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
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-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
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
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
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
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-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
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
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
past and gone Joh. 3.8 we must therefore begin the work before we know that the Spirit doth or will work in us savingly And we shall be willing to set upon the work if we Believe for thy People shall be willing in the day of thy Power Psal 110.3 It is enough that God discovereth to us before-hand in the Gospel what Faith is and the ground we have to Believe on Christ for our own Salvation and that God requireth this Duty of us and will help us in the performance of it if we apply our selves heartily thereunto Fear not I command thee to be strong and of good courage Josh 1. Arise and be doing and the Lord will be with thee 1 Chron. 22.16 Therefore whoso receiveth this Gospel-discovery as the Word of God in hearty Love is taught by the Spirit and will certainly come to Christ by Believing Joh. 6.45 Every one that receiveth it not despiseth God maketh him a lyar and deserveth justly to perish for his Unbelief 4. Tho the Spirit worketh saving Faith only in the Elect and others believe not because they are not of Christ's Sheep Joh. 10.26 and on that account its called the Faith of Gods Elect Tit. 1.1 yet all that hear the Gospel are obliged to the Duty of Believing as well as to all the Duties of the moral Law and that before they know their own particular Election and they are lyable to Condemnation for Unbelief as well as for any other sin He that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed on the Navie of the only begotten Son of God Joh. 3.18 The Apostle Paul sheweth That the Elect Israelites obtained Salvation and the rest that were not Elected were blinded and yet even these were broken off from the good Olive-tree because of their Unbelief Rom. 11.7 20. We cannot have a certain knowledge of our Election to Eternal Life before we do Believe it is a thing hidden in the unsearchable Counsel of God until it be manifest by our effectual Calling and Believing on Christ The Apostle knew the Election of the Thessalonians by sinding the evidence of their Faith that the Gospel came to them not in Word only but also in Power and in the Holy Ghost and in much Assurance and that they had received the Word in much affliction with joy in the Holy Ghost 1 Thes 1.4 5 6. We are to see our Calling if we would find out that God hath chosen us 1 Cor. 1.26 27. therefore we must Believe on Christ before we know our Election or else we shall never know it and shall never Believe and it is no presumption for us to trust confidently on Christ for Everlasting Life before we have any good evidence of our Election because God that cannot Lye hath made a general promise That whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed without making the least difference among them that perform this Duty Rom. 10.11 12. The Promise is as firm and sure to be fulfilled as any of Gods Decrees and Purposes and therefore it is a good and sufficient ground for our Confidence It is certain that all that the Father hath given to Christ by the Decrees of Eternal Election shall come to Christ And it is as really certain that Christ will in no wise cast out any that cometh to him whosoever he be Joh. 6.37 And we need not fear that we shall infringe God's Decree of Election by Believing on Christ confidently for our Salvation before we know what God hath decreed concerning us For if we Believe we shall at last be found among the number of the Elect. And if we refuse to Believe we shall thereby wilfully sort our selves among the Reprobates that stumble at the Word being disobedient whereunto also they are appointed 1 Pet. 2.8 I shall add further that tho we have no Evidence of our particular Election before we Believe yet we are to trust on Christ assuredly to make it evident to us by giving us that Salvation which is the peculiar Portion of the Elect only All spiritual saving Blessings wherewith God blesseth his People in Christ are the peculiar Portion of them whom God hath chosen in Christ before the foundation of the World Eph. 1.3 4. yet we must necessarily trust on Christ for those saving Blessings or have none at all We are to pray in Faith nothing doubting that God will remember us with the favour that he beareth to his People that we may see the good of his Chosen and glory with his Inheritance Psal 106.4 5. therefore we are to trust assuredly on God that he will deal with us as his Chosen People Thus it appeareth that it is not presumption but your bounden Duty to apply your selves to the great work of Believing on Christ for Salvation without questioning at all before-hand whether you are Elected or no Secret things belong to God but those things that are revealed belong unto us that we may do them Deut. 29.29 The second thing directed to is that you should endeavour for a right manner of performing this Duty This is a point of great concernment because the want of it will render your Faith ineffectual to Sanctification and Salvation The great Duty of Love which is the end of the Law and the principal fruit of Sanctification must flow from Faith unfeigned 1 Tim. 1.5 There is a feigned Faith that doth not really receive Christ into the Heart and will not produce Love or any true Obedience such as Simon Magus had Acts 8.13.23 for notwithstanding his Faith he was in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity And such as those Jews had to whom Christ would not commit himself who did not confess him lest they should be put out of the Synagogue Joh. 2.23 and 12.42 and such as the Apostle James speak of What doth it profit you my Brethren if a man say he have Faith and have not Works Can that Faith save him The Devils also believe and tremble Jam. 2.14 19. Take heed therefore lest you deceive your Souls with a counterfeit Faith instead of the precious Faith of God's Elect. The way to distinguish the one from the other is by considering well what is the right manner of that Believing which is effectaal to Salvation Hypocrites may perform the same Works for the matter with true Saints but they are defective in the manner of performance wherein the excellency of the Work doth chiefly consist One great reason why many strive to enter in at the strait Gate and are not able is because they are ignorant and defective in the right manner of Acting this Faith whereby they are to enter Now I confess that God only is able to guide us effectually in the right way of Believing and we have this great Consolation when we see our own folly and proneness to mistake our way that if we heartily desire and endeavour to Believe on Christ aright we may considently trust on Christ to guide
from your evil ways for why will ye die O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 Christ testifieth that he would often have gathered the Children of Jerusalem as a hen c. and they would not Mat. 23.37 And the Apostle Paul testifieth that God will have all men to be saved c. 1 Tim. 1.4 you are to reject and abandon all thoughts that are contrary to this persuasion What if few be saved Thy Salvation will not make the number too great for few will follow thee in the Duty of Believing What if the Wrath of God be revealed from Heaven against thee in many terrible Judgments and the Word and thine own Conscience condemn thee and Christ seem to reckon thee no better than a Dog as he did the Woman of Canaan Mat. 15.26 Thou art to make a good interpretation of all these things that the end of them is to drive thee to Christ as this was the End of the Curses of the Law and all the terrible Dispensations of them Rom. 10.4 If a Prophet or Angel from Heaven sent of God on purpose to declare that the Sentence of Everlasting Damnation is declared against thee it would be thy Duty to believe that God sent him to give thee timely warning for this very end that thou mightest Believe and turn to God by Faith and Repentance Jeremiah prophesied against the Jews that God would pluck them up pull them down and destroy them for their sins yet he himself taught them If they turned from their evil ways God would repent of the evil Jer. 18.7 8 11. Jonah preached nothing but certain Destruction of Nineveh to be executed upon them within 40 days Chap. 3.4 yet the intent of that terrible message was that those Heathenish People might escape Destruction by Repentance The most absolute and peremptory denunciations of Divine Vengeance against us while we are in this World must be always understood with a secret reserve of Salvation for us upon our Faith and Repentance And we are to account that the reason why God doth so terribly denounce his Judgments against us by his Word is that we may escape them by flying for Refuge to his free Mercy in Christ Take heed of fostering any thoughts that God hath absolutely decreed to shew no saving Mercy to you or that you have already committed the unpardonable sin or that it is in vain for you to attempt the work of Believing because God will not help you in it If such thoughts prevail in your hearts they will do you more hurt than the worst blasphemous thoughts that terrifie you or any of the grossest Abominations that ever you were guilty of because they obstruct your Believing on Christ for Salvation The Spirit and the Bride say Come Christ saith Whosoever will let him take of the water of Life freely Rev. 22.17 Therefore we are to abandon all thoughts that hinder our coming to Christ as very sinful and pernicious arising in us from our own Corruptions and Satan's Delusions and utterly opposite to the mind of Christ and teachings of the Spirit and what ground can we have to entertain such unbelieving thoughts Hath God made us of his Privy-Council that we should be able to know that God hath decreed us to Damnation before it be manifest by our final unbelief and impenitence As for the unpardonable sin it consisteth in renouncing the way of Salvation by Christ with the whole heart after we have attained to the knowledge of it and are convinced of the Truth of it by the Gospel It s the sin that the Christian Hebrews would have bin guilty of if they had revolted from Christianity to the Religion of the unbelieving Jews that accounted Christ to be an Impostor and were most rancorous persecutors of him and his ways Heb. 6.4 5. They that have committed that sin continue implacable malicious Enemies to Christ and his ways to the end without any repentance Therefore if you can but find that you desire seriously to get an interest in Christ and to be better Christians than you are if you be troubled and grieved that your Hearts and Lives are so wicked and that you want Faith Love and true Obedience yea if your Hearts be not maliciously bent to persecute the Gospel and prefer Atheism Licentiousness or any false Religion before it you have no cause to suspect your selves to be guilty of this unpardonable sin 6. Add to all these a full persuasion of the incomparable glorious Excellency of Christ and of the way of Salvation by him You are to esteem the enjoyment of Christ as the only Salvation and true happiness and such an happiness as hath in it unsearchable Riches of Glory and will make our Cup to run over with exceeding abundance of Peace and Joy and full of Glory to all Eternity We must account all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord c. Phil. 3.8 Incline your Wills and Affections to choose and embrace Christ as the Chief Good and never to rest satisfied without the Enjoyment of him and to reject every thing that stands in Competition with him or the Enjoyment of him Christ is precious in the esteem of all true Believers 1 Pet. 2.7 Their high esteem of his incomparable preciousness and excellency induceth them to sell all that they may buy this Pearl of great price Mat. 13.46 this maketh them to say Lord evermore give us of this Bread that cometh down from Heaven and giveth Life to the World Lord to whom shall we go thou hast the Words of Eternal Life Joh. 6.32 33 68. because of the savour of his good Ointments his Name is as Ointment poured forth therefore do the Virgins love him Cant. 1.3 They are sick of love to him because he is in their Eyes the chiefest of ten thousand Cant. 5.8 10. As the Glory of God that appeared in the wonderful Beauty of the Temple and in the Wisdom and Glory of Solomon drew Worshipers to God from the utmost parts of the Earth so the unparallel'd excellency of Christ which was prefigured by the Glory of Solomon and the Temple doth more powerfully draw Believers in these Gospel-days The Devil who is the God of this World knows how necessary it is for our Salvation to discern all the Glory and Excellency of Christ and therefore where the Gospel is preached he maketh it his great work to Eclypse the Glory of Christ in the Ministry and to blind the minds of the People lest the Light of the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine into them 2 Cor. 4.4 One that is convinced of the truth of the Gospel may be averse to the embracing of it until he see also the goodness of it that Christ is altogether lovely and excellent I come now to the second principal Act of Faith whereby Christ himself and his Spirit and all his saving Benefits are actually received into the Heart which is Believing on Christ as revealed and freely
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
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
that it is the proper nature and tendency of Baptism to guide us to Faith in Christ alone for remission of Sins Holiness and all Salvation by Union and Fellowship with him and that a diligent improvement of this Ordinance must needs be of great advantage to the Life of Faith 5. The Sacrament of the Lords Supper is as a spiritual Feast to nourish our Faith and to strengthen us to walk in all Holiness by Christ living and working in us if it be used according to the Patern which Christ gave us in its first Institution recorded by Three Evangelists Mat. 26.26 Mar. 14.22 24. Luk. 22.19 20. and was extrordinarily revealed from Heaven by Christ himself to the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 11.23 25. that we might be the more obliged and stirred up to the exact Observation of it It s end is not only that we may remember Christs Death in the History but in the Mystery of it as that his Body was broken for us that his Blood is the Blood of the New Testament or Covenant shed for us and for many for the remission of Sins that so we may receive and enjoy all the Promises of the New Covenant which are recorded Heb. 8.12 It s end is to mind us that Christs Body and Blood are Bread and Drink even all-sufficient Food to nourish our Souls to everlasting Life and that we ought to take and eat and drink him by Faith and to assure us that when we truly believe on him he is as really and closely united to us by his Spirit as the Food which we eat and drink is united to our Bodies Christ himself Joh. 6. doth more fully explain this Mystery Furthermore this Sacrament doth not only put us in mind of the spiritual Blessings wherewith we are Blessed in Christ and our Enjoyment of them by Faith but also it is a Mean and Instrument whereby God doth really exhibit and give forth Christ and his Salvation to true Believers and whereby he doth stir up and strengthen Believers to receive and feed upon Christ by present actings of Faith while they partake of the outward Elements When Christ saith eat drink this is my body this is my blood no less can be meant than that Christ doth as truly give his Body and Blood to true Believers in that Ordinance as the Bread and Cup and they do as truly receive it by Faith As if a Prince invest a Subject in some Honourable Office by delivering to him a Staff Sword or Signet and say to him take this Staff Sword or Signet this is such an Office or Preferment or if a Father should deliver a Deed for Conveyance of Land to his Son and say take it as thine own this is such a Farm or Mannor how can such Expressions import any less in common Senfe and Reason than a Present Gift and Conveyance of the Offices Preferments and Lands by and with those outward Signs Therefore the Apostle Paul asserteth that the bread in the Lords supper is the communion of the body of Christ and the cup is the communion of his blood 1 Cor. 10.16 which sheweth that Christ's Body and Blood are really communicated to us and we do really partake of them as well as of the Bread and Cup. The chief Excellency and Advantage of this Ordinance is That it is not only a Figure and Resemblance of our living upon a crucified Saviour but also a precious Instrument whereby Christ the Bread and Drink of Life is really conveyed to us and received by us through Faith This makes it to be a Love-Token worthy of that ardent Affection toward us which filled Christ's Heart at the time when he instituted it when he was on the point of finishing of his greatest work of Love by laying down his Life for us 1 Cor. 11.23 And this is diligently to be observed that we may make a right improvement of this Ordinance and receive the saving Benesits of it One reason why many do little esteem and seldom or never partake of this Ordinance and do find little benefit by it is because they falsly imagine that God in it only holds forth naked signs and resemblances of Christ and his Salvation which they account to be held forth so plainly in Scripture that they need not the help of such a sign Whereas if they understood that God doth really give Christ himself to their Faith by and with those Signs and Resemblances they would prize it as the most delicious Feast and be desirous to partake of it on all opportunities Acts 2.42 and 20.7 Another reason why many partake seldom or never of this Ordinance and know little of the benefit of it is because they think themselves brought by it into great danger of eating and drinking their own Damnation according to those terrifying words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 11.29 therefore they account it the safest way wholly to abstain from such a dangerous Ordinance or at least that once a year is enough to run so great a Hazard And if they be brought to it sometimes by constraint of Conscience their slavish Fears bereave them of all comfortable Fruit of it So that instead of striving to receive Christ and his Salvation therein they account themselves to have succeeded well if they come off without the Sentence of Damnation As the Jewish Rabbies write that the High-Priests Life was so eminently hazarded by his entring once a year into the Holy of Holies that he stayed there as little time as he could lest the People should think him to be struck dead by the Hand of God And when he was come forth alive he usually made a Feast of Thanksgiving for Joy of so great a Deliverance But there is no reason why we should be so much terrified by those words of the Apostle for they were darted against such a gross prophanation of the Lords Supper amongst the Corinthians as we may easily avoid by observing the Institution of it which the Apostle proposeth to them as a sufficient remedy against the gross abuse in not discerning or differencing the Lords Body from other bodily Food and partaking of it as their own Supper with such disorder that one was Hungry and another Drunken Besides that terrifying word Damnation may be rendred more mildly Judgment as it is in the Margent yea the Apostle himself Ver. 32. doth interpret it of a merciful temporal Judgment whereby we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the World We are indeed prone to sin in receiving this Ordinance unworthily and so we are also to pollute more or less all other holy things that we meddle with So that the consideration of our danger might sill us with slavish fear in the use of all other means of Grace as well as of this were it not that we have a great High-Priest to bear this Iniquity of our holy things Exod. 28.38 under the Covert of whose Righteousness we are to draw near unto God without
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
or our Duty toward him We must love him as to yield ourselves wholly up to his constant Service in all things and to his disposal of us as our absolute Lord whether it be for Prosperity or Adversity Life or Death and for his sake we are to love our Neighbour even all Men whether they be Friends or Foes to us and so do to them in all things that concern their Honour Life Chastity Worldly Wealth Credit and Content whatever we would that Men should do to us in the like Condition Mat. 7.12 This Spiritual Universal Obedience is the Great End to the attainment whereof I am directing you And that you may not reject mine Enterprize as impossible observe that the most I promise is no more than an acceptable performance of these Duties of the Law such as our gracious merciful God will certainly delight in and be pleas'd with during our State of Imperfection in this World and such as will end in Perfection of Holiness and all Happiness in the World to come Before I proceed further stay your thoughts a while in the contemplation of the great Dignity and Excellency of these Duties of the Law that you may aim at the performance of them as your End with so high an esteem as may cast an amiable luster upon the ensuing discovery of the Means The principal Duties of Love to God above all and to each other for his sake from whence all the other Duties flow are so excellent that I cannot imagine any more Noble Work for the Holy Angels in their glorious Sphere They are the chief Works for which we were at first framed by the Image of God engraven upon Man in the first Creation and for which that beautiful Image is renewed upon us in our New Creation and Sanctification by Jesus Christ and shall be perfected in our Glorification They are Works which depend not meerly on the Sovereignty of the Will of God to be commanded or forbidden or left indifferent or changed or abolished at his pleasure as other Works that belong either to the Judicial or Ceremonial Law or to the means of Salvation prescribed by the Gospel but they are in their own Nature holy just and good Rom. 7.12 and meet for us to perform because of our natural relation to our Creator and Fellow-Creatures so that they have an inseparable dependance upon the Holiness of the Will of God and an indispensable Establishment thereby They are Works sufficient to render the Performers holy in all manner of Conversation by the Fruits which they bring forth if no other Duties had ever been commanded and by which the performance of all other Duties is sufficiently established as soon as they are commanded and without which there can be no Holiness of Heart and Life imagined and to which it was one great Honour of Mosaical and is now of Evangelical Ordinances to be subservient for the performance of them as Means which shall cease when their End this never-failing Charity is perfectly attained 1 Cor. 13. They are Duties which we were naturally obliged to by that Reason and Understanding which God gave to Man at his first Creation to discern what was just and meet for him to do and to which even Heathens are still obliged by the Light of Nature without any written Law or supernatural Revelation Rom. 2.14.15 Therefore they are called Natural Religion and the Law that requireth them is called the Natural Law and also the Moral Law because the Manners of all Men Infidels as well as Christians ought to be conformed to it and if they had been fully conformable they would not have come short of Eternal Happiness Mat. 5.19 Luke 10 27 28. under the penalty of the Wrath of God for the violation of it This is the true Morality which God approveth of consisting in conformity of all our Actions to the Moral Law and if those that in these days contend so highly for Morality do understand no other than this I dare joyn with them in asserting The greatest Saint is the greatest Moralist that the best morally honest Man is the greatest Saint and that Morality is the principal part of true Religion and the Test of all other parts without which Faith is dead and all other Religious Performances are a vain shew and meer hypocrisie for the faithful and true Witness hath testified concerning the two great Moral Commandments of Love to God and our Neighbour that there is none other Commandment greater than these and that on them hang all the Law and the Prophets Mar. 12.31 Mat. 22.40 The Second thing contained in this Introductory Direction is the necessity of learning the powerful and effectual Means whereby this great and excellent End may be accomplished and of making this the first Work to be done before we can expect success in any attempt for the attainment of it This is an Advertisement very needful because many are apt to skip over the Lesson concerning the Means that will fill up this whole Treatise as superfluous and useless When once they know the Nature and Excellency of the Duties of the Law they account nothing wanting but diligent performances and they rush blindly upon immediate Practice making more hast than good speed They are quick in promising Exod. 19.8 All that the Lord hath spoken we will do without sitting down and counting the cost They look upon Holiness as only the Means of an End Eternal Salvation not as an End itself requiring any great means to the attaining to the Practice of it The enquiry of most when they begin to have a sence of Religion is What good thing shall I do that I may have Eternal Life Mat. 19.16 Not How shall I be enabled to do any thing that is good Yea many that are accounted powerful Preachers spend all their Zeal in the earnest pressing the immediate Practice of the Law without any discovery of the effectual means of performance as if the Work of Righteousness were like those servile Employments that need no skill and artifice at all but industry and activity That you may not stumble at the Threshold of a Religious Life by this common oversight I shall endeavour to make you sensible that it is not enough for you to know the matter and reason of your Duty but that you are also to learn the powerful and effectual means of performance before you can successfully apply yourselves to immediate Practice And for this end I shall lay before you the Considerations following 1. We are all by Nature void of all strength and ability to perform acceptably that Holiness and Righteousness which the Law requireth and are dead in Trespasses and Sins and Children of Wrath by the Sin of our first Father Adam as the Scripture witnesseth Rom. 5.12 15 18 19. Eph. 2. v. 1 2 3. Rom. 8.7 8. This Doctrine of Original Sin which Protestants generally profess is a firm Basis and Ground-work to the assertion now to be proved
and to many other assertions in this whole Discourse If we believe it to be true we cannot rationally encourage ourselves to attempt an holy Practice until we are acquainted with some powerful and effectual means to enable us for it While Man continued upright in the Image of God as he was at first created Eccles 7.29 Gen. 1.27 he could do the Will of God sincerely as soon as he knew it but when he was fallen he was quickly afraid because of his Nakedness but could not help it at all until God discovered to him the means of restoration Gen. 3.10 Say to a strong healthy Servant Go and he goeth Come and he cometh Do this and he doth it but a bedridden Servant must know first how he may be enabled No doubt the fallen Angels know the necessity of Holiness and tremble at the guilt of their Sin but they know of no means for them to attain to Holiness effectually and so continue still in their wickedness It was in vain for Sampson to say I will go out as at other times before and shake myself when he had sinned away his strength Judges 16.20 Men shew themselves strangely forgetful or hypocritical in professing Original Sin in their Prayers Catechisms and Confessions of Faith and not urging upon themselves and others the Practice of the Law without the consideration of any strengthning enlivening Means as if there were no want of ability but only of activity 2ly Those that doubt of or deny the Doctrine of Original Sin may all of them know concerning themselves if their Consciences be not blind that the exact Justice of God is against them and they are under the Curse of God and Sentence of Death for their actual sins if God should enter into Judgment with them Rom. 1.32 2.2 3.9 Gal. 3.10 Is it possible for a Man that knoweth this to be his Case and hath not learned any means of getting out of it to practise the Law immediately To love God and every thing in him his Justice Holiness Power as well as his Mercy and to yield himself willingly to the disposal of God though God should inflict sudden Death upon him Is there no skill or artifice at all required in this Case to encourage the fainting Soul to the Practice of Universal Obedience 3ly Tho' Heathens might know much of the Work of the Law by the common Light of Natural Reason and Understanding Rom. 2.14 yet the effectual Means of performance cannot be discovered by that Light and therefore are wholly to be learned by the teaching of supernatural Revelalation For what is our Natural Light but some sparks and glimmerings of that which was in Adam before the Fall And even then in its brightest Meridian it was not sufficient to direct Adam how to recover ability to walk holily if once he should lose it by sin nor to assure him before-hand that God would vouchsafe to him any means of recovery God had set nothing but Death before his Eyes in case of Transgression Gen. 2.17 and therefore he hid himself from God when the shame of his Nakedness appeared as expecting no favour from him We are like Sheep gone astray and know not which way to return until we hear the Shepherd's Voice Can these dry Bones live to God in holiness O Lord thou knowest and we cannot know it except we learn it of thee 4ly Sanctification whereby our Hearts and Lives are conformed to the Law is a Grace of God communicated to us by means as well as Justification and by means of teaching and learning something that we cannot see without the Word Acts 26.17 18. There are several things pertaining to Life and Godliness that are given through knowledge 2 Pet. 1.3 There is a form of Doctrine made use of by God to make People free from Sin and Servants of Righteousness Rom. 6. v. 17 18. And there are several Pieces of the whole Armour of God necessary to be known and put on that we may stand against Sin and Satan in the evil day Eph. 6.13 Shall we slight and overlook the way of Sanctification when the learning the way of Justification hath been counted worth so many elaborate Treatises 5ly God hath given in the Holy Scriptures by his inspiration plentiful instruction in Righteousness that we may be throughly furnished for every good work 2 Tim. 3.16 17. especially since the day spring from an high hath visited us by the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ to guide our feet in the way of peace Luke 1.78 79. If God condescend to us very low to teach us this way in the Scriptures and by Christ himself it must needs be greatly necessary for us to sit down at his feet and learn it 6ly The way of attaining to Godliness is so far from being known without learning out of the Holy Scripture that when it is here plainly revealed we cannot learn it so easily as the Duties of the Law which are known in part by the Light of Nature and therefore more easily assented unto It is the way whereby the Dead are brought to live unto God and therefore doubtless it is far above all the thoughts and conjectures of human Wisdom It is the way of Salvation wherein God will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent by discovering things by his Spirit that the natural Man receiveth not for they are foolishness to him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 1.19.21 2.14 Without controversie great is the mystery of godliness 1 Tim. 3.16 The learning of it requireth double work because we must unlearn many of our former deeply rooted Notions and become fools that we may be wise We must pray earnestly to the Lord to teach us as well as search the Scriptures that we may get this knowledge O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes Teach me O Lord the way of thy statutes and I shall keep it to the end Psal 119.5.33 Teach me to do thy will Psal 14.3 10. The Lord direct your hearts unto the love of God 2 Thess 3.5 Surely these Saints did not so much want teaching and direction concerning the Duties of the Law to be done as concerning the Way and Means whereby they might do them 7ly The certain knowledge of these powerful and effectual Means is of greatest importance and necessity for our establishment in the true Faith and avoiding Errors contrary thereunto For we cannot rationally doubt that the Moral Duties of Love to God and our Neighbour are absolutely necessary to true Religion so that it cannot subsist without them And from this Principle we may firmly conclude that nothing repugnant to the practice of these holy Duties ought to be received as a Point of Faith delivered to us by the most holy God and that whatsoever is truly necessary powerful and effectual to bring us to the practice of them ought to be believed as
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
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
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
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
the Spirit whereby we are made good Trees that we may bring forth good Fruit. Though they are given before the sincere Practice of the Law yet they are not given to us in our corrupt sinful Nature but in and with the new holy Nature which immediately produceth a holy Practice though it must necessarily go before as the Cause before the Effect and they are no other than Comforts of those spiritual Benefits by which our new Estate and Nature is produced and of which it is constituted and made up as the Comforts of Redemption Justification Adoption the Gift of the Spirit and the like Neither do I intend here any Transport or Ravishment of Joy and Delight but only such manner of Comfort as rationally strengthens in some measure against the Oppression of Fear Grief and Despair which we are liable unto by reason of our natural Sinfulness and Misery This Explanation of the Sense of my Assertion is sufficient to answer some common Objections against it and I hope the Truth of it will be fully evidenced by the following Arguments First This Truth is a clear Consectary from those Principles of Holiness that have been already confirmed I have shewed that we must have a good Perswasion of our Reconciliation with God and of our Happiness in Heaven and of our sufficient Strength both to will and to do that which is acceptable to God through Jesus Christ that we may be rationally inclined and bent to the Practice of Holiness and that these Endowments must be had by receiving of Christ himself with his Spirit and all his Fulness by trusting on him for all his Salvation as he is freely promised to us in the Gospel and that by this Faith we do as really receive Christ as our Food by eating and drinking Now let right Reason judge can we be perswaded of the Love of God of our everlasting Happiness and our Strength to serve God and yet be without any Comforts Can the glad Tidings of the Gospel of Peace be believed and Christ and his Spirit actually believed into the Heart without any Relief to the Soul from oppressing Fear Grief Despair Can the Salvation of Christ be comfortless or the Bread and Water of Life without any sweet Relish to those that feed on him with hungring and thirsting Appetites God will not give such Benefits as these to those that do not desire and esteem them above the World and certainly the very receiving of them will be comfortable to such except they receive them blindfold which they cannot do when the very giving and bestowing of them openeth the Eyes of a Sinner and turns him from Darkness to Light whereby he doth at least in some measure see and perceive Spiritually the things that concern his present and future Peace and reap some encouraging and strengthning Comfort thereby to the Practice of Holiness Secondly Peace Joy Hope are recommended to us in Scripture as the Spring of other holy Duties and Fear and oppressing Grief forbidden as Hinderances to true Religion The peace of God keepeth our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus Phil. 4.7 Be ye not sorry for the joy of the Lord is your strength Nehem. 8.10 Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure 1 John 3.3 Fear hath torment he that feareth is not made perfect in Love 1 John 4.18 This is the Reason why the Apostle doubleth his Exhortation to rejoyce in the Lord always as a Duty of exceeding weight and necessity Phil. 4.4 What are such Duties but Comfort it self and can we think that these Duties are necessary to our continuance in an holy Practice and yet not to the beginning of it where the Work is most difficult and Encouragement most needful Therefore we must make haste in the first place to get a comfortable Frame of Spirit if we would make hastâ— and not delay to keep Gods holy Commandments Thirdly The usual Method of Gospel-Doctrine as it is delivered to us in the holy Scriptures is first to comfort our Hearts and thereby to establish us in every good Word and Work 2 Thess 2.17 And it appears how clearly this method is adjusted in several Epistles written by the Apostles wherein they first acquaint the Churches with the rich Grace of God toward them in Christ and the spiritual Blessings which they are made Partakers of for their strong Consolation and then they exhort them to an holy Conversation answerable to such Priviledges and it is not only the Method of whole Epistles but of many particular Exhortations to Duty wherein the comfortable Benefits of the Grace of God in Christ are made use of as Arguments and Motives to stir up the Saints to a holy Practice which comfortable Benefits must be first believed and the Comfort of them applyed to our own Souls or else they will not be forcible to engage us to the Practice for which they are intended To give you a few Instances out of a Multitude that might be alledged we are exhorted to practice holy Duties because we are dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 6.11 And because sin shall not have dominion over us for we are not under the law but under grace Rom. 6.14 Because we are not in the flesh but in the spirit and God will quicken our mortal bodies by his spirit dwelling in us Rom. 8.9.11 12. Because our bodies are the members of Christ and the temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6.15 19. Because God hath made him sin for us who knew no sin that we might be the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.20 21. And hath promised that he will dwell in us and walk in us and be to us a Father and we shall be to him sons and daughters 2 Cor. 7.1 Because God hath forgiven us for Ghrist's sake and accounteth us his dear children and Christ hath loved us and given himself for us and we that were sometimes darkned are now lightened in the Lord Ephes 4.32 5.1 2 8. Because we are risen with Christ and when Christ who is our Life shall appear then we shall also appear with him in glory Col. 3.1.4 Because God hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee Heb. 13.5 Because of the many promises made to us 2 Cor. 7.1 Search the Scriptures and you may with delight see that is this the Vein that runneth through Gospel Exhortations and you may find the like Vein of Comfort running through the Prophetical Exhortations in the Old Testament Some may object that the Apostles used this Method in their Writings to Saints that had practised Holiness already that so they might continue and increase therein But to that I may easily reply If it be a Method needful for grown Saints much more then for Beginners that find the Work of Obedience most difficult and have most need of strong Consolation and I hope to shew how we may be able to lay hold
we are the children of God and if children then heirs Rom. 8.15 16. Gal. 4.6 And the Apostle tells the Ephesians that after they believed they were sealed with the Holy Spirit which was the Earnest of their Inheritance Eph. 1.13 14. i. e. They were sealed from the same time that they believed for the original Words are in the same Tense If this Witness Seal and Earnest of the Spirit had not been Ordinary to Believers it would not have been sufficient to prove that they were the Children of God and such manner of arguing might have driven some to despair that wanted this Witness Seal and Earnest Let us enquire now whether the Spirit beareth witness that we are the Children of God and enables us to cry Abba Father by the direct Act or by that which they call the Reflect Act of Faith for we must not think that it is done by an Enthusiasm without any ordinary means nor can we reasonably imagine that no true Believers can call God Father by the Guidance of the Spirit but only those few that are so sure of their own Sincerity that by reflecting upon it they can ground an Act of Faith concerning their own Interest in Christ no surely therefore we may judge rather that the Spirit worketh this in us by giving us saving Faith it self whereby all true Believers are enabled to trust assuredly on Christ for the Enjoyment of the Adoption of Children and all his Salvation according to the Free Promise of God and to call God Father without reflecting on any good Qualifications in our selves and by the direct Act of it For the Spirit is received by the direct Act of Faith Gal. 3.2 And so he is the Spirit of Adoption and Comfort to all that receive him They that assert that the Spirit witnesseth our Adoption only by assuring us of the Sincerity of our Faith Love and other gracious Qualifications and by the reflect Act of Faith do teach also commonly that you must again try whether the Spirit thus witnessing be the Spirit of Truth or of Delusion by searching narrowly whether our inward Grace be sincere or counterfeit so that hereby the Testimony of the Spirit is rendred so hard to be discerned that it standeth us in no stead but all our Assurance is made at last to depend on our own certain Knowledge of our own Sincerity There are several other Evidences to shew That Believers generally were perswaded of their Salvation in the Apostles times they loved and waited for the coming of Christ to judge the World 1 Cor. 1.7 2 Tim. 4.8 They loved all the Saints for the Hope that was laid up for them in Heaven Col. 1.3 4. The Corinthians that were very carnal and but Babes in Christ were perswaded that they should judge the World and Angels and that their Bodies were Members of Christ and the Temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6.2 3 15 19. The very first coming of the Gospel to the Thessalonians was in the Holy Ghost and much Assurance so that they received it with much Affliction with Joy of the Holy Ghost when as yet they had no Considerable time to get Assurance by reflecting on their good Qualifications 1 Thess 1.5 6. Likewise the believing Hebrews when they were illuminated at their first Conversion took joyfully the spoiling of their Goods knowing that they had in Heaven a better and more enduring Substance and this was their Confidence which they were not to cast off because the Just liveth by Faith and therefore it appeareth that this Confidence belonged necessarily to justifying saving Faith Heb. 10 32 34 35 38. Now let those that alledge the Examples or Experiences of many modern Christians to disprove all that I have asserted and consider well whether these are fit to be laid in the Ballance against all the Scripture Examples and Experiences that I have produced out of the Old and New Testament I confess that Assurance of Salvation is more rarely professed by Christians in these times than formerly and we may thank some Teachers for it that have deserted the Doctrine of former Protestants in this Point and vented against it several Errors such as have been already named and now would take Advantage to confirm the Truth of their Doctrines from those Doubtings in Christians that have been chiefly occasioned by it But however the nature of saving Faith is still the same and I assert that in these Days as well as formerly it always hath in it some Assurance of Salvation by Christ which doth and will appear at least in resisting and condemning all Doubtings and praying against them and endeavouring to trust assuredly and to call God Father except in extraordinary Desertions by which our Gase must not be tried We are not to trust the Judgment of many concerning themselves they will judge falsly that they have no Assurance at all because they know not yet by Marks and Signs that they are in a state of Grace already or because they think that there is no Assurance when there are many Doubtings and because it is so weak and so much oppressed with Doubting that it can hardly be discerned as Life in a fainting Fit but if their Judgments be better informed they may be brought to discern some Assurance in themselves We are also to take heed of mistaking those for true Believers that are not so and of judging this Point by their Experiences which is a vulgar Error The blind Charity of some moveth them to take all for true Believers which are full of Doubts and Troubles concerning their Salvation though it may be they only be convinced of Sin and brought to some Zeal of God that is not according to the Knowledge of the way of Salvation by Christ and they think it Duty to comfort such Ignorant Persons by perswading of them that their state is good and their Faith right though they have no Assurance of Salvation Thus they are brought to judge falsly concerning the nature of Faith out of their blind Charity to such as are yet in Ignorance and Unbelief and instead of comforting such they rather take the direct way to harden them in their natural state and to divert them from seeking Consolation by Saving Faith in Christ and to ruine their Souls for ever Fifthly The chief Office of this Faith in its direct saving Act is to receive Christ and his Salvation actually into our Hearts as hath been proved which Office cannot be rationally performed except we do in some measure perswade our Hearts and assure our selves of the Enjoyment of him as the Body receiveth things into it self by the Hands and Mouth So the Soul receiveth these things to it self and layeth actual Hold on them by the Faculty of the Will making choice of them and embracing them in a way of present Enjoyment and Possession as it doth by the Faculty of the Understanding see and apprehend them thus the Soul receiveth Comfort from outward things As a righteous
Person cannot receive inward Comfort from outward things as from worldly Estate Wife Husband Friends c. except it chuse them as good and count them his own by a Right and Title This is the only rational way whereby the Soul can actively lay hold on Christ and take actual Possession of him and his Salvation as he is freely offered and promised to us in the Gospel by the Grace of Faith which God hath appointed to be our great Instrument for the receiving of him and closing with him If we do not make choice of Christ as our only Salvation and Happiness or if we be altogether in a slate of Suspence and doubting whether God will be pleased to give Christ to us or no it is evident that our Souls are quite loose from Christ and have no Holdfast or Enjoyment of him They do not so much as pretend to any actual receiving or laying hold or choosing of him neither are they fully satisfied that it is lawful for them so to do but rather they are yet to seek whether they have any good Ground and Right to lay hold on him or no. Let any rational Man judge whether the Soul doth or can put forth any sufficient Act for the Reception and Enjoyment of Christ as our Saviour Head or Husband while it is yet in Doubt whether it be the Will of Christ to be joyned with us in such a near Relation can a Woman honestly receive any one as her Husband without being assured that he is fully willing to be her Husband The same may be said concerning the several Parts of Christ's Salvation which are to be received by Faith It is evident that we do not aright receive the Benefit of Remission of Sins for the purging of our Consciences from that Guilt that lyeth upon them unless we have an assured Perswasion of God's forgiving them we do not actually receive into our Hearts our Reconciliation with God and Adoption of Children and the Title to an everlasting Inheritance until we can assure our selves that God is graciously pleased to be our God and Father and take us to be his Children and Heirs We do not actually receive any sufficient Strength to encourage our Hearts to Holiness in all Difficulties until we can stedfastly believe that God is with us and will not fail nor forsake us Hence then we may firmly conclude that whoso seeketh to be saved by Faith and doth not seek to have Assurance or Confidence of his own Salvation doth but deceive himself and delude his Soul with a mere Fansie instead of saving Faith and doth in effect seek to be saved in his corrupt Natural state without receiving and laying actual hold of the Lord Jesus Christ and his Salvation Sixthly It is also a great and necessary Office of Saving Faith to purifie the Heart and to enable us to live and walk in the Practice of all holy Duties by the Grace of Christ and by Christ himself living in us as hath been shewed before which Office Faith is not able to perform except some Assurance of our own Interest in Christ and his Salvation be comprehended in the nature of it If we would live to God not our selves but by Christ living in us according to Paul s Example we must be able to assure our selves as he did Christ loved me and gave himself for me Gal. 2.20 We are taught that if we live in the Spirit we shall walk in the Spirit Gal. 5.25 It would be high Presumption if we should endeavour to walk above our natural Strength and Power by the Spirit before we have made sure of our living by the Spirit I have shewed that we cannot make Use of the comfortable Benefits of the Saving Grace of Christ whereby the Gospel doth engage and encourage us to an holy Practice except we have some Confidence of our own Interest in those saving Benefits If we do not assuredly believe that we are dead to Sin and alive to God through Christ and risen with Christ and not under the Law but under Grace and Members of Christ's Body the Temple of his Spirit the dear Children of God it would be Hypocrisie to serve God upon the Account of such Priviledges as if we reckoned our selves to be Partakers of them he that thinks he should doubt of his Salvation is not a fit Disciple for this manner of Doctrine and he may reply to the Preachers of the Gospel if you would bring me to Holiness you must make Use of other more essectual Arguments for I cannot practice upon these Principles because I have not Faith enough to believe that I have any Interest in them some Arguments taken from the Justice and Wrath of God against Sinners and his Mercy towards those that perform the Condition of sincere Obedience would work more powerfully upon me O what a miserable worthless kind of saving Faith is this that cannot fit a Believer to practice in a Gospel manner upon the most pure and powerful Principles of Grace but rather leaveth him to work upon Legal Principles which can never bring him to serve God acceptably out of Love and as such a Faith faileth wholly in the right manner of obeying upon Gospel Principles so it faileth also in the very matter of some great Duties which are of such a nature that they include Assurance of God's Love in the right Performance of them such are those great Duties of Peace with God rejoycing in the Lord always Hope that maketh not ashamed owning the Lord as our God and our Saviour praying to him as our Father in Heaven offering up Body and Soul as an acceptable Sacrifice to him casting all our Cares of Body and Soul upon him Contentment and hearty Thanksgiving in every Condition making our Boast in the Lord triumphing in his Praise rejoycing in Tribulation putting on Christ in our Baptism receiving Christ's Body as broken for us and his Blood as shed for us in the Lord's Supper committing our Souls willingly to God as our Redeemer when ever he shall be pleased to call for us loving Christ's Second Appearance and looking for it as that blessed Hope when we fall into any sudden Doubting whether we are in a state of Grace already when we are called to any present Undertaking as to partake of the Lord's Supper or any Duty that requires Assurance to the right Performance of chem we must relieve our selves by trusting confidently in Christ for the present Gift of his Salvation or else we shall be driven to omit the Duty or not to perform it rightly or sincerely can we judge our selves already in a state of Grace by the reflect Act of Faith if we do not find that we perform these Duties at least several of them sincerely or if we do not find that we have such a holy Faith as doth enable or incline us to the Performance of them And can we be thus enabled and inclined by any Faith that is without some true Assurance of
our Salvation Therefore I conclude that we must necessarily have some Assurance of our Salvation in the direct Act of Faith whereby we are justified sanctified and saved before we can upon any good ground assure our selves that we are already in a state of Salvation by that which they call the Reflect Act. Give me such a saving Faith as will produce such Fruits as these No other Faith will work by Love and therefore will not avail to Salvation in Christ Gal. 5.6 The Apostle James putteth thee upon shewing thy Faith by thy Works James 2.18 And in this Trial this Faith of Assurance cometh off with high Praise and Honour When God calleth his People to work outward Miracles by it all things have been possible to them and it hath frequently brought forth such Works of Righteousness as may be deservedly esteemed great Spiritual Miracles from hence hath proceeded that Heroick Fortitude of the People of God whereby their absolute Obedience to God hath shined forth in doing and suffering those great things which are recorded in the holy Scriptures and in the Histories of the Church And if we be ever called to the fiery Trial as Protestants formerly were we shall find their Doctrine of Assurance to encourage us in suffering for the sake of Christ Seventhly The contrary Doctrine which excludeth Assurance out of the Nature of Saving Faith bringeth forth many evil Fruits it tendeth to bereave our Souls of all Assurance of our Salvation and solid Comfort which is the Life of Religion by placing it after sincere universal Obedience whereas if we have them not first we can never attain to this Obedience and to any Assurance that dependeth on it as hath been proved and this as far as it prevails makes us subject to continual Doubtings concerning our Salvation and to tormenting Fears of Wrath which casteth out true Love to God and can produce no better than slavish hypocritical Service It is one of the principal Pillars whereby manifold Superstitions in Popery are supported as their Monkish Orders their Satisfactions for Sin by Works of Penance Bodily Macerations Whippings Pilgrimages Indulgences trusting on the Merits of Saints c. When once Men have lost the Knowledge of the right way to assure themselves of Salvation they will catch at any Straw to avoid Drowning in the Gulph of Despair There is no way to administer any solid Comfort to the wounded Spirits of those that see themselves void of all Holiness under the Wrath and Curse of God dead in Sin not able so much as to think a good Thought you do but increase their Terror and Anguish if you tell them they must first get Faith and Obedience and when they find they have done that they may perswade themselves that God will receive them into his Grace and Favour Alass they know that they cannot believe nor obey except God prevent them with his Grace and Favour and what if they be even at the Point of Death strugling with Death's Pangs so that they have no time or leisure to get good Qualifications and examine the Goodness of them you must have a more speedy way to comfort such by discovering to them the Free-Promises of Salvation to the worst of Sinners by Faith in Christ and by exhorting them to apply those Promises and trust on Christ confidently for Remission of Sins Holiness and Glory assuring them also that God will help them to believe sincerely on Christ if they desire it with all their Hearts and that it is their Duty to believe because God commands it Several other Evils are occasioned by the same Doctrine Men are unwilling to know the worst of themselves and prone to think their Qualifications better than they are that they may avoid Despair others please and content themselves without any Assurance of their Interest in Christ because they think that is not necessary to Salvation and that but few attain to it and in this they shew little Love to Christ or to their own Souls some foster Doubtings of Salvation as Signs of Humility though they will hypocritically complain of them many mispend their time in poring upon their own Hearts to find out some Evidence of their Interest in Christ when they should rather be imployed in receiving Christ and walking in him by a confident Faith Some are troubled with Doubts whether they should call God Father and what Apprehensions they should have of him in Prayer and are offended at Ministers that in their Publick Prayers use any Expressions that the People cannot joyn in as if they do own God as their God and Father and Christ as their Saviour and upon the same Account they are offended at the Publick singing of many of David's Psalms and avoid partaking of the Lord's Supper because they are not satisfied about their Interest in Christ Though true Believers have some Assurance of Salvation in Saving Faith it self yet it is much weakned in many by this contrary Doctrine and assaulted with many Doubtings and then other good Qualifications must needs be low and weak together with it and so obscure that it is very hard to discern them how hard a thing then will it be for true Believers to assure themselves by the certain Knowledge of their own Sincerity that they are in a state of Grace already which is the only Assurance of Faith Some prescribe Marks and Signs to distinguish Sincerity from Hypocrisie that Believers cannot sufficiently try themselves by them except they have more Knowledge and Experience than Ordinary Thus many Believers walk heavily in the Bitterness of their Souls conflicting with Fears and Doubtings all their Days and this is the Cause that they have so little Courage and Fervency of Spirit in the ways of God and that they so much mind earthly things and are so afraid of Sufferings and Death And if they get some Assurance by the Reflect Act of Faith they often soon lose it again by Sins and Temptations The way to avoid these Evils is to get your Assurance and to maintain it and renew it upon all Occasions by the direct Act of Faith by trusting assuredly on the Name of the Lord and staying your self upon your God when you walk in Darkness and see no light in any of your own Qualifications Isa 50.10 I doubt not but the Experience of many choice Christians will bear witness to this Truth DIRECT XI Endeavour diligently to perform the great work of believing on Christ in a right manner without any delay and then also to continue and increase in your most holy Faith that so your enjoyment of Christ Vnion and Fellowship with him and all holiness by him may be begun continued and increased in you EXPLICATION HAving already discovered to you the powerful and effectual means of an holy practice my remaining work is to lead you to the actual Exercise and Improvement of them for the immediate attainment of the End and I think it may be clearly perceived by the
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
promised to us in the Gospel for all his Salvation The Spirit of God doth habitually dispose and encline our Hearts to a right performance of this act by enabling us to perform the first Act according to the former instructions by believing assuredly those great things of the Gospel whereby we are delivered into a form of doctrine Rom. 6.17 which we are to obey from our hearts and to follow as our pattern in the manner of our Acting Faith in Christ for Salvation Therefore I need only to exhort you briefly to Act your Faith in Christ according to that form and pattern in which you have bin already so largely instructed You are to believe in Christ as alone sufficient and all-sufficient for your Happiness and Salvation despairing altogether of any attainment of Happiness by your own Wisdom Strength works of Righteousness or any fleshly worldly Confidences whatsoever We must be as dead People to all other Confidences and account them to be loss for Christ according to the example of the blessed Apostle Phil. 3.3 7 8. We must not be grieved that we have nothing to trust upon besides Christ for our Salvation but rather we are to rejoyce that we need nothing else and that we have a sure foundation to rely upon incomparably better than any other that can be imagined And we must resolve to cast the burden of our Souls wholly on Christ and to seek Salvation no other way whatsoever becomes of us If the Cripple lay not the whole weight of his Body upon a strong Staff but part of it on a rotten one he is like to receive a fall If the Swimmer will not commit his Body wholly to the Water to bear him up but catch at Weeds or struggle to feel out Ground he may sink to the bottom Christ will be all our Salvation or nothing if we seek to be saved by any other ways as the Galatians did by Circumcision Christ will profit us nothing Gal. 5.2 You are also to receive Christ meerly as a free-gift given to the Chief of sinners resolving that you will not perform any Conditions to procure your selves a right and title to him But that you will come to him as a lost sinner an ungodly Creature trusting on him that Justifieth the ungodly and that you will buy him without mony and without any price whatsoever Rom. 4.5 Isa 55.2 Look not on your own Faith or Love or any good Qualifications in your selves as the ground of your trusting in Christ but only to the free Grace and loving-kindness of God in Christ How excellent is thy loving-kindness O God! therefore the Children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy Wings Psal 30.7 For if you make your Faith Love or good Qualifications to be your first and principal Foundation and you build Christ upon them instead of building all upon Christ you invert the order of the Gospel and Christ will profit you nothing Another thing to be observed diligently is that you must come to Christ for a new holy Heart and Life and all things necessary thereunto as well as for deliverance from the wrath of God and the torments of Hell You must also come to him with an ardent Love and Affection to him and esteem him better than a thousand Worlds and the only excellent Portion loathing and abhorring your self as a vile sinful and miserable Creature and accounting all things Dung in comparison of his Excellency that you may be able to say from the bottom of your Heart Whom have I in Heaven but thee c. Psal 73.23 Lastly You must endeavour to draw near with full assurance of Faith Heb. 10.22 trusting on Christ confidently for your own particular Salvation upon the account of that general promise That whosoever believeth on Christ shall not be ashamed Rom. 9.33 You must check your selves for all doubtings fears staggerings concerning your own Salvation by Christ saying with the Psalmist Why art thou cast down O my Soul c. Psal 42.11 The third thing contained in the direction is The avoiding of all delay in the performance of this great work of Believing in Christ Until we have performed it we continue under the power of Sin and Satan and under the wrath of God and there is nothing betwixt Hell and us besides the Breath of our Nostrils It s dangerous for Lot to linger in Sodom lest Fire and Brimstone come down from Heaven upon him The Man-slayer must flee with all haste to the City of refuge lest the avenger of blood pursue him while his Heart is hot and slay him Deut. 19.5 6. We should make haste and not delay to keep Gods Commandments Psal 119.60 and flee for refuge to the hope set before us Heb. 6.18 And God commandeth us to flee thus by Faith without which it is impossible to please God in other Duties The work is of such a nature that it may be performed as soon as you hear the Gospel As soon as they hear of me they shall obey me Psal 18.44 As soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her Children Isa 66.8 We have many examples of those that received the Word by Faith at the first hearing of it Three Thousand were added to the Church on the very same day wherein Peter first published the Gospel in Jerusalem Acts 2.41 so many Jews and Gentiles were converted at the first hearing of the Apostle Paul at Antioch Acts 13.43 The Jaylor with all his house believed and were baptized the same Night wherein Paul first preached to them Acts 16.33 34. The Gospel came at first to the Thessalonians not in Word only but in Power and in the Holy Ghost 1 Thes 1.5 6. If God open the Hearts of his People to attend diligently they may be instructed in the knowledge of the Gospel by one brief Sermon sufficiently to begin the practice of saving Faith and when they know their Duty God requireth immediate performance without allowing us the least respit in the state of Unbelief When Satan cannot prevail with People to reject wholly the Duty of Believing his next attempt for the ruin of their Souls is to prevail with them at least to delay and shift off the performance of it from time to time by several false reasonings and imaginations which he putteth into their minds the most ignorant and sensual are easily prevailed with to defer this Duty until they have taken their fill of the pleasures profits and honours of this World and are summoned to prepare for another World by Infirmities Age Sickness praying and hoping that a large time of Repentance will be granted unto them before they dye But such delays shew that they are really unwilling to Repent and Believe until they are forced by necessity and that they prefer the pleasures prosits and honours of the World above God and Christ and their own Souls Thus they unfit themselves more and more for this great Duty by their customary walking in sin and by
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
State is that which we derive from the first Adam by natural Generation and it is called in the Scripture the Old Man and while we be in it we are said to be in the Flesh and our new State is that which we receive from the second Adam Jesus Christ being new born in Union and Fellowship with him through Faith And it is called in Scripture the New Man and when we are in it we are said to be in the Spirit The Principles and Means of Practice belonging to a Natural State are such as Persons do or may attain to and make use of before they are in Christ by Faith Such as belong properly to the New-State are the manifold holy Endowments Priviledges and Enjoyments which we partake of in Christ by Faith such as have already appeared to be the only effectual means of a Holy Life We are said to walk according to either of these States or to the Principles or Means that belong to either of them when we are moved and guided by Vertue of them to such actings as are agreeable to them Thus Kings act according to their State in commanding Authoritatively and in magnificicent Bounty poor Men in the way of Service and Obedience and Children indiscreetly Hester 1.7 Prov. 18.23 1 Cor. 13.11 So the Manner of Practice here directed to consists in moving and guiding our selves in the Performance of the Works of the Law by Gospel Principles and Means This is the rare and excellent Art of Godliness in which every Christian should strive to be skilful and expert The reason why many come off with shame and Confusion after they have a long time laboured with much Zeal and Industry for the Attainment of true Godliness is because they were never acquainted with this holy Art and never endeavoured to practise in a right Gospel way Some worldly Arts are called Mysteries but above all this Spiritual Art of Godliness is without Controversie a great Mystery 1 Tim. 3.16 because the Means that are to be made use of in it are deeply Mysterious as hath been shewed and you are not a skilful Artist till you know them and can reduce them to Practice It is a manner of Practice far above the Sphere of Natural Ability such as would never have entred into the Hearts of the Wisest in the World if it had not been Revealed to us in the Scriptures and when it is there most plainly Revealed continueth a dark Riddle to those that are not inwardly Inlightned and Taught by the Holy Spirit Such as many Godly Persons guided by the Spirit and do in some measure walk in yet do but obscurely discern that they can hardly perceive their own Knowledge of it and can hardly give any Account to others of the way wherein they walk As the Disciples that walked in Christ the way to the Father and yet perceived not that Knowledge in themselves Lord we know not whether thou goest and how can we know the way Joh. 14.5 This is the reason why many poor Believers are so weak in Christ and attain to so small a Degree of Holiness and Righteousness Therefore that you may the better be acquainted with a Mystery of so high Concernment I shall shew in the first place that the Holy Scriptures do direct you to this manner of Practice as only effectual for the Performance of Holy Duties and then I shall lay before you some necessary Instructions that you may understand how to walk aright in it and continue and go forward therein till you be made perfect in Christ For the first of these the Holy Scriptures are very large and clear in directing us to this manner of Practice and to Continuance and Growth therein And here it is useful for us to observe the great Variety of peculiar Words and Phraises whereby the Holy Ghost teacheth this Mystery which many that frequently read the Scriptures yea that pretend to be Preachers of the Gospel do little understand or regard shewing thereby that the things of the Spirit of God are Foolishness to them and that they are not yet acquainted with the form of sound Words and are strangers to the very Language of the Gospel which they profess and pretend to preach I shall therefore present to your View several of those particular Words and Phrases whereby this mysterious manner of Practice is express'd in the Holy Scriptures and commended to you as the only way for the sure Attainment of all Holiness in Heart and Life I shall rank such of them together as agree in Sense that the Multitude of them may not breed Confusion in your Thoughts 1. This is the manner of Practice in Scripture which is expressed by living by Faith Hab. 2.4 Gal. 2.20 Heb. 10.38 Walking by Faith 2 Cor. 5.7 Faith working by Love Gal. 5.6 Overcoming the World by Faith 1 Joh. 5.4 Quenching all the fiery Darts of the Wicked by the Shield of Faith Eph. 6.19 20. Some make no more of living and walking by Faith than meerly a stirring up and encouraging our selves to our Duty by such Principles as we believe Thus the Jews might account that they believed by Faith because they professed and assented unto the Doctrin of Moses and the Prophets and were moved thereby to a Zeal of God though they sought righteousness not by Faith but as it were by the Works of the Law Rom. 3.32 Thus Paul might think he lived by Faith while he was a zealous Pharisee but afterwards he knew that the life of Faith consisted in dying to the Law and living to God and that not himself but Chrish lived in him Gal. 2.19 as it is one and the same thing to be justifyed by Faith and Christ believed on Rom. 5.1 so to live walk and work by Faith is all one with living walking working by means of Christ and his saving Endowments which we receive and make use of by Faith to guide and move our selves to the Practice of Holiness 2. The same thing is commended to us by the Terms of walking rooted and built up in Christ Col. 2.6 living to God as not to live to our selves but to have Christ living in us Gal. 2.19 20. Good Conversation in Christ 1 Pet. 3.16 Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ that we may walk honestly as in the day Rom. 13.13 14. Being strong in the Lord and the power of his might Eph. 6.10.11 Doing all things in the name of Christ Col. 3.17 walking up and down in the name of the Lord Zech. 10.12 going in the strength of the Lord as to make mention of his Righteousness even of his only Psal 71.16 These phrases are frequent and do sufficiently explain one another and do shew that we are to practise Holiness not only by vertue of Christs Authority but also of his strengthning Endowments moving us and encouraging us thereunto 3. It is also signified by the phrases of being strong in the Grace that is in Christ Jesus 2 Tim. 2.1 having your
Likewise your Hearts will be purified to unfeigned love of the Brethren in Christ and you will walk toward them with all lowliness meekness long-suffering forbearing one another in Love if you maintain a stedfast belief and perswasion of those manifold Bonds of Love whereby you are inseparably joyned with them through Christ as particularly that there is one Body and one Spirit one hope of your Calling one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all Finally you will be able to abstain from all fleshly and worldly Lusts that war against the Soul and hinder all Godliness by an assured perswasion not meerly that Gluttony Drunkenness Letchery are filthy Swinish Abominations And that the pleasures profits and honours of the World are vain empty things but that you are Crucified to the Flesh and the World and quickned raised and set in heavenly places through Christ and that you have pleasures profits honours in Christ to which the best things in the World are not worthy to be compared And that you are Members of Christ the Temple of his Spirit Citizens of Heaven Children of the Day not of the Night nor of Darkness So that 't is below your State and Dignity to practise deeds of darkness and mind fleshly worldly things Thus I have given Instances enough to stir you up to acquaint your selves with the manifold endowments priviledges properties of your New State in Christ as they are discovered in the Gospel of your Salvation whereby the new Nature is fitted for holy Operations as the common Nature of Man is furnished with the Endowments necessary for those Functions and Operations to which it is designed and also to stir you up to make use of them by Faith as they serve to strengthen you either for Universal Obedience or for particular Duties And by this manner of Walking your Hearts will be comforted and established in every good Word and Work and you will grow in Holiness until you attain to Perfection in Jesus Christ 8. If you endeavour to grow in Grace and in all Holiness trust assuredly that God will enable you by this manner of Walking to do every thing that is necessary for his Glory and your own everlasting Salvation and that he will graciously accept of that Obedience through Christ which you are enabled to perform according to the measure of your Faith and pardon your Failings though you offend in many things and fall short of many others as to degrees of Holiness and high Acts of Obedience And therefore attempt not the performance of Duty in any other way though you cannot yet attain to do so much as you would in this way This is a necessary Instruction to establish us in the life of Faith that the sense of our manifold Failings and Defects may not move us eitheir to Despair or to return to the use of carnal Principles and Means for help against our Corruptions as accounting this way of living and acting by Faith to be in-sufficient for our Sanctification and Salvation The Apostle Paul exhorts the Galatians to walk in the Spirit though the flesh lusts against the spirit so that they cannot do the things that they would Gal. 5 10 17. We are to know that though the Law requireth of us the utmost perfection of Holiness yet the Gospel maketh an allowance for our Weakness and Christ is so meek and lowly in heart that he accepteth of that which our weak Faith can attain to by his Grace and doth not exact or expect any more of us for his Glory and our Salvation until we grow stronger in Grace God shewed his great Indulgence to his People under the Old Testament that Moses the Law-giver suffered them because of the hardness of their hearts to put away their Wives Though from the beginning it was not so Mat. 19.8 and also in tolerating the customary practice of Polygamy tho Christ will not tolerate the continuance of such Practices in his Church since his Spirit is more plentifully poured forth under the Gospel Yet he is as forward as ever to bear with the Failings of his weak Saints that desire to obey him sincerely We have another Instance of God's Indulgence more full to our present purpose in his commanding that the fearful and faint-hearted should not be forced to enter into the Battel against their Enemies but suffered to return home to their Houses Though sighting in Battel against Enemies without Fear and Faint-heartedness was a Duty that God did much exercise his People in at that time Deut. 20.3 8. So under the Gospel though it be an eminent part of Christ's Service to endure the greatest Fight of Afflictions and Death it self courageously for his Name sake yet if any be so weak in Faith that they have not sufficient Courage to venture into the Battel no doubt but Christ alloweth them to make use of any honest means whereby they may escape the hands of Persecutors with safety to their holy Profession He will accept them in this weaker kind of Service and will approve of them better than if they should hazard a denial of his Name by venturing themselves upon the Tryal of Martyrdom when they might have escaped it Peter came off with Sin and Shame by venturing beyond the measure of his Faith into the hands of his Persecutors when he went after Christ to the High Priest's Hall whereas he should rather have made use of that indulgent Dismission that Christ gave to him and the rest of his Disciples Let these go their way Joh. 18.8 Christ dealeth with his People as a good careful Shepherd that will not over-drive his Sheep He gathereth his Lambs with his Arms and carrieth them in his Bosom and will gently lead those that are with young Isa 40.11 He would not have his Disciples urged rigorously upon the Duty of Fasting when their Spirits were unfit for it because he knew that imposing Duties above their Strength is like putting a piece of new Cloath into an old Garment and new Wine into old Bottles which spoyleth all at last Mat. 9.14 17. That Precept of Solomon Be not righteous overmuch Prov. 7.10 is very useful and necessary if rightly understood We are to beware of being too rigorous in exacting Righteousness of our selves and others beyond the measure of Faith and Grace Overdoing commonly proveth undoing Children that venture on their Feet beyond their Strength have many a Fall and so have Babes in Christ when they venture unnecessarily upon such Duties as are beyond the strength of their Faith We should be content at present to do the best that we can according to the measure of the gift of Christ though we know that others are enabled to do much better and we are not to despise the day of small things but to praise God that he worketh in us any thing that is well-pleasing in his sight hoping that he will sanctify us throughout and
l. 7. for believe r. Christs People p. 203. l. 18. r. decree p. 207. l. 3. à fi de yea p. 213. l. 14. for carefully r. chearfully p. 216. l. 12. à fi r. such a persuasion as this will allure and incline c. p. 222. l. 3. à fi r. resting in an attendance upon the c. p. 223. l. 8. r. means of his c. p. 225. l. 6. à fi for and perfect r. therefore we may p. 230. l. 14. r. by being p. 233. l. 8. for believed r. lived p. 232. l. 11. à fi for particular r. peculiar p. 242. l. 4. à fi for old sins r. sinful p. 243. l. 16. à fi r. Perfectionists p. 247. l. 10. r. we have great ground c. l. 11. r. endeavours after Holiness as in c. l. 13. r. and to the way of living by Faith l. 29. r. in order to a holy c. p. 248. l. 16. à fi for by r. in p. 249. l. 19. for own r. old p. 251. l. 6. à fi for or r. rather p. 254. l. 10. for spoil r. expel p. 255. l. 8. à fi r. but this c. p. 258. l. 7. for their r. your p. 292. l. 9. à fi r. exert it self r. reflex for reflect act Sermon p. 12. l. 1. for Righteousness r. Redemption The Reader is desired to mend the Erratas many of them very much altering the Sense of the Author Books Printed and Sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheap-side near Mercers Chappel Folio's RIchard Baxter's Catholick Theology Plain Pure Peaceable for Pacification of Dogmatical Wordwarriers In three Books Sixty one Sermons preached mostly on publick Occasions By Dr. Littleton Rector of Chelsey in Middlesex c. One Hundred select Sermons upon several Texts Fifty upon the Old Testament and Fifty on the New Choice and Practical Expositions on four select Psalms These two by the Reverend and Learned Tho. Horton D. D. A Third Volume of Sermons preached by the late Reverend and Learned Tho. Manton D. D. In two Parts The first containing Sixty six Sermons on the Eleventh Chapter of the Hebrews with a Treatise of the Life of Faith Part the Second A Treatise of Self-denial With several Sermons on the Sacrament of the Lord-Supper and other Occasions With an Alphabetical Table to the whole The Christian in Compleat Armour Or a Treatise of the Saints War against the Devil By William Gurnall A. M. of Emanuel College Now Pastor of a Church of Christ in Lavenham Suffolk Synodicon in Gallia Reformat â Or the Acts Decisions Decrees and Canons of these Famous National Councils of the Reformed Churches in France Being first A most Faithful and Impartial History of the Rise Growth Perfection and Decay of the Reformation in that Kingdom With its Fatal Catastrophe upon the Revocation of the Edict of Nants in the Year 1685 c. The whole collected and composed out of the Original Manuscript Acts of those renowned Synods A Work never before extant in any Language In 2 Vol. Fol. By John Quick Minister of the Gospel The Works of the Reverend Tho. Lightfoot D.D. late Master of Katharine Hall in Cambridge In 2 vol. An Historical Political Discourse of the Laws and Government of England from the first Time to the end of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth With a Vindication of the Ancient way of Parliaments in England By Nath. Bacon of Greys-Inn Esq The True Prophecies and Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus Forty nine Sermons on the whole Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians By the Famous Minister of the Reformed Churches of Paris Mr. John Daille Quarto's A Treatise of Episcopacy confuting by Scripture Reason and the Churches Testimony That sort of Diocesan Churches Prelacy and Government which casteth out the Primitive Church-Species Episcopacy Ministry and Discipline c. Church History of the Government of Bishops and their Councils abbreviated c. The English Nonconformity under K. Charles II. and K. James II. truly stated and argued c. The Life of Faith in three Parts c. A Treatise of Knowledge and Love compared in two Parts 1. Of Falsely Pretended 2. Of true saving Knowledge and Love History of Councils enlarged and defended c. Saints Everlasting Rest Church Concord Containing 1. a Dissuasive from unnecessary Divisions and Separations c. 2. The Terms necessary for Concord among all true Churches c. National Churches their Description Institution Use c. partly applied to England c. The Glorious Kingdom of Christ described and clearly vindicared against the Bold Assertors of a future Calling and Reign of the Jews answering Mr. Tho. Beverly c. A Reply to Mr. Tho. Beverly's Answer His Farewel-Sermon preached to his Hearers at Kidderminster His Penitent Confession And his necessary Vindication in answer to a Book called The second part of the Mischiefs of Separation c. An Answer to Mr. Dodwe◠and Dr. Sherlock confuting an Universal Humane Church-Supremacy Aristocratical and Monarchical as Church-Tyranny and Popery and defending Dr. Isaac Barrows Treatise against it Catholick Communion defended against both Extreams and unnecessary Divisions confuted by Reasons against both the Active and Passive ways of Separating occasioned by the Racks and Reproaches of one sort and the Impatience and Censoriousness of the other and the Erronious though Confident Writings of both c. In five parts Which is the True Church The whole Christian World as Headed only by Christ of which the Reformed are the soundest part or the Pope of Rome and his Subjects as such In three parts All these by Mr. Richard Baxter Claude's History of the Reformation Dr. Charleton's Enquiries into Humane Nature Burrough's Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment His Four Useful Discourses Several Discourses concerning the Actual Providence of God Divided into three Parts Intercourses of Divine Love betwixt Christ and his Church Or the Particular Believing Soul Metaphorically express'd by Solomon in the First and Second Chapters of Canticles In two Vol. All these three by John Collinges D. D. Jacksons Annotations on Isaiah Essays on Natural Experiments made in the Academy Del Cimento under the Protection of the most Serene Prince Leopold of Tuscany Written in Italian by the Secretary of that Academy Englished by Richard Waller Fellow of the Royal Society The Ark of the Covenant Or a Treatise of the Covenant of Redemption between God and Christ as the Foundation of the Covenant of Grace By Geo. Gillespie Clarkson of Diocesan Bishops In two Parts Morning Exercise against Popery Grews Parable of the Prodigal In two Parts Compleat An Exposition on the Commandments By the Right Reverend Father in God Ezekiel late Lord Bishop of London-Derry Clarkson's Practical Divinity of the Papists proved to be Destructive to Christianity and Mens Souls Froycell's Sermons of Grace and Temptation The Union of the Wheel seen by the Prophet Ezekiel opened and applied c. The Doctrine of JUSTIFICATION Opened and
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
or New Testament which is the Ministration of the Spirit and the Power of God unto Salvation 2 Cor. 3.6 8. Rom. 1.16 7. For the performance of other Duties of the Law you are to consider not only these Endowments Priviledges and Properties of their new State which are meet and forcible to enable you to the Love of God and Universal Obedience but also those that have a peculiar force and aptitude suitable to the special Nature of such Duties And you must endeavour to assure your selves of them by Faith that you may be encouraged and strengthned to perform the Duties I shall give you some instances of this manner of practice in several Duties whereby you may the better understand how to guide your selves in the rest And as to the Duties of the first Table if you would draw near to God in a Duty of his Worship with a true Heart you must do it in full assurance of Faith concerning your enjoyment of Christ and his Salvation And would you perform the great Duty of trusting on the Lord with all your Heart easting your Care upon him and committing the disposal of your self to him in all your Concerns Perswade your self through Christ that God according to his Promise will never fail you nor forsake you that he taketh a Fatherly Care of you that he will with-hold no good thing from you and will make all things to work for your Good And thus you will be strong and couragious in the practice of this Duty Whereas if you live in a meer suspence concerning your Interest in the Priviledges you will be subject to carnal fears carping cares in despite of your Heart and you will be prone to trust on the Arm of Flesh tho your Conscience tell you plainly that in so doing you incur the hainous guilt of Idolatry Would you be strengthned to submit to the hand of God with a chearful Patience in bearing any Affliction and Death it self The way to fortifie your selves is to Believe assuredly that your Afflictions that are but for a moment do work for you a far more exceeding eternal weight of Glory that Christ is your gain in death and life that his Grace is sufficient for you and his strength made perfect in your weakness and that he will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able and will at last make you more than Conquerours over all evil Until you attain to such perswasions as these you will be prone to fret and murmur under the burden of Affliction and to use indirect means to deliver your selves notwithstanding the clearest Convictions to the contrary Would you limit your selves to the Observation of Gods own Institutions in his Worship Believe that you are compleat in Christ and have all perfection of spiritual Blessings in him and that God will build you up in Christ by the Ordinances of his own Appointment This will make you account his Ordinances sufficient and Mens Traditions and Inventions needless in the Worship of God Whereas if you do not apprehend all fulness in Christ you will be like the Papists prone to catch at every Straw and to multiply Superstitious Observations without end for the supply of your spiritual Wants Would you confess your sins to God pray to him and praise him heartily for his Benefits Would you praise him for Afflictions as well as Prosperity Believe assuredly that God is Faithful and Just to forgive your sin through Christ that you are made an Holy Priesthood to offer spiritual Sacrisices of Prayer and Praises that are acceptable to God through Christ and that God heareth your Prayers and will fulfill them so far as they are good for you and that all Gods ways are Mercy and Truth toward you whether he prosper or afflict you in this life If you be altogether in doubt or otherwise perswaded concerning these Priviledges all your Confessions Prayers and Praises will be but heartless Lip-labours Slavish or Pharisaical Works In like manner you will be enabled to hear and receive the Word as the Word of God and to meditate on it with delight and you will be willing to know the strictness and spirituality of the Commands of God and to try and examine your ways impartially by them if you believe assuredly that the Word is the Power of God to Salvation and that Christ is your great Physician willing and able to heal you be the case never so bad And where your sin abounds his Grace towards you doth so much the more abound Whereas without these Comfortable Apprehensions all the works of Hearing Meditation Self-examination will be but uncouth heartless Works and they will be performed negligently and by halves or hypocritically and out of slavish Fear with much reluctancy without any good will or readiness of mind So also for the right receiving of the Sacraments you will find your selves much strengthned by Believing that you may have Communion with God and Christ in them and that you have a great High-Priest to bear the Iniquity of your holy things and to make you for ever accepted before the Lord. In the same way you are to apply your selves to all Duties towards your Neighbour required in the second Table of the Law by Acting in a perswasion of such priviledges of your new Estate as have a peculiar force to encourage and strengthen you for the performance of them That you may love your Neighbour as your self and do to him in all things as you would he should do to you without partiality and self-seeking that you may give him his due Honour and abstain from injuring him in his Life Chastity worldly Estate good Name or from Coveting any thing that is his according to the several Commands in the second Table of the Decalogue You must walk in a perswasion not only that these things are just and equitable toward your Fellow-Creatures and that you are strictly bound to the performance of them but that they are the will of your heavenly Father that hath begotten you according to his own Image in Righteousness and true Holiness and hath given you his Spirit that you may be like-minded to him in all things And that they are the mind of Christ who dwelleth in you and you in him That God and Christ are kind tender-hearted long-suffering full of goodness to Men whether good or bad Friends or Enemies Poor or Rich and that Christ came into the World not to destroy but to save and that you are of the same Spirit that the Injuries done to you by your Neighbours can do you no harm And you need not seek any good for your selves by injuring them because you have all desirable happiness in Christ and all things tho intended by your Enemies for your hurt certainly work for your good through Christ Such apprehensions as these wrought in us by the Spirit of Faith do certainly beget in us a right frame of Spirit throughly furnished for every good work towards our Neighbour