Thou shalt call and the Lord shall answer thou shalt cry and he shall say here am I ver 9. that is He will be very near and ready at hand to reveal himself to thee And which is more as St. John tells us he will dwell in thee He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4.16 He dwells in the Divine Life and the Divine Presence dwells in him He hath a Shechinah nay and an Oracle in his own bosom God will speak peace to his Saints Psal 85.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to his merciful ones with them he will shew himself merciful to them he will speak from the Mercy-seat they give but ordinary Bread but receive from him hidden Manna they draw out their Souls to their Brethren and he draws out his Soul to them In the last place if thou wouldst be assured set thy heart on God and Christ and Heaven stay no longer in the straits of this lower World take thy flight by Faith and Love into the sphere of Infinity where thy Soul may open and dilate it self for ever Hang no longer about the drops and little particles of Being put forth thy Soul might and main into the great ocean of Sweetness and Perfection which is able to fill up thy two vast Capacities of Mind and Will with its unmeasurable Truth and Goodness Warm thy Heart no more among the little sparks of Good here below soar up upon the wings of Desire and ardent Affection to that pure immutable Sun of Love and Goodness one of whose golden rays of favour will be more to thee than a World Thou hast O Believer a Soul twice Heaven-born once as it is in its own nature an immortal spark from above and again as it bears the impress of Heaven in its Graces And answerably thou hast a double impetus after Happiness one in the instinct of nature thirsting after it and another in the more Divine impulses of Grace pressing towards it as its Center Think not that such a Soul shall ever find rest till it come back to the first point from whence it issued and resign up it self to its Original in the bosom of God Inflame thy Heart with Love to Jesus Christ who is altogether lovely and wholly desirable In his Righteousness thou maist stand and look up to the sweet reconciled face of God In his bleeding wounds thou hast a passage into the infinite bowels of Mercy through the veil of his flesh the way is open to the Holy of Holies The oyl upon his head can fill thee with joy unspeakable and glorious Lift up thine eyes O Believer to that wonder of wonders God manifested in the flesh from whence come all the admirable indwellings of God in the spirits of Men. Set thy Heart upon that Infinite Mass and Treasure of Merit which paid off all the scores to Divine Justice and over and above bought all the Glory of Heaven for poor worms Ravish thy Soul in the rich redundancies and over-measures of the Spirit upon him which overflow and fill so many thousand precious Souls with Grace Look stedfastly upon that pure mirrour of Love Holiness Meekness Goodness Obedience Patience which is in his flesh look till thou shine with the same image or spiritual Idea of Grace look till thou art captivated in raptures and flames of Love towards
holiness and justice with his holiness providing a perfect righteousness and with his justice providing a perfect satisfaction for them in a surety hence the Apostle saith we are justified freely by his grace Rom. 3.24 Freely by his grace he uses two words the more plainly and emphatically to decipher out to us the pure fountain of love and grace out of which pardon and justification issue forth to poor sinners Secondly There must be a perfect righteousness fully answering the holy Law God cannot deny himself he cannot deny his holiness so as to justifie us without a righteousness therefore there must be one he cannot deny his truth so as to account that a righteousness which is none therefore it must be perfect fully answering the Law all-fair without any spot in it all-pure without any mixture in it all-perfect without and defect in it such a thing as is not to be found in any meer man The Jews as it seems by Josephus thought a meer outward righteousness enough but alass what is this without a pure heart The Popish Doctors look upon inherent graces as our very righteousness in justification indeed these because the denomination is à meliore parte denominate men righteous but they are but inchoate and imperfect and therefore are short of that perfect and absolute righteousness requisite to justification They denominate men righteous but they do it but in their own weak degree and not in full proportion to the holy Law a gracious man is not all grace there is flesh as well as spirit dross as well as gold water as well as wine in him his mind is not all Light his will is not all love his affections are not all harmony what of grace he hath is but in part and if this be his righteousness he can be justified but in part or rather not at all Neither can our good works no not those which flow from grace ever be our righteousness in justification Those are good as they flow from the pure fountain of the spirit but as they proceed from us in whom there is much of the old Adara they smell of the cask and soil in the channel and contract a great deal of dross from the indwelling sin Hence they are so far from justifying us that they themselves need a justification Hence holy Nehemiah prays that his good works may be remembred with a spare me O Lord according to the greatness of thy mercy Neh 13.22 Neither will it suffice to justification if our good works are more then our evil The Papists fable that Henry the second Emperour was weighed in the ballance to see whether he were worthy of heaven or hell his good works were put into one scale his evil into the other and these were like to out weigh and sink him to hell but that St. Lawrence put in the Chalice by the Emperour given him and so made the scale of good works preponderate O vain tale nothing weighs with God in the point of justification but a compleat rightcousness and that can no where be found but in Christ alone he and he only fulfilled all righteousness and therefore he is called by the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the end of the Law for righteousness to the believer Rom. 10.4 the Law hath its total sum and perfect compleature in him Thirdly There must be an expiation of sin or else there can be no justification The very Gentiles themselves stung with the conscience of sin and vengeance had their expiatory and lustratory Sacrifices The antient lews being Gods people had their offerings and sacrifices for sin to make an Atonement according to the Levitical Law The latter Jews though they reject the sacrifice of the Messiah yet that they might not be wholly without an expiation offer a cock for sin because the word Gebher in Hebrew signifies a man and in the Talmud a cock hence they say Gebher that is the man sinneth and Gebher that is the cock suffereth If the Prophet Isaias in the 53. chapter had used the word Gebher the Rabbins saith a Learned man would have turned the man into a cock but there it is not Gebher but Ish a man of sorrows But these expiations not availing God hath provided an expiation in the death of his son Without shedding of blood there is no remission saith the Apostle Heb. 9.22 and because creature-blood could not do it the blood of God was shed to redeem us from sin Jesus Christ who is God-man offered up himself through the eternal spirit to purge our consciences from dead works he paid the utmost farthing to Divine justice and hath left nothing at all to pay for the believing finner The Gentile sacrifices were no expiations at all being indeed sacrifices to devils and not to God nay in their own account they did not expiate in all cases Hence when the Emperor Constantine was haunted with the innocent blood he had shed the Gentile Flamius could tell him of no expiation But the blood of Christ is a true and universal expiation cleansing from sin and all sin 1 Joh. 1.7 The Levitical sacrifices though of Divine Institution were but types and shadows making nothing perfect But a crucified Christ is the sum and substance of them really atoning what those did but typically The Rabbinical cock is a strange vanity in which we may stand and wonder at the Jewish blindness but what their vain Gebher could not do that our Ish the man of sorrows upon whom all our iniquities met hath done indeed he was wounded for our iniquities his soul was an offering for sin his life a â—â—nsom for many his blood was shed for the remission of sins he paid that he never took he made 〈◊〉 through the blood of his cross in him God is 〈◊〉 and reconciled These things being premised I say the soul by Faith doth resign up it self for pardon and justification And that I may observe my first method this resignation is made First To Jesus Christ the Mediator The believer conscious to his own spiritual poverty doth as the poor man in the Psalm commit himself or as the Original is leave himself on the Lord Psal 10.14 In stead of a perfect righteousness he hath raggs of weakness and imperfection but he leaves himself upon the perfect righteousness of Christ as a thing fully answering every jot and tittle of the Law Indeed some great Rabbies cry out upon imputative righteousness as a thing impossible calling it putative a meer imagination Luthers spectrum the pleasing dream of simple Christians but in sober sadness the dream is on their own side If imputative righteousness be impossible how can we stand before the righteous Law dooming and cursing the least defect or non-continuance in all things Imputative righteousness is impossiblé and inherent is imperfect and how can we stand if we stand the righteousness of God must be upon us Rom. 3.22 Christ must be the end of the Law for righteousness unto
darkness and see little or no light their light may be like that in the Prophet Zach. 14.6 neither clear nor dark they may live in crepusculo in a kind of twilight in a mixture of light and darkness Secondly Faith goeth before justification but assurance followeth after it Faith goeth before justification Scripture is express in it by him all that believe are justified Acts 13.39 with the heart man believeth unto righteousness Rom. 10.10 the righteousness of God is upon all them that believe Rom. 3.22 we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified Galat. 2.16 might justification go before faith it were possible that a man might be saved in his sins a child of wrath might be in the arms of divine love a captive of Satan might be a son of God a man out of Christ might be justified in him all which are impossible but assurance follows after justification justification is necessarily presupposed to assurance for to believe my sins forgiven that they may be forgiven is absurd to believe my sins forgiven before they be forgiven is false to believe my sins forgiven because I believe so is vain and foolish Remission must first he before it can be manifested to be it must first be granted out of the Court of heaven before there can be any true Copy of it in conscience unless we allow a distinction between a faith of resignation before and a faith of assurance after justification we cannot possibly deal with the Romanists Bellarmine speaking of that special faith whereby a man believes himself just before God in and through Christ puts this Quaere De notis Ecclesiae l. 4. c. 11. Cum incipio credere me esse justum vel sum justus vel injustus si justus non justificor per fidem banc quia ista fides posterior meâ justitiâ si injustus ista fides est falsa when I begin to believe my self just am I just or unjust if just I am not justified by this faith which is after my righteousness if unjust this faith is false neither is there any imaginable way to dissolve this knot regularly without such a distinction between faith as antecedent to justification and faith as consequent Thirdly Faith justifieth us in foro Dei before God assurance justifieth us in foro conscientiae in our feeling and declaratively only Faith justifies us before God all those expressions in St. Paul touching justification by faith are meant of a justification before God I shall name but one or two that no man is justified by the Law in the sight of God is evident for the just shall live by faith Gal. 3.11 the justification before God here denied to the Law is attributed to faith And again a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the faith of Jesus Christ Gal. 2.16 He doth not say faith declares a man justified for that even the excluded works may do but saith justifies Faith uts on Christ and his righteousness assurance only bears witness that the wedding garment is on Faith waits at the footstool of free-grace to have a pardon sealed in heaven assurance copies it out and proclaims it in conscience unless we admit this distinction we open the flood-gates to Antinomianism Fourthly Faith is a permanent thing an immortal seed which never dies it is built upon the rock of ages and cannot be moved it hangs upon an infallible word the least jot or tittle thereof cannot fall to the ground it is fed with an everlasting spring the holy spirit being in the believer as a well of water springing up to eternal life but assurance is transient now the believer hath nothing but wine and honycombs of grace and a little after he hath a cup of gall and wormwood now a sheet full of celestial joys and comforts is let down to him and then all is taken up into heaven again he is much like Joseph sometimes in the coat of many colours in the visible badges of his fathers love and anon stript and cast into the pit like poor Heman free among the dead and laid in darkness he is a spiritual Heliotrope who is all day in heavenly amours wheeling and turning about to the light of Gods countenance and anon when night approaches contracts his leaves and hangs down his head till there be another Sun it the effence of faith be in assurance the believer stands as it were upon a sea of glass in a very lubricous condition 't is well with him whilest he hath the light of Gods countenance whilest Gods spirit bears witness to his that he is a child of God but what if God withdraw and retire as it were into his unapproachable light what if the crannies of the heart be all shut up so that neither the sunny beams of Gods favour nor yet the starry graces in the heart can appear what if the arch-enemy Satan come with those instruments of death the threatnings and rake in the old wounds of sin and join the darkness of temptation to the darkness of corruption in the believer to cause if it were possible utter darkness must he be an Apostate a cast-away a man fallen from grace God forbid St. Bernard speaking of the manifestation of Gods love cries out Rara hora brovis mora O si durâsset it is a rare hour but a short stay Oh that it would continue with me the believers standing is not in it but in his union with Christ this was notably exemplified to us in Christ when he cried out My God My God why hast thou forsaken me Math. 27.46 the hypostatical union was not dissolved but the present vision substracted in like manner the believer the man in Christ when in desertions and temptations hath a sure conjunction with Christ even whilest there is a suspension of comforts unless we own this distinction we cannot maintain the doctrine of perseverance against the Remonstrants Fifthly Faith is the first-born of all graces and leads the van to all the rest it is the mother-grace and as it were teems out all other graces and no wonder for it unites us to Christ out of whose fulness we receive grace for grace and into whose image we are changed from glory to glory as by the spirit of the Lord but assurance follows after faith and all other graces This will be evident if we consider the manner how assurance is produced it is not an Enthusiasm a voice an internal locution speaking to the heart some such words as these thou art in Gods favour or thy sins are forgiven or thou art a son of God no it is in another way the holy spirit doth so irradiate the heart in its reflections and all the pretious graces lodging there that it plainly appears that the grace of God is there of a truth as it was with the blind man in the Gospel when his eyes were opened he could look abroad in the world and say here 's the earth
let down into his heart and another all is drawn up into heaven again His Evidences may be blurred Satan may hold up his pardoned Sins as it were in their old guilt the Arrows of God may stick fast in him and bring qualms and sick-fits upon his Conscience But at that day his Comforts shall be unvariable a nightless Day and a cloudless Horizon an eternal feast upon God and all things in him his Evidences all clear and after but this once shewing forth an everlasting possession of the expected Happiness The Accuser Satan shall be struck dumb at the blessed sentence of pardon and acceptance pronounced by God before Men and Angels God shall never frown or wound him any more but wrap him up in the arms of endless love and joy This will be a day of refreshing indeed Thus much of the perfection of this holy fruit Fifthly The last thing is the excellency of it God himself writes upon the Justified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Blessed one Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered Pal. 32.1 or as the original Blessednesses is he there is not one single Happiness but a cluster of Beatitudes in this estate Some of these I shall gather off from this Vine First The Justified person hath God for his God these two I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and I will be their God stand in conjunction in the Covenant of Grace Hebr. 8.10 and 12 verses God say the Jewish Rabbins hath the key of the Womb the key of the Grave the key of the Rain and the key of the Heart all that is in the Creation is at his dispose The Justified man hath as I may say a key into God himself He may unlock infinite Treasures and say These everlasting Arms which bear up the World are mine for protection These All-seeing Eyes which guide every wheel in Nature are mine for direction Those immense Bowels which cover all the Creation embrace and sold me up in special Love Those two all-comprizing words My God are in truth utterable by none but such as he is God is called the God of Abraham Isaack and Jacob. Cujus omnes gentes sunt quasi trium hominum Deus esset saith St. Austine as if the Great Lord of all things were appropriated to those three Men. Such honour have all Justified ones God is their own and to make this sure they have bonds and bills under Gods own hand they can in one Promise shew a title to his Power and in another to his Mercy and in a third to his Wisdom and in that I will be their God They can lay a just claim to all that is in him which what it amounts unto is more than the tongue of Men and Angels can express Secondly The Justified person hath Christ for his own When the covetous King of Egypt built an house for his great Treasures the cunning Architect left a loose Stone in the building that so he might have free access thereinto What entrance he had by craft into the Egyptian Treasures that Justified persons have by a fair grant into all the unsearchable riches of Christ Merit Spirit Life Death Righteousness Redemption Fulness Glory all that is in Christ is their own If his Righteousness can stand before God so will they If his Blood can wash away sin they shall be without spot or wrinckle at the Great day If his glorious over-measure of the Spirit cannot fail no more will their supplies of Grace If he ascended up into Heaven it was to prepare a place for them If he make Intercession above they must have access to the Throne of Grace If he sit at the Right-hand of Power and Majesty all their enemies must be made their foot-stool Oh! infinite enjoyment Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither can it enter into mans heart what the total sum of this is Thirdly The Justified man hath a rare priviledge in his Holy duties He hath assistance from access unto and acceptance with the great God in these He hath assistance from him Whilest he stands offering up holy Services fire comes down from heaven upon the Sacrifice The Holy Spirit inflames his heart towards God opening it in Hearing melting it in Alms and pouring it out in Prayer So that in some sence he offers up his Duties as Christ did himself through the eternal Spirit enlivening and impowering him thereunto His voyage to Heaven lies through a tract of various Duties but it never fares with him in these as it did with Sir Hugh Willoughby in his Voyage to Moscovy in which he was by extream Frosts frozen to death The warm influences of Grace keep him from freezing in this divine enterprize His heart which seeks the Lord in his waies shall live and to make it sure our Saviour saies expresly because I live ye shall live also Joh. 14.19 His life is hid with Christ As long as Christ the Head is alive above the Members below shall never fail of quickening grace in their addresses to God Again he hath access unto God in them A man under guilt cannot approach unto God no more than fallen Origen casting his eye upon that of the Psalmist What but thou to do to declare my Word could tell how to Preach but the Justified man may draw near unto him because his heart is sprinckled from an evil Conscience The guilt which would have made him shie of God is done away in Christs blood Whilst others are but in the outward Court in the opus operatum the work done he may enter into the Holy of Holies into communion with God the Holy Spirit conducts him thither through the vail of Christs flesh Moreover which is the crown of all he hath acceptance with God God had respect to Abel and to his offering Gen. 4.4 such a respect as to bear witness to his righteousness by some visible sign as fire from heaven consuming the Sacrifice The justified man is in his measure as Daniel a man of Desires and as the Blessed Virgin graced or highly favoured His Prayers make melody in heaven his Alms are the savour of a sweet-smell he doth not lose so much as a cup of cold water nor shut a door of sense against an approaching Temptation in vain There is a well-pleasingness in all his Services as being ushered forth from the heart into the hand of the Mediatour and there richly perfuned for the Father though as they lie in our hearts there be much smoak and mixture of weakness in them yet as they are in the hand of Christ they are glorified duties acceptable to God through Jesus Christ Fourthly The Justified man hath more of the sweetness of life and its outward Comforts than others He hath more of the sweetness of life than others The Jewish Doctours treating about the estimation of Persons mentioned Levit. 27. say That if a man be adjudged to death for his transgression he is not to be valued
in judgment Psal 25.9 And for a pure Comfort They shall have joy in the Lord and be every day increasing it Isa 29.19 Their meek and quiet spirit makes them beautiful in the eyes of God and Man so rich a jewel proves them to be the elect of God Col. 3.12 Such Promises as these are able to meeken us under any Injuries Cicero saying Justitiae primum munus est ut ne cui noceat and adding as a salvo nisi lacessitus Lactantius cried out O quam simplicem sententiam duorum verborum adjectione corrupit What a dainty sentence did he spoil with those two words A Believer fixing his eyes on the Promises will not let go his Meekness no not for all the provocations in the World the loss of such a Jewel would be more to him than all other sufferings Another Grace actuated by Faith is Obedience Two things in the Spouse did ravish the heart of Christ her single eye of Faith and the neck-chain of Obedience Cant. 4.9 Obedience as Samuel said is better than Sacrisice And as Luther More eligible than doing Miracles Faith receiving Christ the Lord is in it self Virtual Obedience to the Commands of God and as an effect it produces actual To this end it believes the Commands to be as they are looking on the stamps of Majesty Purity Equity Righteousness therein it falls down and confesses that God is there of a truth this and that is the very Will of God and must be done primo intuitu without dispute and by all persons even the greatest on Earth Princes here are Subjects Constantine and Theodosius though Emperors stiled themselves Vassals of Christ Zedekiab the King should have humbled himself before Jeremy the Prophet 2 Chron. 36.12 Nay the Kingdom of God which is in every Command must be humbly received though coming in the hand of a child or a servant as a good Divine noteth Here all men and all in men even the Princely powers of Reason and Will with all the progeny of Thoughts and Affections must bow down before God A famous instance of which we have in the Noble Andelot in France who being questioned for a Protestant by his Soveraign Henry the second bravely professed That his Body Estate and Dignity was in his Majesty's power but his Soul was only subject to God From such a Supream Authority in the Command Faith presses strongly to Obedience and for a sweet Principle thereunto it draws a free Spirit from Christ Faith translates us into the Kingdom of Christ and there by a singular Priviledg above other Kingdom all the Subjects are ready to do the Commands of their Lord. Faith converses much about the Wounds and precious Sacrifice of Christ and there the free Spirit dwells as the free bird in the Altar Ps 84.3 And being received by Faith brings forth a numerous off-spring in acts of Obedience Faith makes us parts and pieces of Christ and so we are anointed with the Holy Ghost in some measure as his Humane Nature was in a transcendent way Faith dwells in the holy Truth and that makes us free indeed Whilest Precepts give the Rule Promises afford the Power such a Promise as that I will cause you to walk in my statutes Ezek. 36.27 being mixed with Faith will impower us to all Obedience Hence the Service of God becomes a freedom and Obedience easie and natural moving upon the wheels of Love and wings of the Spirit which must needs be a very strong incentive to Obedience and the rather because Faith ensures the acceptance thereof Were we to obey under the Covenant of Works which will bate nothing of pure sinless Perfection our Obedience might be bootless and heartless because every act of it would vanish and come to nothing by the adherent Corruption which made Calvin say That if a man did cull out the most excellent work of all his life he would find some corrupt flesh or other in it And St. Austin Vae vite landabili Wo to a laudable life without mercy But we are to obey under the Covenant of Grace whence Sincerity is accepted and frailty covered God gives a Tostimonial of Righteousness to Noah not withstanding his Infirmities and of Perfectness to Asa notwithstanding the high Places Uprightness passes for absolute Perfection and the main of the Heart for all of it insomuch that it is said of Josiah That he turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might according to all the Law of Moses 2 King 23.25 his Sincerity was taken as if all had been fulfilled Retract lib. 1. c. 19. according to that of St. Austin Omnia mandata facta deputantur quando quicquid non sit ignoscitur There are Pardons ready sealed in Heaven for Believers Insirmities God forgives what is ours in a duty and accepts what is his own Our Duties are taken into the hand of Christ the Mediator and there perfumed with his sweet Merits and though as they are in our hands they have dross and soil in them yet as they are in his they are glorified Duties and as sweet Odours to God And upon such terms as these who would not obey Every act of Obedience shall be accepted and the light of Gods Countenance will irradiate our Duties And to give a further advance to this Grace Faith looks within the Veil to the great recompence in Heaven there are Crowns of Life rivers of Pleasures and plenitudes of Joy for ever there holy Souls see all Truths in their Original drink all Good out of the Fountain and have God for their All in All and all this is the reward of our poor imperfect Obedience And as such is outwardly secured in the Promises and inwardly realized by Faith and therefore must needs move the Believer strongly to Obedience no wonder if he burn in Devotions or melt in Charity or labour in other acts of Obedience all these being but a sowing to the Spirit will come up in a crop of Eternal Life his Prayers will be turned into Hallelujahs his Alms repaid in Everlasting Love and all his good Works which follow him into another World shall be woven into a Crown of Immortality And upon such an account who would not obey and live in perpetual resignation as he did who as the story goes always concluded his Prayers thus Domine quid me vis facere Lord what wilt thou have me to do And lived in such holy joys as if he had been in Heaven already Another Grace actuated by Faith is Patience This is Meekness towards God as Meekness is Patience towards Man and respecteth Gods Disposing Will as Obedience doth his Commanding This is a Subjection to God a Possession of our Selves and an Admiration to Others Hence the Constancy of Annas Burgus a Senator of Paris suffering for the Protestant Cause made many curious to know what Religion that was for which he so patiently endured death To promote this Grace Faith in