world When our Saviour was on the Earth the End of his Sermons as appears in the Gospel was to regulate the lives of Men to correct their vicious Passions rather than to explicate the greatest Mysteries Other Religions oblige their Disciples either to some external actions that have no moral worth in them so that 't is impossible for any one that is guided by Reason to be taken with such vanities Or they require things incommodious and burthensome The Priests of Baal cut themselves And among the Chineses though in great reputation for wisdome their Penitents expose themselves half naked to the injuries of the sharpest Weather with a double cruelty pleasure of the Devil who makes them freez here and expects they should burn for ever 'T is not the most strict observance of serious Trifles nor submitting to rigorous Austerities that ennobles the humane nature and commends us to God The most zealous performers of things indifferent and that chastise themselves with a bloody Discipline labour for nothing and may pass to Hell through Purgatory But the Religion of Christ reforms the Understanding and Will and all the actions depending on them It chases away Errour and Vice and Hatred and sheds abroad Light and Love Purity and Peace and forms on Earth a lively representation of that pure Society that is in Heaven The End of it is to render men like the Angels in Holiness that they may be so in Blessedness This will render it amiable to all that consider it without Passion And 't is worthy of observation that although many Heathens and Hereticks have contradicted other parts of the Christian Religion yet none have dar'd openly to condemn the Moral part of it The Effect of the Gospel hath been answerable to the Design One main difference between the old and new Law is that the old gave the knowledg of Rules without power to observe them the new that is attended with the Grace of Christ enables us by a holy Love to perform that which the other made men only to understand Of this we have the most sensible Evidence in the Primitive Church that was produc'd by the first beams of the Sun of Righteousness had received the first fruits of the Spirit What is more wonderful and worthy of God than that perfect Love which made all the first Believers to have one Heart and one Soul What greater contempt of the World can be imagined than the voluntary parting with all their Goods in consecrating them to God for the relief of the Poor And the Churches of the Gentiles while the Blood of Christ was warm and His Actions fresh in the memories of men were exemplary in Holiness They were as Stars shining in a perverse generation There was such a brightness in their Conversations that it pierc'd through the darkness of Paganisme and made a visible difference between them and all others Their words and actions were so full of zeal for the Glory of God of Chastity Temperance Justice Charity that the Heathens from the Holiness of their lives concluded the Holiness of their Law and that the Doctrine that produc'd such fruits could not be evil The first light that discovered the Truth of the Christian Faith to many was from the Graces and Vertues that appear'd in the Faithful The Purity of their Lives their Courage in Death were as powerful to convert the World as their Sermons Disputations and Miracles And those who were under such strong prejudices that they would not examine the Doctrine of the Gospel yet they could not but admire the Integrity and Innocency that was visible in the conversation of Christians They esteemâ—d their persons from the good qualities that were visible in them when they hated the Christian name for the conceal'd evil they unreasonably suspected to be under it This Tertullian excellently represents in his Apology The most part are so prejudic'd against the Name and are possest with such a blind hatred to it that they make it a matter of reproach even to those whom they otherwise esteem'd Caius they say is a good man he hath no fault but that he is a Christian. Thus the excellent Holiness of the Professors of the Gospel forc'd a veneration from their Enemies But we are fallen from Heaven and mixt with the dust Our conversation hath nothing singular in Holiness to distinguish us from the World The same corrupt Passions reign in Professors of Christianity as in those who are strangers from the Sacred Covenant If we compare our selves with the Primitive Church we must confess our unworthiness to be call'd their successors Sixteen hundred years are run out since the Son of God came down to sanctifie and save the World which are so many degrees whereby we are descended from the first Perfection We are more distant from them in Holiness than in Time So universal and great is the Corruption that 't is almost as difficult to revive the dying Faith of Christians and to reform their Lives according to the purity of their Profession as the Conversion of the World was from Heathenism to Christianity 'T is true In every Age there are some Examples of the Vertue of the Gospel that reflect an honour upon it And this last Age which we may call the Winter of the World in which the Holy Spirit hath foretold That the love of many shall grow cold by a marvellous Antiperistasis hath inflam'd the hearts of some excellent Saints towards God and Religion But the great number of the wicked and the progress of Sin in their Lives there is no measure of Tears sufficient to lament Fourthly I shall press Christians to walk as becomes the Gospel of Christ answerably to the Holiness and Purity of that Divine Institution and to those great and strict Obligations it laies upon us The Gospel requires an entire Holiness in all our Faculties an equal respect to all our Duties We are commanded to cleanse our selves from all pollutions of flesh and spirit to be holy in all manner of conversation We are enjoin'd To be perfecting Holiness in the fear of God To be holy as He that hath called us is Holy A certain measure of Faith and Love and Obedience a mediocrity in Vertue we must not content our selves with 'T is not a counsel of Perfection given only to some Christians of a peculiar order and elevation But the command of a Law that without exception binds all Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect The Gospel gives no Dispensation to any Person nor in any Duty The Doctrine that asserts there are some excellent works to which the lower sort of Christians is not obliged is equally pernicious both to those who do them by Presumption as if they were not due and were therefore meritorious and to those who neglect them by a blind Security as if they might be saved without striving to reach the highest degrees of Obedience 'T is a weak pretence that because the
of God's Love is in the Sufferings of Christ. The description of them with respect to his Soul and Body The Sufferings of his Soul set forth from the Causes of his Grief The Disposition of Christ and the Design of God in afflicting Him The sorrows of his forsaken state All comforting Influences were suspended but without prejudice to the Personal Union or the perfection of his Grace or the Love of his Father towards Him The Death of the Cross considered with respect to the Ignominy and Torment that concurr'd in it The Love of the Father and of Christ amplified upon the account of his enduring it THe next Circumstance to be considered in the Divine Mercy is the degree of it And this is described by the Apostle in all the dimensions which can signifie its greatness He prays for the Ephesians that they may be able to comprehend with all Saints the breadth and length and depth and height of the love of God in Christ which passes knowledge No language is sufficient to express it if our hearts were as large as the Sand on the Sea-shore yet they were too straight to comprehend it But although we cannot arrive to the perfect knowledg of this excellent Love yet 't is our duty to study it with the greatest application of mind for our happiness depends upon it and so far we may understand as to inflame our hearts with a superlative Affection to God And the full discovery which here we desire and search after in the future state shall be obtained by the presence and light of our Redeemer Now the greatness of the Divine Love in our Redemption appears 1. By reflecting on the mighty Evils from which we are freed 2. The means by which our Redemption is accomplisht 3. That excellent State to which we are advanced by our Redeemer 1. If we reflect upon the horrour of our natural state it will exceedingly heighten the mercy that delivered us This I have in part opened before therefore I will be the shorter in describing it Man by his rebellion had forfeited Gods favour and the honour and happiness he injoyed in Paradise And as there is no middle state between Sovereignty and misery he that falls from the Throne stops not till he comes to the bottom so when Man fell from God and the dignity of his innocent state he became extreamly miserable He is under the servitude of sin the tyranny of Satan the bondage of the Law and the empire of Death 1. Man is a captive to sin He is fallen from the hand of his counsel under the power of his passions Love Hatred Ambition Envy Fear Sorrow and all the other stinging Affections of which is true what the Historian speaks of the several kinds of Serpents in Africa Quantus nomiuum tantus mortium numerus exercise a tyranny over him And if no man can serve two Masters as the Oracle of Truth tells us how wretched is the slavery of Man whose passions are so opposit that in obeying one he cannot escape the lash of many imperious Masters He is possest with a Legion of impure lusts And as the Demoniac in the Gospel was sometimes cast into the fire and sometimes into the water so is he hurried by the fury of contrary passions This servitude to sin is in all respects compleat For those who serve are either born servants or bought with a price or made captives by force and sin hath all these kinds of title to man He is conceived and born in sin he is sold under sin and sells himself to do evil As that which is sold passes into the possession of the buyer so the sinner exchanging himself for the pleasures of sin is under its power Original sin took possession of our nature and actual of our lives He is the servant of corruption by yeilding to it for of whom a man is overcome of the same he is brought in bondage The condition of the most wretched bond-â—lave is more sweet and less servile than that of a sinner For the severest tyranny is exercised only upon the body the soul remains free in the midst of chains but the power of sin oppresses the Soul the most noble part and defaces the bright character of the Deity that was stampt upon its visage The worst slavery is terminated with this present life In the grave the Prisoners rest together they hear not the voice of the Oppressor The small and the great are there and the Servant is free from his Master But there is no exemption from this servitude by death it extends its self to Eternity 2. Man since his fall is under the tyranny of Satan who is call'd the God of this World and is more absolute then all temporal Princes his dominion being over the will He overcame man in Paradise and by the right of War he rules over him The soul is kept in his bondage by subtile Chains of which the spiritual nature is capable The understanding is captivated by ignorance and errors the will by inordinate dangerous lusts the memory by the images of sinful pleasures those mortal visions which inchant the soul and make it not desirous of liberty Never did cruel Pirat so incompassionately urge his Slaves to ply their Oares in charging or flying from an enemy as Satan incites those who are his captives to do his will And can there be a more afflicting calamity then to be the slave of ones enemy especially if base and cruel This is the condition of man he is a captive to the Devil who was a Liar and a Murderer from the beginning He is under the rage of that bloody Tyrant whose ambition was to render Man as miserable as himself who in triumph upbraids him for his folly and adds derision to his Cruelty 3. Fallen Man is under the Curse and Terrors of the Law For being guilty he is justly exposed to the punishment threatned against transgressours without the allowance of repentance to obtain pardon And Conscience which is the Ecchâ— of the Law in his bosom repeats the dreadful sentence This is an Acouser which none can silence a Judge that none can decline and from hence it is that Men all their life are subject to bondage being obnoxious to the wrath of God which the awakened Conscience fearfully sets before them This complicated Servitude of a Sinner the Scripture represents under great variety of Similitudes that the defects of one may be supplied by another Every Sinner is a Servant now a Servant by flight may recover his Liberty But he is not only a Servant but a Captive in chains A Captive may be freed by laying down a Ransom but the Sinner is not only a Captive but deeply in debt Every Debtor is not miserable by his own fault it may be his Infelicity not his Crime that he is poor but the Sinner is guilty of the highest offence A guilty Person may enjoy
will be fit to consider them with respect to his Soul and his Body The Gospel delivers to us the relation of both 1. Upon his entrance into the Garden He complains My Soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto Death There were present only Peter James and John his happy Favourites who assured him of their fidelity there was no visible enemy to afflict Him yet his Soul was environ'd with Sorrows 'T is easie to conceive the injuries He suffered from the rage of Men for they were terminated upon his Body But how to understand his inward Sufferings the wounds of his Spirit the cross to which his Soul was nailed is very difficult Yet these were in expressibly greater as the visible effects dedeclare The anguish of his soul so affected his body that his Sweat was as it were great drops of Blood the miraculous evidence of his Agony The terror was so dreadful that the assistance of an Angel could not calm it And if we consider the causes of his grief the dispositions of Christ and the design of God in afflicting him it will further appear that no sorrow was ever like his The Causes were 1. The evil of Sin which infinitely exceeds all other for the just measure of an evil is taken from the good to which it is opposit and of which it deprives us Now Sin is formally opposit to the Holy nature and will of God and meritoriously deprives of his blessed presence for ever Therefore God being the supreme Good Sin is the supreme evil And grief being the resentment of an evil that which is proportioned to the evil of Sin must be infinite Now the Lord Christ alone had perfect light to discover Sin in its true horrour and perfect zeal to hate it according to its nature for who can understand the excellency of good and the malignity of evil but the Author of the one and the Judge of the other who can fully conceive the guilt of rebellion against God but the Son of God who is alone able to comprehend his own Majesty On this account the grief of our Redeemer exceeded all the sorrow of repenting Sinners from the beginning of the World For our knowledge is so imperfect and our zeal so remiss that our grief for sin is much beneath what 't is worthy of but sin was as hateful to Christ as it is in it self and his sorrow was equal to its evil 2. The Death he was to suffer attended with all the Curses of the Law and the terrible marks of Gods Indignation From hence 't is said he began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy 'T is wonderful that the Son of God who had perfect patience and the strength of the Deity to support him who knew that his Passion should soon pass away and that the issue should be his own glorious Resurrection and the recovery of lapsed Man that he should be shaken with fear and oppressed with sorrow at the first approches of it how many of the Martyrs have with an undisturbed courage embraced a more cruel death but to them 't was disarm'd whereas our Saviour encountered it with all its formidable Pomp with its Darts and Poison 3. The Wrath of God was inflamed against him For although he was perfectly Innocent and more distant from sin than Heaven is from the Earth yet by the ordination of God and his own consent being made our Sponsor the Iniquity of us all was laid upon him He suffered as deeply as if he had been guilty Vindictive justice was inexorable to his Prayers and Tears Although he renewed his request with the greatest ardency as 't is said by the Evangelist that being in an Agony he prayed more earnestly yet God would not spare him The Father of Mercies saw his Son humbled in his presence prostrate on the Earth yet deals with him in extream severity He was stricken smiten of God and afflicted And who is able to conceive the weight of God's Hand when he punishes sin according to its desert who can understand the degrees of those Sufferings when God exacts satisfaction from one that was obliged and able to make it how piercing were those sorrows whereby Divine Justice infinitely incens'd was to be appeas'd Who knows the consequence of those words My God My God why hast thou forsaken me 'T is impossible to comprehend or represent that great and terrible Mystery But thus much we may understand That Holiness and Glory being essential to the Deity they are communicated to the Reasonable Nature when united to it But with this difference that Holiness necessarily results from Union with God For Sin being infinitely repugnant to His Nature makes a Separation between Him and the creature But Glory and Joy are dispensed in a free and arbitrary manner This dereliction of our Saviour must be understood with respect to the second not the first Communication In the extremity of his Torments all his Affections were innocent and regular being only raised to that degree which the vehemency of the object required He exprest no murmur against God nor anger against his enemies His Faith Love Humility Patience were then in their Exaltation But that glorious and unspeakable Joy which in the course of his Life the Deity conveyed to Him was then withdrawn An impetuous torrent of pure unmixed Sorrows broke into his holy Soul He felt no refreshing emanations so that having lost the sense of present Joy there remained in his Soul only the hope of future Joy And in that sad moment his Mind was so intent upon his Sufferings that he seems to have been diverted from the actual consideration of the Glory that attended the issue of them Briefly All comforting Influences were suspended but without prejudice to the Personal Union or the Perfection of his Grace or to the Love of his Father toward Him His Soul was liable to sorrows as his Body to death For the Deity is the Principle of Life as well as of Joy and as the Body of Christ was three days in the state of Death and the Hypostatical Union remained entire so his Soul was left for a time under the fearful impressions of wrath yet was not separated from the God-head And although He endured what ever was necessary for the Expiation of Sin yet all vitious Evils as Blasphemy Hatred of God and any other which are not inflicted by the Judg but in strictness are accidental to the Punishment and proceed from the weakness or wickedness of the Patient he was not in the least guilty of Besides when his Father appear'd an enemy against him at that time He was infinitely pleased in his Obedience But with these exceptions our Blessed Lord suffered whatever was due to us The Sorrows of his forsaken state were inexpressibly great for according to the degree and sense we have of Happiness such in proportion is our grief for the loss of it Now Christ had the fullest enjoyment and the highest valuation of Gods favour
came to seize upon him though by one word he could have commanded Legions of Angels for his rescue yet he yeilded up himself to their Cruelty 'T was not any defect of power but the strength of his Love that made him to suffer He was willing to be Crucified that we might be Glorified our Redemption was sweeter to him than Death was bitter by which it was to be obtained 'T was excellently said by Pherecides that God transformed himself into Love when he made the World but with greater reason 't is said by the Apostle God is Love when he redeemed it 'T was Love that by a miraculous condescension took our Nature accomplishing the desire of the mystical Spouse Let him kiss me with the kisses of his Mouth 'T was Love that stoop't to the form of a Servant and led a poor despised life here below 'T was Love that endur'd a Death neither easie nor honourable but most unworthy the glory of the Divine and the innocency of the Humane nature Love chose to die on the Cross that we might live in Heaven rather than to enjoy that blessedness and leave Mankind in misery CHAP. X. Divine Mercy is magnified in the excellency of the state to which Man is advanced He is inricht with higher Prerogatives under a better Covenant entitled to a more glorious Reward than Adam at first enjoyed The Humane Nature is personally united to the Son of God Believers are spiritually united to Christ. The Gospel is a better Covenant than that of the Law It admits of Repentance and Reconciliation after Sin It accepts of Sincerity instead of Perfection It affords supernatural Assistance to Believers whereby they shall be victorious over all opposition in their way to Heaven The difference between the Grace of the Creator and that of the Redeemer The stability of the New-Covenant is built on the Love of God which is unchangeable and the Operations of his Spirit that are effectual The mutability and weakness of the Humane Will and the strength of Temptations shall not frustrate the merciful Design of God in regard of his Elect. The glorious Reward of the Gospel exceeds the Primitive Felicity of Adam in the place of it the highest Heaven Adam's life was attended with innocent Infirmities from which the glorified Life is entirely exempt The Felicity of Heaven exceeds the first in the manner degrees and continuance of the fruition THe Third Consideration which makes the Love of God so admirable to lapsed Man is the excellency of that state to which he is advanc'd by the Redeemer To be only exempted from Death is a great favour The grace of a Prince is eminent in releasing a condemned Person from the punishment of the Law This is sufficient for the Mercy of Man but not for the Love of God He pardons and prefers the guilty He rescues us from Hell and raises us to Glory He bestows Eternity upon those who were unworthy of Life The excellency of our condition under the Gospel will be set off by comparing it with that of innocent Man in Paradise 'T is true he was then in a state of Holiness and Honour and in perfect possession of that Blessedness which was suitable to his Nature yet in many respects our last state transcends our first and redeeming Love exceeds creating If Man had been only restor'd to his forfeited Rights to the enjoyment of the same Happiness which was lost his first state were most desirable And it had been greater Goodness to have preserv'd him innocent than to recover him from ruine As he that preserves his Friend from falling into the hands of the Enemy by interposing between him and danger in the midst of the Combat delivers him in a more noble manner than by paying a Ransom for him after many daies spent in woful Captivity And that Physician is more excellent in his Art who prevents Diseases and keeps the Body in health and vigour than another that expels them by sharp Remedies But the Grace of the Gospel hath so much mended our condition that if it were offer'd to our choice either to enjoy the innocent state of Adam or the renewed by Christ it were folly like that of our first Parents to prefer the former before the latter The Jubilee of the Law restor'd to the same Inheritance but the Jubilee of the Gospel gives us the Investiture of that which is transcendently better than what we at first possest Since The Day-spring from on High hath visited us in tender mercy we are enricht with higher Prerogatives and are under a better Covenant and entitled to a more glorious Reward than was due to Man by the Law of his Creation First The Humane Nature is raised to an higher degree of Honour than if Man had continued in his Innocent state 1. By its intimate Union with the Son of God He assum'd it as the fit Instrument of our Redemption and preferr'd it before the Angelical which surpast Man 's in his Primitive State The Fulness of the God-thead dwells in our Redeemer bodily From hence it is that the Angels descended to pay Him homage at his Birth and attended his Majesty in his disguise The Son of Man hath those Titles which are above the Dignity of any meer Creature He is King of the Church and Judg of the World he exercises Divine Power and receives Divine Praise Briefly The humane Nature in our Redeemer is an associate with the Divine and being made a little lower then the Angles for a time is now advanced far above all Principalities and Powers 2. In all those who are partakers of Grace and Glory by the Lord Jesus Adam was the Son of God by Creation but to be joyned to Christ as our head by a union so intimate that he lives in us and counts himself incompleat without us and by that union to be adopted into the line of Heaven and thereby to have an interest in the exceeding great and precious promises of the Gospel to be constituted Heirs of God and coheirs with Christ are such discoveries of the dignity of our supernatural state that the lowest Believer is advanced above Adam in all his honour Nay the Angels though superior to Man in the excellency of their nature yet are accidently lower by the honour of our alliance Their King is our Brother And this relative dignity which seems to eclipse their Glory might excite their envy but such an ingenuous goodness dwells in those pure and blessed Spirits that they rejoyce in our restoration and advancement To this I shall add that as the Son of God hath a special relation to Man so the most tender affections for him To illustrate this by a sensible instance Angels and Men are as two different Nations in Language and Customs but under the same Empire and if a Prince that commands two Nations should employ one for the safety and prosperity of the other it were an Argument of special
Imaginations or when looking on Him through the appearing disorders of the World they thought Him unjust and cruel As the most beautiful Face seems deformed and monstrous in a disturbed stream But the most renowned Philosophers dishonoured Him by their base apprehensions For the true Notion of God signifies a Being Infinite Independent the universal Creator who preserves Heaven and Earth the absolute Director of all Events that his Providence takes notice of all Actions that He is a liberal Rewarder of those that seek Him and a just Revenger of those that violate his Laws Now all this was contradicted by them Some asserted the World to be eternal others that Matter was and in that denied Him to be the first Cause of all things Some limited his Being confining Him to one of the Poles of Heaven Others extended it only to the Amplitude of the World The Epicureans totally denied his governing Providence and made Him an idle Spectator of things below They asserted That God was contented with his own Majesty and Glory That whatever was without Him was neither in his thoughts nor care as if to be employed in ordering the various accidents of the world were incompatible with his Blessedness and He needed their Impiety to relieve Him Thus by confining his Power who is Infinite they denied Him in confessing Him Others allowed Him to regard the great affairs of Kingdoms and Nations to manage Crowns and Scepters but to stoop so low as to regard particular things they judged as unbecoming the Divine Nature as for the Sun to descend from Heaven to light a Candle for a Servant in the dark They took the Scepter out of God's hand and set up a foolish and blind Power to dispose of all mutable things Seneca himself represents Fortune as not discerning the worthy from the unworthy and scattering its gifts without respect to Vertue Some made Him a Servant to Nature That he necessarily turn'd the Spheres Others subjected Him to an invincible Destiny that He could not do what He desired Thus the wisest of the Heathens dishonoured the Deity by their false imaginations and instead of representing him with his proper Attributes drew a picture of themselves Besides their impious fancies had a pernicious influence upon the lives of Men especially the denial of his Providence for that took away the strongest restraint of corrupt nature the fear of future Judgment For humane Laws do not punish secret crimes that are innumerable nor all open as those of persons in power which are most hurtful Therefore they are a weak instrument to preserve Innocence and Virtue Only the respect of God to whom every heart is manifest every action a Testimony and every great Person a Subject is of equal force to give check to sin in all in the dakrness of the night and the light of the day in the works of the hand and the thoughts of the heart 2. Philosophy is very defective as to Piety in not injoyning the Love of God The first and great Command in the Law of Nature the order of the Precepts being according to their dignity is Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy Heart Soul and Strength 'T is most reasonable that our Love should first ascend to Him and in its full vigor For our Obligations to him are infinite and all inferior objects are incomparably beneath him Yet Philosophers speak little or nothing of this which is the principal part of natural Religion Aristotle who was so clear-sighted in other things when he discourses of God is not only affectedly obscure to conceal his ignorance as the Fish which troubles the Water for fear of being catcht but 't is on the occasion of speculative Sciences as in his Phisicks when he considers him as the first cause of all the motions in the World or in his Metaphysicks as the supreme Being the knowledg of whom he saith is most noble in it self but of no use to Men. But in his Morals where he had reason to consider the Deity as an object most worthy of our Love Respect and Obedience in an infinite Degree he totally omits such a representation of him although the Love of God is that alone which gives price to all moral Virtues And from hence it is that Philosophy is so defective as to Rules for the preparing Men for an intimate and delightful Communion with God which is the effect of Holy and Perfect Love and the supreme Happiness of the reasonable Nature If in the Platonical Philosophy there are some things directing to it yet they are but frigidly exprest and so obscurely that like Inscriptions in ancient Medals or Marbles which are defac't they are hardly legible This is the singular Character of the Gospel that distinguishes it from all humane Institutions it represents the infinite amiableness of God and his goodness to us to excite our Affections to him in a Superlative manner it commands us to follow him as dear Children and presses us to seek for those Dispositions which may qualifie us for the enjoyment of him in a way of Friendship and Love 3. The best Philosophers laid down this servile and pernicious Maxime That a wise Man should alwayes conform to the Religion of his Country Socrates who acknowledged one Supreme God yet according to the counsel of the Oracle that directed all to Sacrifice according to the Law of the City he advised his Friends to comply with the common Idolatry and those who did otherwise he branded as superstitious and vain And his practice was accordingly For he frequented the Temples assisted at their Sacrifices which he declares before his Judges to purge himself from the Crime of which he was accused Seneca speaking of the Heathen worship acknowledges 't was unreasonable and only the multitude of fools rendered it excusable yet he would have a Philosopher to conform to those customs in Obedience to the Law not as pleasing to the God's Thus they made Religion a dependance on the State They performed the Rites of heathenish Superstition that were either filthy phantastical or cruel such as the Devil the master of those Ceremonies ordain'd They became less than Men by worshipping the most vile and despicable Creatures and sunk themselves by the most execrable Idolatry beneath the Powers of darkness to whom they offered Sacrifice Now this Philosophical Principle is the most palpable violation of the Law of Nature for that instructs us that God is the only object of Religion and that we are to obey him without exception from any inferior Power Here 't was Conscience to disobey the Law and a most worthy cause wherein they should have manifested that generous contempt of Death they so much boasted of But they detained the truth in unrighteousness and although they knew God they glorified him not as God but chang'd the Glory of the Incorruptible God into an Image made like to a corruptible Man and to Birds and Beasts and creeping
was so fram'd as to make a visible discovery of the Prerogatives of his Creation And when he reflected upon his Soul that animated his dust its excellent endowments wherein 't is comparable to the Angels its capacity of enjoying God himself for ever he had an internal and most clear testimony of the glorious perfections of his Creator For Man who alone admires the works of God is the most admirable of all 2. The Image of God was resplendent in mans Conscience the seat of practical Knowledg and Treasury of moral Principles The directive faculty was sincere and incorrupt not infected with any disguising tincture 't was clear from all prejudices which might render it an incompetent Judg of good and evil It instructed Man in all the parts of his relative Obligations to God and the Creatures 'T was not fetter'd and confin'd fearfully restraining from what is Lawful nor licentious and indulgent in what is forbidden Briefly Conscience in Adam upright was a subordinate God that gave Laws and exacted obedience to that glorious Being who is its Superior 3. There was a Divine Impression on the Will Spiritual Reason kept the Throne and the inferiour Faculties observed an easy and regular subordination to its dictates The Affections were exercis'd with proportion to the quality of their Objects Reason was their inviolable Rule Love the most noble and Master-affection which gives being and goodness to all the rest even to hatred it self for so much we hate an object as it hinders our enjoyment of the good we love this precious Incense was offer'd up to the excellent and supreme Being which was the Author of his Life Adam fully obeyed the first and great Command of loving the Lord with all his heart soul and strength His love to other things was regulated by his love to God There was a perfect accord between flesh and spirit in him They both joyn'd in the service of God and were naturally mov'd to their happiness In short the image of God in Adam was a living powerful Principle and had the same relation to the Soul which the Soul hath to the Body to animate and order all its Faculties in their Offices and Operations according to the Will of his Creator 2. The Image of God consisted though in an inferiour degree in the happy state of man Herein he resembled that infinitly Blessed Being This happiness had relation to the two Natures which enter into Mans Composition 1. To the Animal and Sensitive and this consisted in two things 1. In the excellent disposition of his Organs 2. In the enjoyment of convenient Objects 1. In the excellent disposition of the Organs His body was form'd immediately by God and so not liable to those defects which proceed from the weakness of second causes No blemish or disease which are the effects and footsteps of sin were to be found in him His health was not a frail inconstant disposition easily ruin'd by the jarring elements but firm and stable The humours were in a just temperament to prevent any destemper which might tend to the dissolution of that excellent frame Briefly all rhe senses were quick and lively able to perform with facility vigour and delight their operations 2. There were convenient Objects to entertain his sensitive faculties He enjoyed Nature in its original Purity crown'd with the benediction of God before 't was blasted with the curse The World was all Harmony and Beauty becoming the goodness of the Creator and not as 't is since the Fall disorder'd and deform'd in many parts the effect of his Justice The Earth was liberal to Adam of all its Treasures the Heavens of their Light and sweetest Influences He was seated in Eden a place of so great beauty and delight that it represented the Celestial Paradise which is refresht with Rivers of Pleasure And as the ultimate End of the Creatures was to raise his mind and inflame his heart with the love of his great Benefactor So their first and natural use was the satisfaction of the Senses from whence the felicity of the Animal Life did proceed 2. His supreme Happiness consisted in the exercise of his most noble Faculties on their proper Objects This will appear by considering that as the spiritual Faculties have objects which infinitely excel those of the sensitive So their capacity is more inlarged their union with objects is more intimate and their perception is with more quickness and vivacity and thereby are the greatest instruments of pleasure to the rational being Now the highest Faculties in Man are the Understanding and Will and their happiness consists in union with God by Knowledg and Love 1. In the Knowledg of God As the desire of Knowledg is the most natural to the humane Soul so the obtaining of it produces the most noble and sweetest pleasure And proportionably to the degrees of excellency that are in objects so much of rational Perfection and Satisfaction accrues to the mind by the knowledg of them The discovery of the Works of God greatly affected Man yet the excellencies scatter'd among them are but an imperfect and mutable shadow of God's infinite and unchangable Perfections How much more delightful was it to his pure understanding tracing the footsteps and impressions of God in Natural things to ascend to him who is the glorious Original of all Perfections And although his finite understanding could not comprehend the Divine excellencies yet his knowledg was answerable to the degrees of Revelation wherein God was manifested He saw the admirable Beauty of the Creator through the transparent vail of the creatures And from hence there arose in the Soul a pleasure pure solid and satisfying a pleasure divine for God takes infinit contentment in the contemplation of Himself 2. The Happiness of Man consisted in the Love of God 'T was not the naked speculation of the Deity that made him happy but such a knowledg as ravisht his Affections For happiness results from the fruitions of all the Faculties 'T is true that by the mediation of the understanding the other Faculties have access to an object the Will and Affections can't be enclin'd to any thing but by vertue of an act of the mind which propounds it as worthy of them It follows therefore that when by the discovery of the transcendent excellencies in God the Soul is excited to love and to delight in Him as its Supreme Good 't is then really and perfectly happy Now as Adam had a perfect knowledg of God so the height of his love was answerable to his knowledg and the compleatness of his enjoyment was according to his Love All the Divine Excellencies were amiable to him The Majesty Purity Justice and Power of God which are the terrour of guilty creatures secur'd his happiness whilst he continued in his Obedience His Conscience was clear and calm no unquiet fears discompos'd its Tranquillity 't was the seat of Innocence and Peace Briefly His love to God was perfect without any
had in his Creation an original Power to perform 2. There is a moral Impotence which arises from a perverse disposition of the Will and is join'd with a delight to Sin and a strong aversion from the holy Commands of God and the more deep and inveterate this is the more worthy 't is of punishment Aristotle asserts That those who contract invincible Habits by Custome are inexcusable though they cannot abstain from evil For since Liberty consists in doing what one wils this impossibility doth not destroy Liberty the depravation of the Faculties doth not hinder their voluntary operations The Understanding conceives the Will chooses the Appetite desires freely A distracted Person that kils is not guilty of Murder and therefore secure from the Sentence of the Law For his Understanding being distemper'd by the disorder of the images in his Fancy it doth not judg aright so that the action is involuntary and therefore not culpable But there is a vast difference between the causes of Distraction and those which induce a carnal Man to sin The first are seated in the distemper of the Brain over which the Will hath no Power whereas there should be a regular subjection of the lower appetite to the Will enlightned and directed by the Mind The Will it self is corrupted and brought into captivity by things pleasing to the lower Faculties It cannot disintangle it self but its impotence lies in its obstinacy This is the meaning of St. Peter speaking concerning unclean Persons That their eyes are full of adultery and they cannot cease from Sin 'T is from their fault alone that they are without power Therefore the Scripture represents Man to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 weak but wicked His disability to supernatural Good arises from an inordinate Affection to that which is sensual So that 't is so far from excusing that it renders inexcusable being voluntary and vitious And in this the Diseases of the Body are different from those of the Soul In the first the desire of healing is ineffectual through want of knowledg or power to apply Sovereign Remedies Whereas in the second the sincere desire of their Cure is sufficient for the Diseases are corrupt desires The Natural Man is wholly led by Sence by Fancy and the Passions and he esteems it his infelicity to be otherwise as the degenerous Slave who was displeased with a Jubile and refused Liberty Servitude is his Sensuality He is not only in love with the unworthy object but with the vitious affection and abhors the cure of it As one in the Poet that was so delighted in his pleasant Madness that he was offended at his Recovery Cui sic extorta voluptas Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error This is acknowledged by St. Austin in his Confessions where he describes the conflict between Conviction and Corruption in his Soul He tells us in the strife between Reason and Lust that he had recourse to God and his Prayer was Da mihi continentiam sed noli modo he desired Chastity but not too soon This is the general sence though not the general discourse of men As the Sick Person that desired his Physician to remove his Fever but not his thirst which made his drink very pleasing to him So Man in his sensual state would fain be freed from the aestuations of Conscience but he cherishes those carnal desires which give a high tast to objects suitable to them From hence it appears that although in the corrupt Nature there is no liberty of indifferency to good and evil yet there is a liberty of delight in evil and though the Will in its natural capacity may choose good yet 't is morally determin'd by its love to evil· In short There is so much power not to sin as is sufficient to sin that is that the forbidden action be free and so become a Sin Which strange combination of Liberty and Necessity is excellently exprest by St. Bernard That the Soul which fell by its own choice can't recover it self is from the corruption of the Will which overcome by the vitious love of the Body rejects the love of Righteousness so that in a manner as strange as evil the Will being corrupted with Sin makes a necessity to it self yet so that the necessity being voluntary doth not excuse the Will nor the Will being pleasantly and powerfully allur'd exclude Necessity The Law therefore remains in its full force and God is righteous in the commanding and condemning Sinners From all that hath been discours'd 't is evident how impossible it is for corrupt Man to recover his lost Holiness For there are only two Motives to induce the reasonable Creature to seek after it 1. It s Beauâ—y and Loveliness 2. The Reward that attends it And both these Arguments are ineffectual to work upon him 1. The Beauty of Holiness which excels all other created Perfections it being a conformity to the most glorious Attribute of the Deity doth not allure him For Unusquisque ut affectus est ita judicat Man understands according to his Affections The renewed Mind can only see the essential and intimate Beauty of Holiness Now in faln Man the clearness of the discerning power is lost As the natural Eye till 't is purged from vicious qualities can't look on things that are bright and sublime and if it hath been long in darkness it suffers by the most pleasing Object the light so the internal eye of the Mind that it may see the lively lustre of Holiness it must be cleansed from the filthiness of carnal Affections and having been so long under thick darkness it must be strengthned before it can sustain the brightness of things spiritual Till it be prepar'd it can see nothing amiable and desireable in the Image of God 2. The Reward of Holiness hath no attractive power on the carnal Will because 't is Future and Spiritual 1. 'T is Future and therefore the conceptions of it are very dark and imperfect The Soul is sunk down into the Senses and they are short-sighted and can't look beyond what is present to the next life And as the images of things are weaken'd and confus'd proportionably to their distance and make a fainter impression upon the Faculty so the representation of Heaven and Blessedness as a Happiness to come hereafter and therefore remote doth but coldly affect the Will A present vanity in the judgment of the carnal Soul outweighs the most glorious futurity 'Till there be taken from before its eyes the in Tertullian's language thick curtain of the visible World it cannot discern the difference between them nor value the reward for its excellency and duration 2. 'T is Spiritual and there must be a divine Disposition of the Soul before it is capable of it The pure in heart can only see the pure God The Felicity above is that which Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither hath it
Pilate from reason of State to accomplish the death of Christ and he then seemed to be Victorious now what was more honourable to the Prince of our Salvation than the turning the Enemies point upon his own breast and by dying to overcome him that had the power of Death This was signified in the first promise of the Gospel where the Salvation of Man is inclos'd in the curse of the Serpent that is the Devil cloathed with that figure It shall bruise thy Head and thou shalt bruise his Heel That is The Son of God should by Suffering in our Flesh overcome the Enemy of Mankind and rescue innumerable Captives from his Tyranny Here the Events are most contrary to the probability of their Cause And what is more worthy of God than to obtain his ends in such a manner as the Glory of all may be in solidum ascribed to Him 7. The Divine Wisdom appears in laying the design of the Gospel in such a manner as to provide for the comfort and promote the holiness of Man This is Gods signature upon all heavenly Doctrines which distinguishes them from carnal Inventions they have a direct tendency to promote his Glory and the real benefit of the rational Creature Thus the way of Salvation by Jesus Christ is most fit as to reconcile God to Man by securing his Honour so to reconcile Man to God by encouraging his Hope 'Till this be effected he can never be happy in communion with God For that is nothing else but the reciprocal exercise of Love between God and the Soul Now nothing can represent God as amiable to a guilty Creature but his inclination to Pardon Whilst there are apprehensions of inexorable Severity there will be hard thoughts burning in the Breast against God Till the Soul is released from terrors it can never truly love him To extinguish our Hatred He must conquer our Fears and this He hath done by giving us the most undoubted and convincing Evidence of his Affections 1. By contracting the most intimate alliance with Mankind In this God is not only lovely but Love and his Love is not only visible to our Understandings but to our Senses The Divine Nature in Christ is joyned to the Humane in an union that is not typical or temporary but real and permanent The Word was made Flesh. And in him dwells the Fulness of the Godhead bodily Now as Love is an Affection of Union so the strictest union is an Evidence of the greatest Love The Son of God took the Seed of Abraham the original element of our Nature that our interest in Him might be more clear and certain He stoopt from the height of his Glory to our low embraces that we might with more confidence lay hold on his Mercy 2. By providing compleat Satisfaction to offended Justice The guilty convinced Creature is restless and inquisitive after a way to escape the wrath to come For being under the apprehension that God is an incensed Judg 't is very sensible of the greatness and nearness of the danger there being nothing between it and eternal Torments but a thin vail of flesh Now God hath prepared such a Satisfaction as exceeds the guilt of Sin that is a temporary act but of infinite evil being committed against an infinite object the Death of Christ was a temporary Passion but of infinite value in respect of the subject the honour of the Law is fully repaired so that God is justly merciful and dispenses Pardon to the glory of his Righteousness He hath set forth his Son to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus And what stronger Security can be given that God is ready to pardon Man upon his accepting the termes of the Gospel than the giving his Son to be our Atonement If the Stream swell so high as to overflow the Banks will it stop in a descending Valley Hath He with so dear an expence satisfied his Justice and will he deny his Mercy to relenting and returning Sinners This Argument is powerful enough to overcome the most obstinate Infidelity 3. By the unspeakable Gift of his Son he assures our hopes of Heaven which is a Reward so great and glorious that our guilty Hearts are apt to suspect we shall never enjoy it We are secure of his Faithfulness having his infallible Promise and of his Goodness having such a Pledg in our hands As the Apostle argues If he hath given us his Son will he not with him give us all things Will He give us the Tree of Life and not permit us to eat of the Fruit of it Is it conceivable that having laid the Foundation of our Happiness in the Death of his Son an act to which his tender Affection seem'd so repugnant that He will not perform the rest which He can do by the meer signification of his Will 'T is an excellent encouragement St. Austin propounds from hence Sâ—â—urus esto accepturum te vitam ipsius qui pignus habes mortis ipsius c. Be assured thou shalt partake of his Life who hast the Pledg of it in his Death He hath performed more than He promised 'T is more incredible that the Eternal should die than that a mortal Creature should live for ever In short Since no mortal Eye can discover the Heavenly Glory to convince us of the reality of the invisible state and to support our departing Souls in their passage through the dark and terrible Valley our Saviour rose from the Grave ascended in our Nature to Heaven and is the model of our Happiness He is at the right Hand of God to dispense Life and Immortality to all that believe on Him And what can be more comfortable to us than the assurance of that Blessedness which as it eclipses all the glory of the World so it makes Death it self desirable in order to the enjoyment of it 2. As the Comfort so the Holiness of Man is most promoted in this way of our Redemption Suppose we had been recovered upon easier terms the evil of Sin would have been lessen'd in our esteem We are apt to judg of the danger of a Disease from the difficulty of its Cure Hunger is reputed a small trouble although if it be not satisfied 't will prove deadly because a small price will procure what may remove it And the Mercy that saves us had not appeared so great He that falls into a Pit and is drawn forth by an easie pull of the Hand doth not think himself greatly obliged to the person that helpt him though if he had remained there he must have perish'd But when the Son of God hath suffered for us more than ever one Friend suffered for another or a Father for a Son or than the strength and patience of an Angel could endure Who would not be struck with horrour at the thoughts of that
interest he could by one act of Power conquer the obstinacy of his fiercest Enemies If he require subjection from his creatures 't is not that he may be happy but liberal that his Goodness may take its rise to reward them Now this is the special commendation of Divine Love it doth not arise out of indigency as Created Love but out of fulness and redundancy Our Saviour tells us there is none good but God not only in respect of the perfection of that Attribute as it is in God in a transcendent manner but as to the effects of his goodness which are meerly for the benefit of the receiver He is only rich in Mercy to whom nothing is wanting or profitable The most liberal Monarch doth not always give for he stands in need of his Subjects And where there is an expectation of Service for the support of the giver â—tis trafique and no gift Humane affection is begotten and nourisht by something without but the Love of God is from within the misery of the Creature is the occasion but the reason of it is from himself And how free was that Love that caus'd the infinitely blessed God to do so much for our recovery as if his felicity were imperfect without ours It doth not prejudice the freeness of redeeming Mercy that Christ's personal Glory was the reward of his Sufferings 1. 'T is true that our Redeemer for the Joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God but he was not first drawn to the undertaking of that hard service by the interest of the reward For if we consider him in his Divine Nature he was the second Person in the Trinity equal to the first he possest all the Supreme Excellencies of the Deity and by assuming our Nature the only gain he purchas'd to himself was to be capable of loss for the accomplishing our Salvation Such was the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that being rich yet for our sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might be made rich And although his humane Soul was encouraged by the Glorious recompence the Father promised to make him King and Judge of the World yet his Love to Man was not kindled from that consideration neither is it lessened by his obtaining of it For immediately upon the union of the humane Nature to the Eternal Son the Highest Honour was due to him When the first-begotten was brought into the World 't was said Let all the Angels of God worship him The Sovereign Power in Heaven and Earth was his inheritance annext to the dignity of his Primogeniture the Name above every name was a preferment due to his Person He voluntarily renounc'd his right for a time and appear'd in the form of a Servant upon our account that by humbling himself he might accomplish our Salvation He entred into Glory after a course of Sufferings because the Oeconomy of our Redemption so requir'd but his original title to it was by the personal union To illustrate this by a lower instance the Mother of Moses was call'd to be his Nurse by Pharaohs Daughter with the promise of a reward as if she had no relation to him Now the pure love of a Mother not the gain of a Nurse was the motive that inclin'd her to nourish him with her Milk Thus the Love of Christ was the primary active cause that made him liberal to us of his Blood neither did the just expectation of the reward take off from it The Sum is the essence of Love consists in desiring the good of another without respect to our selves and Love is so much the more free as the benefit we give to another is less profitable or more damageable to us Now among Men 't is impossible that to a vertuous benefactour there should not redound a double Benefit 1. From the Eternal Reward which God hath promised And 2. From the Internal Beauty of an honest action which the Philosopher affirms doth exceed any loss that can befal us For if one dyes for his Friend yet he loves himself most for he would not chuse to be less vertuous than his Friend and by dying for him he excels him in Vertue which is more valuable than Life it self But to the Son of God no such advantage could accrue for being infinitely holy and happy in his Essence there can be no addition to his Felicity or Vertues by any external emanation from him His Love was for our profit not his own 2. The freeness of Gods Mercy is evident by considering there was no â—ye upon him to dispence it Grace strictly taken differs from Love for that may be a Debt and without injustice not denied There are inviolable obligations on Children to Love their Parents and duty lessens desert the performance of it doth not so much deserve praise as the neglect merits censure and reproof But the Love of God to Man is a pure free and liberal Affection no way due The Grace of God and the gift by Grace hath abounded unto many The Creation was an effusion of goodness much more Redemption Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created 'T is Grace that gave being to the Angels with all the prerogatives that adorn their Natures 't is Grace confirm'd them in their original integrity For God ows them nothing and they are nothing to him 'T was Grace that plac't Adam in Paradise and made him as a visible God in the lower World And if Grace alone dispensed benefits to innocent Creatures much more to those who are obnoxious to justice the first was free but this is merciful And this leads to the second consideration which exalts redeeming Love The object of it is Man in his lapsed state In this respect it excels the goodness that prevented him at the beginning In the Creation as there was no object to invite so nothing repugnant to mans being and happiness the dust of the Earth did not merit such an excellent condition as it received from the pure bounty of God but there was no moral unworthiness But the Grace of the Gospel hath a different object the wretched and unworthy and it produces different operations 't is healing and medicinal ransoming and delivering and hath a peculiar character among the Divine Attributes 'T is goodness that crowns the Angels but 't is Mercy the Sanctuary of the guilty and refuge of the miserable that saves Man The Scripture hath consecrated the name of Grace in a special manner to signifie the most excellent and admirable favour of God in recovering us from our justly deserv'd misery We are justified freely by his Grace By Grace we are saved Grace and Truth is come by Jesus Christ 't is the Grace of God that brings Salvation And this is gloriously
manifested towards Man in that 1. considered in himself he is altogether unworthy of it 2. As compared with the fallen Angels who are left under perfect irremediable Misery First Man considered in himself is unworthy of the Favour of God The usual Motives of Love are 1. The Goodnels of things or persons This is the proper allective of the Rational Appetite There is such a ravishing Beauty in it that it powerfully calls forth Affection When there is an union of amiable qualities in a Person every one finds an attractive 2. A Conformity in Disposition hath a mighty force to beget Love Resemblance is the common Principle of Union in Nature Social Plants thrive best when near together Sensitive Creatures associate with those of their kind And Love which is an affectionate Union and a voluntary Band is best caused by a Similitude in inclinations The Harmony of Tempers is the strongest and sweetest tye of Friendship 3. Love is an innocent and powerful charm to produce Love 't is of universal Virtue and known by all the World None are of such an unnatural Hardness but they are softned and receive impression from it Now there are none of these inducements to encline God to love Man The first quality he was utterly destitute of Nothing excellent or amiable was in him Nothing but Deformity and Defilements The Love of God makes us amiable but did not find us so Redemption is a free Favour not excited by the worth of him that receives it but the grace of him that dispenses it Herein God commended his Love to us that while we were Sinners Christ died for us Our goodness was not the Motive of his Love but his Love the original of our goodness 2. There is a fixed Contrariety in the corrupted nature of Man to the Holy Nature and Will of God For which he is not only unworthy of his Love but worthy of his wrath We are opposite to Him in our Minds Affections and Actions A strong Antipathy is seated in all our Faculties How unqualified were we for his Love There is infinite Holiness in Him whereby He is eternally opposite to all Sin yet He exprest infinite Love to Sinners in saving them from Misery 3. There was not the least spark of Love in Man to God notwithstanding his infinite Beauty and Bounty to us yet we renewed acts of hostility against Him every day And it was the worst kind of hostility arising from the hatred of God and that for his Holiness his most amiable Perfection yet then in his Love He pitied us The same favour bestowed on an Enemy is morally more valuable than given to a Friend For 't is Love that puts a price on Benefits and the more undeserved they are the more they are endeared by the Affection that gives them Here is Love not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent his Son to be a Propitiation for our Sins We were Rebels against God and at enmity with the Prince of Life yet then He gave Himself for us It will further appear that our Salvation comes from pure favour if we consider Man not only as a rebellious enemy to God but impotent and obstinate without power to resist Justice and without affection to desire Mercy Sometimes the interest of a Prince may induce him to spare the guilty he may be compell'd to pardon whom he cannot punish The multitude is the greatest Potentate The Sons of Zerviah were too strong for David and then 't is not pity but policy to suspend the judgment But our condition is described by the Apostle that when we were sinners and without strength then Christ dyed for us Man is a despicable Creature so weak that he trembles at the appearance of a worm and yet so wicked that he lifts up his head against Heaven How unable is he to encounter with offended Omnipotence How easily can God destroy him when by his sole Word he made him if he unclasps his hand that suports all things they will presently relasp into their first confusion The whole world of sinners was shut up utterly unable to repel or avoid his displeasure And what amazing Love is it to spare Rebels that were under his feet When a man finds his enemy will he let him go well away but God when we were all at his Mercy spar'd and sav'd us Besides Rebels sometimes sollicit the favour of their Prince by their Acknowledgments their Tears and Supplications the testimonies of their Repentance but Man persisted in his fierce enmity and had the weapons of defiance in his hands against his Creator he trampled on his Laws and despised his Deity yet then the Lord of Host became the God of peace In short there was nothing to call forth the Divine Compassion but our misery The Breach began on Man's part but Reconciliation on God's Mercy open'd his melting Eye and prevented not only our desert but our expectation and desires The design was laid from Eternity God foresaw our sin and our misery and appointed a Saviour before the foundation of the World 'T was the most early and pure Love to provide a ransom for us before we had a being therefore we could not be deserving nor desirous of it and after we were made we deservâ—d nothing but Damnation 2. The Grace of God eminently appears in Mans recovery by comparing his state with that of the fallen Angels who are left under misery this is a special circumstance that magnifies the favour and to make it more sensible to us it will be convenient briefly to consider the first state of the Angels their fall and their punishment God in creating the World formed two natures capable of his Image and Favour to glorifie and enjoy him Angels and Men and plac'd them in the principal parts of the universe Heaven and Earth The Angels were the eldest Off-spring of his Love the purest productions of that supreme Light Man in his best state was inferiour to them A great number of them kept not their first state of integrity and felicity Their sin is intimated in Scripture Ordain not a Novice lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil that is lest he become guilty of that sin which brought a severe sentence on the Devil The Prince of darkness was blinded with the lustre of his own excellencies and attempted upon the Regalia of Heaven affecting an independent state He disavoued his Benefactor inricht with his benefits And in the same moment he with his companions in rebellion were banished from Heaven God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down to Hell and delivered them into Chains of Darkness to be reserv'd unto Judgment Mercy did not interpose to avert or suspend their Judgment but immediately they were expell'd from the Divine Preâ—ence A solemn triumph in Heaven followed a voice came out of the Throne saying Praise our God all
ye his Servants and there was aâ— it were the voice of mighty thundrings saying Hallelujah for the Lord God Omnipotent reigns They are now the most eminent examples of revenging wrath Their present misery is insupportable and they expect worse When our Saviour cast some of them out of the possest persons they cried out Art thou come to torment us before our time Miserimum est timere cum sâ—eres nihil 't is the height of misery to have nothing to Hope and something to Fear Their guilt is attended with despair they are in everlasting Chains He that carries the Keys of Hell and Death will never open their Prisoâ— If the sentence did admit a Revocation after a million of years their torment would be nothing in comparison of what it is for the longest measure of time bears no proportion to Eternity and hope would allay the sense of the present sufferings with the prospect of future ease But their Judgment is irreversible they are under the blackness of darkness for ever There is not the least glimps of hope to allay their sorrows no Star-light to sweeten the horrours of their Eternal night They are serâ—i poenae that can never be redeemed It were a kind of pardon to them to be capable of Death but God will never be so far reconciled as to annihilate them His Anger shall be accomplished and his Fury rest upon them Immortality the priviledge of their nature infinitly increases their torment for when the Understanding by a strong and active apprehension hath a terrible and unbounded prospect of the continuance of their Sufferings that what is intolerable must be Eternal this inexpressibly exasperates their Misery There wants a word beyond Death to set it forth This is the condition of the sinning Angels and God might have dealt in as strict Justice with rebellious Man 'T is true there are many Reasons may be assigned why the Wisdom of God made no provision for their Recovery 1. It was most decent that the first Breach of the Divine Law should be punisht to secure Obedience for the future Prudent Lawgivers are severe against the first Transgressors the Leaders in Disobedience He that first presumed to break the Sabbath was by Godâ—s command put to Death And Solomon the King of Peace punisht the first attempt upon his Royalty with Death though in the person of his Brother 2. The Malignity of their Sin was in the highest degree For such was the clearness of the Angelical Understanding that there was nothing of Ignorance and Deceit to lessen the voluntariness of their Sin 't was no mistake but Malice They fell in the light of Heaven and rendered themselves incapable of Mercy As under the Law those who sinned with a high hand that is not out of Ignorance or Imbecillity to please their Passions but knowingly and proudly despised the Command their Presupmtion was inexpiable no Sacrifice was appointed for it And the Gospel though the Declaration of Mercy yet excepts those who sin the great Transgression against the Holy Ghost Now of such a nature was the Sin of the Rebellious Angels it being a contemptuous violation of Gods Majesty and therefore unpardonable Besides they are wholly spiritual Beings without any allay of flesh and so fell to the utmost in evil there being nothing to suspend the intireness of their Will whereas the Humane Spirit is more slow by its union with the Body And that which extremely aggravates their sin is that it was committed in the state of perfect Happiness They despised the full fruition of God 't was therefore congruous to the Divine Wisdom that their final Sentence should depend upon their first Election whereas Mans Rebellion though inconceivably great was against a lower Light and less Grace dispensed to him 3. They finn'd without a Tempter and were not in the same capacity with Man to be restor'd by a Saviour The Devil is an original Proprietor in Sin 't is of his own Man was beguiled by the Serpents subtilty as he fell by anothers Malice so he is recovered by anothers Merit 4. The Angelical Nature was not entirely lost Myriads of blessed Spirits still continue in the place of their Innocency and Glory and for ever ascribe to the Great Creator that incommunicable Honour which is due to Him and perfectly do his Commandments But all Mankind was lost in Adam and no Religion was left in the lower world Now although in these and other respects it was most consistent with the Wisdom and Justice of God to conclude them under an irrevocable Doom yet the principal cause that enclin'd him to save Man was meer and perfect Grace The Law madâ— no distinction but awarded the same Punishment Mercy alone made the difference and the reason of that is in Himself Millions of them fell Sacrifices to Justice and guilty Man was spared 'T is not for the excellency of our Natures for Man in his Creation was lower than the Angels nor upon the account of Service for they having more eminent Endowments of Wisdom and Power might have brought greater honour to God nor for our Innocence for though not equally yet we had highly offended Him But it must be resolved into that Love which passeth Knowledg 'T was the unaccountable Pleasure of God that preferr'd babes before the wise and prudent and herein Grace is most glorious He in no wise took the nature of Angels though immortal Spirits He did not put forth his hand to help them and break the force of their Fall He did nothing for their relief they are under unallayed wrath but He took the Seâ—d of Abraham and plants a new Colony of those who sprung from the Earth in the Heavenly Country to fill up the vacant places of those Apostate Spirits This is just matter of our highest admiration why the milder Attribute is exercised towards Man and the severer on them Why the vessels of clay are chosen and the vessels of Gold neglected How can we reflect upon it without the warmest Affections to our Redeemer We shall never fully understand the Riches of distinguishing Grace till our Saviour shall be their Judg and receive us into the Kingdom of Joy and Glory and condemn them to an Eternal Separation from his Presence CHAP. IX The Greatness of Redeeming Love discovered by considering the Evils from which we are freed The Servitude of Sin the Tyranny of Satan the Bondage of the Law the Empire of Death The measure of Love is proportionable to the degrees of our Misery No possible Remedy for us in Nature Our Deliverance is compleat The Divine Love is magnified in the Means by which our Redeemer is accomplishâ—d They are the Incarnation and Sufferings of the Son of God Love is manifested in the Incarnation upon the account of the essential Condition of the Nature assumed and its Servile state Christ took our Nature after it had lost its Innocency The most evident Proof
favour Now the Angels are sent forth to minister for them who are Heirs of Salvation Besides in two other things the peculiar affection of the Prince would be most evident to that Nation 1. If he put on their habit and attire himself according to their fashion 2. If he fixt his residence among them Now the Son of God was cloathed with our flesh and found in fashion as a man and for ever appears in it in Heaven and will at the last day invest our bodies with glory like to his own He now dwells in us by his Spirit and when our warfare is accomplisht he shall in a special manner be present with us in the eternal Mansions As God incarnate he converst with Men on Earth and as such he will converse with them in heaven There he raigns as the first-born in the midst of many Brethren Now all these Prerogatives are the fruits of our Redemption And how great is that Mercy which hath raised Mankind more glorious out of its ruines The Apostle breaks out with a Heavenly astonishment Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God! that we who are Strangers and Enemies Children of Wrath by nature should be dignified with the honorable and amiable title of his Sons 'T was a rare and most merciful condescension in Pharaoh's Daughter to rescue an innocent and forsaken Infant from perishing by the waters and adopt him to be her Son but how much greater kindness was it for God to save guilty and wretched Man from Eternal Flames and to take him into his Family The Ambition of the Prodigal rose no higher than to be a Servant whaâ— an inestimable favour is it to make us Children When God would express the most dear and peculiar affection to Solomon he saith I will be his Father and he shall be my Son this was the highest honour he could promise and all believers are dignified with it 'T is the same relation that Christ hath when he was going to Heaven he comforted his Disciples with these words I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God There is indeed a diversity in the foundation of it Christ is a Son by Nature we are by meer Favour he is by Generation we are by Adoption Briefly Jesus Christ hath made us Kings Priests unto God his Father These are the highest Offices upon Earth and were attended with the most conspicuous Honour and the Holy Spirit chose those bright Images to convey a clearer notice of the glory to which our Redeemer hath raised us Not only all the Crowns and Scepters in this perishing World are infinitely beneath this dignity but the honour of our innocent state was not equal to it Secondly The Gospel is a better Covenant than that which was establisht with Man in his Creation and the excellency of it will appear by considering 1. 'T is more beneficial in that it admits of Repentance and Reconciliation after sin and accepts of Sincerity instead of perfection The Apostle magnifies the Office of Christ By how much he is a Mediator of a better Covenant which was established upon better promises The comparison there is between the Ministry of the Gospel and the Mosaical oeconomy And the excellency of the Gospel is specified in respect of those infinitely better promisses that are in it The ceremonial Law appointed Sacrifices for sins of ignorance and error and to obtain only legal impunity but the Gospel upon the account of Christ's all-sufficient Sacrifice offers full Pardon for all Sins that are repented of and forsaken Now with greater reason the Covenant of Grace is to be preferr'd before the Covenant of Works For the Law considered Man as holy and endued with perfection of Grace equal to whatsoever was commanded 'T was the measure of his Ability as well as Duty and requir'd exact Obedience or threatned extreme Misery The least breach of it is fatal A single Offence as certainly exposes to the curse as if the whole were violated And in our lapsed state we are utterly disabled to comply with its Purity and Perfection But the Gospel contains the Promises of Mercy and is in the hands of a Mediator The tenor of it is That Repentance and Remission of Sins be preached in the Name of Christ. And if we judge our selves we shall not be judged 'T is not if we are innocent for then none could be exempt from Condemnation But if the convinced Sinner erect a Tribunal in Conscience and strips Sin of its disguise to view it in its native deformity if he pronounce the Sentence of the Law against himself and glorifie the Justice of God which he cannot satisfie and forsake the Sins which are the causes of his sorrow he is qualified for pardoning Mercy Besides The Gospel doth not only apply Pardon to us for all forsaken Sins but provides a Remedy for those Infirmities to which the best are incident Whilst we are in this mortal state we are exposed to Temptations from without and have Corruptions within that often betray us Now to support our drooping Spirits our Redeemer sits in Heaven to plead for us and perpetually renews the Pardon that was once purchased to every contrite spirit for those unavoidable frailties which cleave to us here The promise of Grace is not made void by the sudden surprizes of Passions If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous The rigour of the Law is mollified by his Mediation with the Father A title of Love and Tenderness God deals not with the Severity of a Judg but He spares us as a man spares his own son that serves him And as He pardons us upon our Repentance so He accepts our hearty though mean services Now the Legal that is unsinning and compleat Obedience cannot be performed the Evangelical that is the sincere though imperfect is graciously received God doth not require the duties of a Man by the measures of an Angel Unfeigned Endeavours to please Him unreserved Respects to all his Commands single and holy aims at his Glory are rewarded Briefly Although the Law is continued as a Rule of living yet not as the Covenant of Life And what an admirable exaltation of Mercy is there in this new Treaty of God with Sinners 'T is true the first Covenant was holy just and good but it made no abatements of favour and 't is now weak through the flesh that is The carnal corrupt Nature is so strong and impetuous that the restraints of the Law are ineffectual to stop its desires and therefore cannot bring Man to that Life that is promised by the performance of the Condition required But the Gospel provides an Indulgence for relenting and returning Sinners This is the language of God in that Covenant I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their Iniquities
will I remember no more 2. The excellency of the Evangelical Covenant above the Legal is in that supernatural Assistance which is conveyed by it to Believers whereby they shall be certainly victorious over all opposition in their way to Heaven 'T is true Adam was endued with perfect holiness and freedom but he might intangle himself in the snares of Sin and Death The Grace of the Creator given to him was alwaies present but it depended on the natural use of his Faculties without the interposing any extraordinary operation of God's Spirit The Principle of Holiness was in himself and 't was subjected to his Will He had a power to obey if he would but not that actually determined his will for then he had persevered But the Grace of the Redeemer that flows from Christ as our quickening Head and is conveyed to all his Members enclines the Will so powerfully that 't is made subject to it God works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure The use of our Faculties and the exercise of Grace depends on the good pleasure of God who is unchangeable and the operations of the Spirit which are prevailing and effectual And upon these two the stability of the New Covenant is founded 1. On the Love of God who is as unchangable in his Will as in his Nature This Love is the cause of Election from whence there can be no separation This gives Christ to Believers and Believers to Him Thine they were saith our Saviour and thou gavest them me Which words signifie not the common title God hath to all by Creation for Men thus universally consider'd compose the world and our Saviour distinguishes those that are given him from the world but that special right God hath in them by election And all those are given by the Father to Christ in their effectual Calling which is exprest by his drawing them to the Son and are committed to his care to lead them through a course of Obedience to Glory For them Christ absolutely praies as Mediator Father I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am and see my Glory And he is alwaies heard in his requests 'T is from hence that the Apostle challenges all Creatures in Heaven and Earâ—h with that full and strong persuasion that nothing could separate between Believers and their Happiness For I am persuaded that neither Death nor Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor heigth nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. His assurance is not built on the special Prerogatives he had as an Apostle not on his rapture to Paradise nor Revelations nor the Apparition of Angels for of these he makes no mention but on that which is common to all Believers the Love of God declar'd in the Word and shed abroad in their hearts And 't is observable that the Apostle having spoken in his own person changes the number I am persuaded that nothing shall separate us to associate with himself in the partaking of that blessed Priviledg all true Believers who have an interest in the same Love of God the same Promises of Salvation and had felt the sanctifying work of the Spirit the certain proof of their Election For how is it possible that God should retract his merciful purpose to save his People He that chose them from Eternity before they could know Him and from pure Love there being nothing in the Creature to induce Him gave his Son to suffer Death for them will He stop there without bestowing that Grace which may render it effectual What can change his Affections He that prevented them in his Mercy when they were in their pollutions will He leave them after his Image is engraven upon them He that loved them so as to unite them to Christ when they were strangers will He hate them when they are his Members No His loving kindness is everlasting and the Covenant that is built on it is more firm than the Pillars of Heaven and the Foundations of the Earth This supported David in his dying hours that God had made with him an everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure for that was all his Salvation 2. The New Covenant is secur'd by the efficacy of Divine and Supernatural Grace This is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel saith the Lord I will put my Laws into their minds and write them in their hearts and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a People The Elect are enabled to perform the conditions of the Gospel to which Eternal Life is promised Our Redeemer blesses us in turning us from our Iniquities And although the instability of the humane Spirit by reason of remanent Corruptions and those various Temptations to which we are liable may excite our fear lest we should fall short of the high prize of our Calling yet the Grace of the Gospel secures true Believers against both 1. Whilst we are in the present state our Corruptions are not perfectly healed but there are some remains which like a Gangrene threaten to seize on the vital parts wherein the spiritual Life is seated But the divine Nature which is conveyed to all that are spiritually descended from Christ is active and powerful to resist all carnal desires and will prevail in the end For if sin in its full vigor could not controul the efficacy of converting Grace how can the reliques of it after Grace hath taken possession be strong enough to spoil it of its conquest There is a greater distance from Death to Life than from Life to Action That Omnipotent Grace that visited us in the Grave and restored life to the dead can much more perpetuate it in the living That which was so powerful as to pluck the heart of stone out of the Breast can preserve the Heart of Flesh. 'T is true the Grace that is given to Believers in its own nature is a perishing quality as that which was bestowed on Adam Non only the slight superficial tincture in hypocrites will wear off but that deep impression of sanctifying Grace in true Believers if it be not renewed would soon be defaced But God hath promised to put his Spirit into their hearts and to cause them to walk in his Statutes and they shall keep his Commandments He is a living reigning Principle in them to which all their faculties are subordinate The Spirit infused Grace at first and enlivens it daily he confirms their Faith inflames their Love encourages their Obedience and refreshes in their minds the Idea's of that glory which is invisible and future In short his influence cherishes the blessed beginnings of the spiritual Life So that sincere Grace though weak in its degree yet 't is in a state of progress til it come
Covenant For it was easier for Man to understand the quality of the punishment that attended sin than to conceive of Celestial Happiness of which he was incapable in his animal state 'T is true God might have bestowed Heaven as an absolute gift upon Man after a course of obedience but 't was not due by the condition of the first Covenant A natural work can give no title to a supernatural reward Mans perseverance in his duty according to the Original Treaty had been attended with Immortal Happiness upon the Earth but the blessed Hope is only promised in the Gospel and unspeakably transcends the felicity of Nature in its consummat state This Reward is answerable to the unvaluable treasure which was laid down for it The Blood of the Son of God as 't is a Ransom to redeem us from misery so 't is a Price to purchase glory for Believers 'T is called the Blood of the New-Testament because it conveys a title to the Heavenly Inheritance Our impunity is the effect of his Satisfaction our positive happiness of his redundant merit God was so well pleased with his perfect Obedience which infinitely surpasses that of any meer creature that he promised to confer upon those who believe in him all the glorious qualities becoming the Sons of God and to make them associates with him in his Eternal Kingdom The compleat happiness of the Redeemed is the Redeemers recompence in which he is fully satisfied for all his sufferings Now the transcendent excellency of this above the first state of Man will more distinctly appear by considering I. The place where 't is enjoyed and that is the Heaven of Heavens Adam was put into the Terrestrial Paradise a place sutable to his natural being and abounding with all pleasing objects but they were such as creatures of a lower kind enjoyed with him But Heaven is the Element of Angels their native seat who are the most noble part of the Creation 'T is the true Palace of God intirely separated from the impurities and imperfections the alterations and changes of the lower World where he reigns in Eternal Peace 'T is the Temple of the Divine Majesty where his exellent Glory is revealed in the most conspicuous manner 'T is the habitation of his holiness the place where his honour dwells 'T is the sacred Mansion of Light and Joy and Glory Paradise with all its pleasures was but a shadow of it II. The Life of Adam was attended with innocent infirmities For the body being composed of the same principles with other sensitive creatures 't was liable to hunger and thirst and weariness and was to be repaired by food and sleep Adam was made a living Soul therefore subject to those inclinations and necessities which are purely animal And although whilst innocent no disease could seize on him yet he was capable of hurtful impressions though he should have been preserved from death yet he was perishable His life was in a perpetual flux 't was Immortal not meerly from the temperament of his Body but to be sustained by the power of God in the use of means From hence it follows that Adam in his natural state was not capable of the vision of God Heaven is too pure an Air for him to have lived in The Glory of it is inconsistent with such a temper'd Body Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven The faculties would be confounded with its overcoming brightness Till the sensitive powers are refin'd and exalted to that degree that they become spiritual they cannot converse with glorified objects Now the bodies of the Saints shall be invested with Celestial qualities The Natural shall be changed into a Spiritual body and be preserved as the Angels by the sole vertue of the quickning Spirit The life above shall flourish in its ful vigour without any other support than the Divine power that first created it And as the body shall be spiritual so truely immortal and free from all corruptive change as the Sun which for so many ages hath shined with an equal brightness to the World and hath a dureable fulness of light in it In this respect the Children of the Resurrection are equal to the Angels who being pure Spirits do not marry to perpetuate their kind for they never die And the glorified body shall be cloathed with a more Divine beauty in the Resurrection than Adam had in the Creation The glory of the second Temple shall excel that of the first In short the first Man was of the Earth earthy and could derive but an earthy condition to his descendents But the Lord Christ is from Heaven and is the principle of an Heavenly and Glorious life to all that are united to him III. The felicity of Heaven exceeds the first in the manner and degrees of the fruition and the continuance of it 1. The Vision of God in Heaven is immediate Adam was a spectator of God's Works and his understanding being full of Light he clearly discover'd the Divine Attributes in their effects The stroaks of the Creators Hand are engraven in all the parts of the Universe The Heavens and Earth and all things in them are evident testimonies of the excellency of their Author The invisible things of God from the Creation of the World are clearly seen And the knowledg that shined in his soul produced a transcendent esteem of the Deity in whom Wisdom and Power are united in their supreme degree and a superlative love and delight in him for his goodness Yet his sight of God was but through a Glass an eclipsing medium For inferior beings are so imperfect that they can give but a weak resemblance of his infinite perfections But the sight of God in Heaven is called the seeing of him as he is and signifies the most clear and compleat knowledge which the rational soul when purified and raised to its most perfect state can receive and out-shines all the discoveries of God in the lower World Adam had a visible copy of his invisible beauty but the Saints in Heaven see the glorious Original He saw God in the reflection of the Creature but the Saints are under the direct beams of Glory and see him face to face All the Attributes appear in their full and brightest lustre to them Wisdom Love Justice Holiness Power are manifested in their exaltation And the glorified Soul to qualify it for converse with God in this intimate manner hath a more excellent constitution then was given to it in the Creation A new edge is put upon the faculties whereby they are fitted for those objects which are peculiar to Heaven The intellectual eye is fortified for the immediate intuition of God Adam in Paradise was absent from the Lord in comparison of the Saints who encompass his Throne are in the presence of his Glory Besides 'T is the peculiar excellency of the Heavenly Life that the Saints every moment enjoy it without
any allay in the highest degree of its Perfection The Life of Adam was alwaies in a circle of low and mean functions of the Animal Nature which being common to him and Beasts the acts of it are not strictly Humane But the Spiritual Life in Heaven is entirely freed from those servile necessities and is spent in the eternal performance of the most noble actions of which the intelligent Nature is capable The Saints do alwaies contemplate admire love enjoy and praise their everlasting Benefactor God is to them all in all In short That which prefers the Glory of Heaven infinitely before the first state of Man is the continuance of it for ever 'T is an unwithering and never-fading Glory Adam was liable to Temptations and capable of Change he fell in the Garden of Eden and was sentenc'd to die But Heaven is the Sanctuary of Life and Immortality 't is inaccessible to any evil The Serpent that corrupted Paradise with its Poison can't enter there As there is no seed of Corruption within so no cause of it without Our Redeemer offer'd Himself by the Eternal Spirit and purchased an eternal Inheritance for his People Their Felicity is full and perpetual without encrease for in the first moment 't is perfect and shall continue without declination The Day of Judgment is called the Last Day For Daies and Weeks and Months and Years the Revolutions which now measure Time shall then be swallowed up in an unchangeable Eternity The Saints shall be for ever with the Lord. And in all these respects the Glory of the Redeemed as far exceeds the Felicity of Man in the Creation as Heaven the bright Seat of it is above the fading beauty of the terrestrial Paradise CHAP. XI Redeeming Love deserves our highest Admiration and humble Acknowledgments The illustration of it by several Considerations God is infinitely amiable in Himself yet his Love is transient to the Creature 'T is admirable in Creating and Preserving Man more in Redeeming him and by the Death of his Son The discovery of God's Love in our Redemption is the strongest persuasiue to Repentance The Law is ineffectual to produce real Repentance The common benefits of Providence are insuffâ—cient to cause Faith and Repentance in the guilty Creature The clear discovery of pardoning Mercy in the Gospel can only remove our Fears and induce us to return to God The transcendent Love of God should kindle in us a reciprocal Love to Him His Excellency and His ordinary Bounty to Mankind cannot prevail upon us to love Him His Love to us in Christ only conquers our Hatred Our Love to Him must be sincere and superlative The despising of Saving Mercy is the highest Provocation It makes the Condemnation of Men most just certain and heavy 1. ' THis Redeeming Love deserves our highest Admiration and most humble acknowledgments If we consider God aright it may raise our wonder that He is pleased to bestow kindness upon any created being For in Him is all that is excellent and amiable and 't is essential to the Deity to have the perfect knowledg of Himself and perfect Love to Himself His Love being proportioned to his Excellencies the act is infinite as the object And the perfections of the Divine Nature being equal to his Love 't is a just cause of admiration that 't is not confined to himself but is transient and goes forth to the Creature When David looked up to the Heavens and saw the Majesty of God written in Characters of light he admires that Love which first made Man a litle lower then the Angels and Crowned him with Glory and Honour and that providential care which is mindful of him and visits him every moment Such an inconceivable distance there is between God and Man that 't is wonderful God will spend a thought upon us Lord what is Man that thou takest knowledge of him or the Son of Man that thou makest account of him Man is like to vanity his dayes are as a shadow that passeth away His being in this world hath nothing firm or solid 't is like a shadow that depends upon a cause that is in perpetual motion the light of the Sun and is alwayes changing till it vanishes in the darkness of the night But if we consider Man in the quality of a sinner and what God hath wrought for his recovery we are overcome with amazement All temporal favours are but foils to this miraculous Mercy and unspeakably below the least instance of it without it all the priviledges we enjoy above inferior Creatures in this life will prove aggravations of our future misery God saw us in our degenerate state destroyed by our selves and yet O Goodness truly Divine he loved us so far as to make the way for our recovery High Mountains were to be levelled and great depths to be filled up before we could arrive at blessedness all this God hath done He hath brought the Curse of the guilty upon the innocent and exposed his beloved Son to the Sword of his Justice to turn the blow from us What astonishing goodness is it that God who is the Author and end of all things should become the means of our Salvation And by the lowest abasement What is so worthy of admiration as that the Eternal should become mortal that being in the form of God he should take on him the form of a Servant that the Judge of the World should be condemned by the guilty that he should leave his Throne in Heaven to be nailed to the Cross that the Prince of Life should taste of Death These are the great Wonders which the Lord of Love hath performed and all for sinful miserable and unworthy Man who deserved not the least drop of that Sweat and Blood he spent for him and without any advantage to himself for what content can be added to his felicity by a cursed Creature Infinite Love that is as admirable as saving Love that passeth Knowledge and is as much above our comprehension as desert In natural things admiration is the effect of ignorance but here 't is increased by Knowledg For the more we understand the excellent Greatness of God and the vileness of Man the more we shall admire saving Mercy And the most humble acknowledgments are due for it When David told Mephibosheth that he should eat bread with him at his Tâ—ble continually he bowed himself and said What is thy Servant that thou shouldest look on such a dead Dog as I am A speech ful of gratitude and humility yet he was of a Royal extraction though at that time in a low condition With a far greater sense of our unworthiness we should reflect upon that condescending Love that provides the Bread of God for the food of our Souls without which we had perisht for want David in that divine thanksgiving recorded in the Scripture reflects upon his own meanness and from that magnifies the favour of God towards him Who am I
happy therefore he wishes there were no God to whom he must be accountable He is no more wrought on by the Divine perfections and beauties to love the Deity than a guilty person who resolvedly goes on to break the Laws can be perswaded to love the Judge for his excellent knowledg and his inflexible integrity who will certainly condemn him Besides the great and abundant blessings which God as Creator and Preserver bestows upon all cannot prevail upon guilty Creatures to love him Indeed the goodness that raised us from a state of nothing is unspeakably great and layes an Eternal Obligation upon us The whole stock of our affections is due to Him for conferring upon us the humane Nature that is common to Kings and the meanest Beggar All the Riches and Dignity of the greatest Prince whereby he exceeds the poorest Wretch compared to this benefit which they both share in have no more proportion than a Farthing to an immense Treasure The Innumerable Expressions of God's Love to us every Day should infinitely endear Him to us For who is so inhumane as not to love his Parents or his Friend who defended him from his deadly Enemies or relieved him in his poverty especially if the vein of his bounty be not dryed up but alwayes diffuses it self in new favours If we love the memory of that Emperour who reflecting upon one day that past without his bestowing some benefit with grief said Diem perdidi I have lost a day how much more should we love God who every moment bestows innumerable blessings upon his Creatures But sinful Man hath contracted such an unnatural hardness that he receives no impressions from the renewed Mercies of God He violates the Principles of Nature and Reason For how unnatural is it not to love our Benefactour when the dull Ox and the stupid Ass serve those that feed them and how unreasonable when the Publicans return love for love Now there is nothing that can perfectly overcome our hatred but the consideration of that Love which hath freed us from Eternal Misery for the guilty Creature will be alwayes suspicious that notwithstanding the ordinary benefits of Providence God is an enemy to it and till Man is convinced that in loving God he most truly loves himself he will never sincerely affect him This was one great design of God in the Way as well as in the Work of our Redemption to gain our hearts intirely to himself He saves us in the most endearing and obliging manner As Davids affection declared its self I will not serve the Lord with that which cost me nothing So God would not save Man with that which cost him nothing but with the dearest price hath purchased a Title to our Love God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself as well as through Christ reconciling himself to the World He hath propounded such Arguments for our Love so powerful and sublime that Adam in Innocence was unacquainted with He sent down his own Bowels to testifie His Affection to us And that should be the greatest indearment of our Love which was the greatest evidence of his And if we consider the Person of our Redeemer what more worthy object of our affection than Christ And Christ dying with all the circumstances of dishonour and pain and dying thus for Love and this Love terminated on Man If He had no attractive excellencies in himself yet his dying for us should make him infinitely precious and dear to our Souls He is more amiable on the Cross than in the Throne For there we see the clearest Testimony and the most Glorious Triumph of his Love There he endured the Anger of Heaven and the scorn of the Earth There we might see Joy sadned Faith fearing Salvation suffering and Life dying Blessed Redeemer what couldst thou have done or Suffered more to quicken our dead Powers and inflame our cold Hearts toward thee How can we remember thy bleeding dying Love without an Extasy of affection If we are not more insensible than the Rocks 't is impossible but we must be toucht and softened by it Suppose an Angel by special delegation had been enabled to have trod Satan under our feet our obligations to him had been inexpressible and our love might have been intercepted from ascending to our Creator For Salvation is a greater benefit than the meer giving to us our natural being As the privation of felicity with the actual misery that is joyned with it is infinitely worse than the negation of being Our Lord pronounced concerning Judas It had been good for that Man that he had never been born Redeeming Goodness exceeds creating Now the Son of God that he might have our highest Love alone wrought Salvation for us And what admirable Goodness is it that he puts a value upon our affection and accepts such a small return our most intense and ardent love bears no more proportion to his than a spark to the Element of Fire Besides His Love to us was pure and without any benefit to himself but ours to him is profitable to our Souls for their eternal advantage Yet with this He is fully satisfied when we love Him in the quality of a Saviour we give Him the Glory of that he designs most to be Glorified in that is of his Mercy to the miserable For this reason he instituted the Sacrament of the Supper the contrivance of his Love to refresh the memory of his Death and quicken our fainting love to him Now the Love that our Saviour requires must be 1. Sincere and Unfeigned This declares it self by a care to please Him in all things If a Man love me saith our Saviour he will keep my Commandments Obedience is the most natural and necessary product of Love For Love is the spring of Action and employs all the faculties in the service of the person loved The Apostle expresses the force of it by an emphatical Word The Love of Christ constrains us it signifies to have one bound and so much under power that he cannot move without leave As the inspired Prophets were carried by the Spirit and intirely acted by his motions Such an absolute Empire had the Love of Christ over him ruling all the inclinations of his Heart and actions of his Life 'T is this alone makes Obedience chearful and constant For Love is seated in the Will and the Obedience that proceeds from it is out of choice and purely voluntary No Commandment is grievous that is performed from Love And it makes Obedience constant that which is forced from the impression of fear is unsteadfast but what is mixt with delight is lasting 2. Our Love to Christ must be supreme exceeding that which is given to all inferiour Objects The most elevated and entire Affection is due to Him who saves us from Torments that are extreme and eternal and bestows upon us an Inheritance immortal and undefiled Life it self and all the endearments of it Relations Estates
makes us guilty of his Death And when he shall come in his Glory and be visible to all that Pierced Him what Vengence will be the portion of those who despised the Majesty of his Person the mystery of his Compassions and Sufferings Those that lived and dyed in the darkness of Heathenism shall have a cooler Climate in Hell then those who neglect the great Salvation CHAP. XII Divine Justice concurs with Mercy in the work of our Redemption The Reasons why we are Redeemed by the Satisfaction of Justice are specified to declare Gods hatred of Sin to vindicate the honour of the Law to prevent the secure commission of Sin These Ends are obtained in the Death of Christ. The reality of the Satisfaction made to Divine Justice considered The requisites in order to it The appointment of God who in this transaction is to be considered not as a Judg that is Minister of the Law but as Governour His right of Jurisdiction to relax the Law as to the execution of it His Will declared to accept of the compensation made The consent of our Redeemer was necessary He must be perfectly Holy He must be God and Man THe Deity in it self is Simple and Pure without mixture or variety The Scripture ascribes Attributes to God for our clearer understanding And those as essential in Him are simply one They are distinguish'd only with respect to the diverse objects on which they are terminated and the different effects that proceed from them The two great Attributes which are exercised towards reasonable Creatures in their lapsed state are Mercy and Justice these admirably concur in the work of our Redemption Although God spared guilty Man for the honour of his Mercy yet He spared not his own Son who became a Surety for the offender but delivered Him up to a cruel Death for the glory of his Justice For the clearer understanding of this three things are to be considered 1. The Reasons why we are redeemed by the Satisfaction of Justice 2. The Reality of the Satisfaction made by our Redeemer 3. The compleatness and perfection of it Concerning the first there are three different Opinions among those who acknowledge the reality of Satisfaction 1. That 't is not possible that Sin should be pardoned without Satisfaction For Justice being a natural and necessary excellency in God hath an unchangable respect to the qualities which are in the Creatures That as the Divine Goodness is necessarily exercised towards a Creature perfectly holy so Justice is in punishing the guilty unless a Satisfaction intervene And if it be not possible considering the perfection of the Deity that Holiness should be unrewarded far less can it be that Sin should be unpunisht since the exercise of Justice upon which Punishment depends is more necessary than that of Goodness which is the cause of Remuneration For the Rewards which Bounty dispenses are pure Favours whereas the Punishments which Justice inflicts are due In short Since Justice is a Perfection 't is in God in a supreme degree and being infinite 't is inflexible This Opinion is asserted by several Divines of eminent Learning The Second Opinion is That God by his Absolute Dominion and Prerogative might have releas'd the Sinner from Punishment without any Satisfaction For as by his Sovereignty He transfer'd the Punishment from the guilty to the innocent so He might have forgiven Sin if no Redeemer had interposed From hence it follows that the Death of Christ for the Expiation of Sin was necessary only with respect to the Divine Decree 3. The Third Opinion is That considering God in this transaction as qualified with the Office of Supreme Judg and Governor of the World who hath given just Laws to direct his Creatures in their Obedience and to be the rule of his proceedings with them as to Rewards and Punishments He hath so far restrain'd the exercise of his Power that upon the breach of the Law either it must be executed upon the Sinner or if extraordinarily dispenst with it must be upon such terms as may secure the Ends of Government and those are His own Honour and publick Order and the Benefit of those that are governed And upon these accounts 't was requisite supposing the merciful design of God to pardon Sin that his Righteousness should be declared in the Sufferings of Christ. I will distinctly open this In the Law the Sovereignty and Holiness of God eminently appear And there are two things in all Sins which expose the Offender justly to Punishment 1. A Contempt of God's Sovereignty and in that respect there is a kind of equality between them He that offends in one is guilty of all they being ratified by the same Authority And from hence 't is that Guilt is the natural Passion of Sin that alwaies adheres to it For as God hath a Judicial Power to inflict Punishment upon the Disobedient by vertue of his Soveraignty so the desert of Punishment arises from the despising it in the violation of his Commands 2. In every Sin there is a contrariety to Gods Holiness And in this the natural turpitude of Sin consists which is receptive of degrees From hence arises Gods hatred of Sin which is as essential as his Love to Himself the infinite Purity and Rectitude of his Nature infers the most perfect abhorrence of whatever is opposite to it The righteous Lord loves righteousness but the wicked his soul hates Now the Justice of God is founded in his Sovereignty and his Holiness and the reason why 't is exercised against Sin is not an arbitrary Constitution but his Holy Nature to which Sin is repugnant These things being premised it follows That God in the relation of a Governor is Protector of those Sacred Laws which are to direct the Reasonable Creature And as 't was most reasonable that in the first giving the Law He should lay the strongest restraint upon Man for preventing Sin by the threatning of Death the greatest evil in it self and in the estimation of Mankind so 't is most congruous to Reason when the command was broke by Mans Rebellion that the Penalty should be inflicted either on his Person according to the immediate intent of the Law or something equivalent should be done that the Majesty and Purity of God might appear in his Justice and there might be a visible discovery of the value He puts on Obedience The life of the Law depends upon the execution of it for impunity extenuates Sin in the account of Men and incourages to the free commission of it If Pardon be easily obtained Sin wil be easily committed The first temptation was prevalent by this perswasion that no punishment would follow Besides if upon the bold violation of the Law no punishment were inflicted not only the glory of God's Holiness would be obscured as if He did not love Righteousness and hate Sin but suffered the contempt of the one and the commission of the other without controul but it
are renewed by his Spirit He covers their sins that he may cure them He is made Righteousness and Sanctification to his People The serious belief that Christ by dying hath rescued us from Hell produces a superlative Love to him an ingenuous and grateful fear lest we should offend Him an ambition to please Him in all things briefly Universal Obedience to his Will as its most natural and necessary effect So that in laying the punishment on Christ under which Mankind must have sunk for ever there is nothing against Justice 2. The Death of Christ is the price which redeems us from our woful Captivity Mankind was fallen under the dominion of Satan and Death and could not obtain freedom by escape or meer power For by the order of Divine Justice we were detained Prisoners So that till God the Supreme Judg is satisfied there can be no discharge Now the Lord Christ hath procured our deliverance by his Death according to the testimony of the Apostle We have Redemption through his Blood even the forgiveness of sins His Blood is congruously called a price because in consideration of it our Freedom is purchased He is our Redeemer by Ransom He gave himself a Ransom for all and that signifies the price paid for the freeing of a Captive The word used by the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath a special Emphasis it signifies an exchange of conditions with us the redeeming us from Death by dying for us As the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who devoted themselves to Death for the rescuing of others Our Saviour told his Disciples that the Son of Man came to give his Life a ransom for many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a commutation or exchange with respect of things or persons Thus we are commanded to render to none Evil for evil And if a Son ask of his Father a Fish will he give him a Serpent for a Fish When 't is used in respect of persons it imports a substitution in anothers place Archelaus reigned instead of his Father Herod and Peter paid tribute for Christ that is representing Him the effect therefore of our Saviours words that He gave his Life a Ransome for many is evidently this that he dy'd in their stead and his Life as a Price intervened to obtain their Redemption 'T is for this Reason the Glorified Saints sung a Hymn of Praise to the Divine Lamb saying Thou art worthy for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy Blood This singular and blessed effect of Christs Death distinguishes it from the Death of the most Excellent Martyrs If he had dyed only for the Confirmation of the Gospel or to exhibit to us a Pattern of Suffering Graces what were there peculiar and extraordinary in his Death How can it be said that he was Crucified for us alone For the Martyrs Sealed the Truth with their Blood and left admirable Examples of Love to God of Zeal for his Glory of patience under Torments and of Compassion to their Persecutors yet it were intolerable Blasphemy to say that they redeem'd us by their Death And 't is observable when the Death of Christ is propounded in Scripture as a Pattern of Patience 't is with a special Circumstance that distinguishes it from all others Christ suffered for us leaving us an Example that we should follow his steps who his own self bare our Sins in his own Body on the Tree by whose stripes ye were healed The truth is if the sole end of Christs Death were to induce Men to believe His Promises and to imitate His Graces there had been no such necessity of it for the Miracles he did had been sufficient to confirm the Gospel yet Remission of Sins is never attributed to them and the Miseries he Suffered during the course of his Life had been sufficient to instruct us how to behave our selves under Indignities and Persecutions and at the last he might have given as full a Testimony to the Truth of his Doctrine by his descent from the Cross as by dying for us But no lower Price than his Blood could make Compensation to the Law and satisfaction to God and to deny this is to Rob him of the Glory of his Death and to destroy all our Comfort 'T is objected by those who nullifie the Mystery of the Cross of the Lord Jesus How could God receive this Price since he gave up his Son to that Death which Redeems us And how can our Redeemer supposing him God make satisfaction to himself To this I answer 1. The infinite Goodness of God in giving our Redeemer doth not devest him of the Office of Supreme Judge nor prejudice his examining of the Cause according to his Sovereign Jurisdiction and his receiving a Ransom to preserve the Rights of Justice inviolable There is an eminent instance of this in Zaleucus the Prince of the Locrians who past a Law that Adulterers should lose both their eyes and when his Son was convicted of that Crime the people who respected him for his Excellent Vertues out of pity to him interceded for the Offender Zaleucus in a Conflict between Zeal for Justice and Affection to his Son took but one Eye from him and parted with one of his own to satisfie the Law And thus he paid and received the Punishment he paid it as a Father and received it as the Conservator of Publick Justice Thus when guilty Mankind in its Poverty could not pay the Forfeiture to the Law God the Father of Mercies was pleased to give it from the Treasures of his Love that is the Blood of his Son for our Ransom And this he receives from the Hand of Christ offer'd upon the Cross as the Supreme Judge and declares it fully valuable and the Rights of Justice to be truly performed 2. It is not inconsistent with Reason that the Son of God cloathed with our Nature should by his Death make Satisfaction to the Deity and therefore to himself In the according of two Parties a Person that belongs to one of them may interpose for Reconciliation provided that he devests his own Interest and leaves it with the Party from whom he comes Thus when the Senate of Rome and the People were in dissension one of the Senators trusted his own Concernment with the Council of which he was a Member and mediated between the Parties to reconcile them Thus when the Father and the Son both possest of the Imperial Power have been offended by Rebellious Subjects 't is not inconvenient that the Son interpose as a Mediator to restore them to the Favour of the Prince And by this he reconciles them to himself and procures them Pardon of an Offence by which his own Majesty was violated This he doth as Mediator not as a a Party concern'd Now this is a fit Illustration of the Great Work of our Redemption so far as Humane things can represent Divine For all the Persons of the
is said that His Blood cleanseth from all sin and that it purgeth the Conscience foom dead Works and that we are washt from our sins in His Blood The frequent Sprinklings and Purifications with Water under the Law prefigured our cleansing from the defilements of sin by the Grace of the Spirit but the shedding of the Blood of Sacrifices was to purge away sins so far as they made liable to a Curse Thirdly Our exemption from punishment and our restoration to Communion with God in Grace and Glory is the fruit of his expiating sin For this reason the Blood of the Mediator speaks better things then that of Abel For that cryed for revenge against the Murderer but his procures remission to Believers And as the just desert of sin is separation from the presence of God who is the fountain of felicity so when the guilt is taken away the person is received into God's favour and fellowship A representation of this is set down in the 24 of Exod. where we have described the manner of dedicating the Covenant between God and Israel by bloody Sacrifices after Moses had finisht the Offering and sprinkled the Blood on the Altar and the People the Elders of Israel who were forbid before to approach neer to the Lord were then invited to come into his presence and in token of reconciliation feasted before him Thus the Eternal Covenant is establisht by the Blood of the Mediator and all the benefits it contains as remission of sins freedom to draw near to the Throne of Grace and the enjoyment of God in Glory are the fruits of his reconciling Sacrifice The sum of all is this That as under the Law God was not appeased without shedding of Blood nor sin expiated without suffering the punishment nor the sinner pardoned without the substitution of a sacrifice so all these are eminently accomplisht in the Death of Christ. He reconciled God to us by his most precious Blood and expiated sin by enduring the Curse and hath procured our pardon by being made sin for us So that 't is most evident that the proper and direct end of the Death of Christ was that God might exercise his Mercy to the guilty sinner in a way that is honourable to his Justice 'T is objected that if God from infinite Mercy gave his Son to us then antecedently to the coming of Christ he had the highest love for mankind and consequently there was no need that Christ by his Death should satisfie Justice to reconcile him to us But a clear answer may be given to this by considering 1. That Anger and Love are consistent at the same time and may in several respects be terminated on the same subject A Father resents a double affection towards a rebellious Son he loves him as his Son is angry with with him as disobedient Thus in our laps'd state God had compassion on us as his creatures and was angry with us as sinners As the injured party he laid aside his anger but as the preserver of Justice he required satisfaction 2. We must dinstinguish between a love of good-will and compassion and a love of complacency The first is that which moved God to ordain the means that without prejudice to his other perfections he might confer pardon and all spiritual benefits upon us the other is that whereby he delights in us being reconciled to him and renewed according to his Image The first supposes him placable the latter that he is appeased There is a visible instance of this in the case of Job's Friends The Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite My anger is kindled against thee and thy two Friends because ye have not spoken of me the things that are right as my Servant Job Here is a declaration of God's anger yet with the mixture of Love for it follows therefore take unto you now seven Bullocks and seven Rams and go to my Servant Job and offer up for your selves a burnt-offering and my Servant Job shall pray for you for him will I accept He loved them when he directed the way that they might be restored to his Favour yet he was not reconciled for then there had been no need of Sacrifices to atone his anger 2. T is further objected that supposing the Satisfaction of Christ to Justice both the freeness and greatness of God's Love in pardoning sinners will be much lessen'd But it will appear that the Divine Mercy is not prejudiced in either of those respects First The freenss of Gods Love is not diminished for that is the original mover in our Salvation and hath no cause above it to excite or draw it forth but meerly arises from his own will This Love is so absolute that it hath no respect to the sufferings of Christ as Mediator for God so loved the World that he gave his Son to die for us and that which is the effect and testimony of his Love cannot be the impulsive cause of it This first Love of God to Man is commended to us in Christ who is the medium to bring it honorably about Secondly Grace in Scripture is never opposed to Christs Merits but to ours If we had made Satisfaction Justice it self had absolved us For the Law having two parts the command of our Duty which consists in a moral good and the sanction of the punishment that is a physical evil to do or to suffer is necessary not both or if we had provided a Surety such as the Judge could not reject we had been infinitely obliged to him but not to the favour of the Judg. But 't is otherwise here God sent the Reconciler when we were enemies and the Pardon that is dispenc'd to us upon the account of his Sufferings is the effect of meer Mercy We are justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ. 'T is pure Love that appointed and accepted that imputes and applies his Righteousness to us And as the Freeness so the Riches of his Mercy is not lessened by the Satisfaction Christ made for us 'T is true we have a pattern of God's Justice never to be parallel'd in the Death of Christ but to the severity of Justice towards his only beloved Son his clemency towards us guilty Rebels is fully comensurate For He pardons us without the expence of one drop of our Blood though the Soul of Christ was poured forth as an Offering for Sin Thus in an admirable manner He satisfies Justice and glorifies Mercy and this could have been no other way effected for if He had given His Spirit alone to restore us to His Image His Love had eminently appeared but the honour of his Justice had not been secured But in our Redemption they are infinitely magnified His Love could give no more than the Life of His Son and Justice required no less for Death being the Wages of Sin there could be no satisfaction without the Death of our Redeemer CHAP. XIV The
that is the Condition upon which God absolves Man from his guilt And this Grace of Faith as it respects entire Christ in all his Offices so it contains the Seed and first Life of Evangelical Obedience It crucifies our Lusts overcomes the World works by Love as well as justifies the person by relying on the Merits of Christ for Salvation 2 Adoption into Gods Family the purchase of Christ's Meritorious Sufferings who Redeemed us from the Servitude of Sin and Death is conferr'd upon us in Regeneration For this Prerogative consists not meerly in an Extrinsick Relation to God and a title to the Eternal Inheritance but in our participation of the Divine Nature whereby we are the living Images of Gods Holiness Civil Adoption gives the title but not the reality of a Son But the Divine is efficacious and changes us into the real likeness of our Heavenly Father We cannot enter into this state of Favour but upon our cleansing from all Impurity Be separate from the pollutions of the profane world and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you and ye shall be my Sons and Daughters saith the Lord Almighty These are the indispensable terms upon which we are received into that honourable Alliance None can enjoy the Priviledge but those that yield the Obedience of Children 3. Holiness is the Condition on which our future Blessedness depends Electing Mercy doth not produce our Glorification immediately but begins in our Vocation and Justification which are the intermediate Links in the Chain of Salvation As Natural Causes work on a distant object by passing through the medium God first gives Grace then Glory The everlasting Covenant that is sealed by the Blood of Christ establishes the connexion between them Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God The exclusion of all others is peremptory and universal Without Holiness no Man shall see the Lord. The Righteousness of the Kingdom is the only way of entring into it A few good actions scattered in our lives are not availeable but a course of Obedience brings to Happiness Those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for Glory and Honour and Immortality shall inherit eternal life This is not a mere positive Appointment but grounded on the unchangeable respect of things There is a rational convenience between Holiness and Happiness according to the Wisdom and Goodness of God and 't is exprest in Scripture by the natural relation of the Seed to the Harvest both as to the quality and measure What a man sows that shall he reap We must be like God in purity before we can be in felicity Indeed 't would be a disparagement to Gods Holiness and pollute Heaven it self to receive unsanctified Persons as impure as those in Hell 'T is equally impossible for the Creature to be happy without the favour of the Holy God and for God to communicate His favour to the sinful Creature Briefly according to the Law of Faith no wicked Person hath any right to the Satisfaction Christ made nor to the Inheritance he purchased for Believers 3. Man in his corrupt state is deprived of Spiritual Life so that till he is revived by special Grace he can neither obey nor enjoy God Now the Redeemer is made a quickning Principle to inspire us with new life In order to our Sanctification he hath done four things First He hath given to us the most perfect Laws as the Rule of Holiness Secondly He exhibited the most compleat Patern of Holiness in his Life upon the Earth Thirdly He purchas'd and conveyes the Spirit of Holiness to renew and to enable us for the performance of our Duties Fourthly He hath presented the strongest inducements and motives to perswade us to be Holy First He hath given to Men the most perfect Laws as the rule of Holiness The principal parts of the Holy Life are ceasing from evil and the doing well Now the Commands of Christ refer to the purifying of us from sin and the adorning us with all Graces for the discharge of our universal Duty 1. They enjoyn a real and absolute separation from all filthiness of the Flesh and Spirit The outward and inward Man must be cleansed not only from Pollutions of a deeper dy but from all Carnality and Hypocrisie The Grace of God that brings Salvation hath appeared to all Men teaching them to deny ungodliness and worldly Lusts. All those irregular and impetuous desires which are raised by worldly Objects Honours Riches and Pleasures and reign in worldly Men Pride Covetousness and Voluptuousness The Gospel is most clear full and vehement for the true and inward Mortification of the whole body of corruption of every particular darling sin It commands us to pluck out the right eye and to cut off the right hand That is to part with every grateful and gainful lust It obliges us to crucifie the Flesh with the affections and lusts Humane Laws regard External actions as prejudicial to Societies but thoughts and resolutions that break not forth into act are not within the Jurisdiction of the Magistrate But the Law of Christ reforms the powers of the Soul and all the most secret and inward motions that depend upon them It forbids the first irregular desires of the carnal appetite We must hate sin in all its degrees strangle it in the birth destroy it in the conception We are enjoyned to fly the appearances and accesses of evil what ever is of a suspitious nature and not fully consistent with the purity of the Gospel and what ever invites to sin and exposes us to the power of it becomes vicious and must be avoided That glorious purity that shall adorn the Church when our Redeemer presents it without spot or wrinkle or any such thing every Christian must aspire to in this Life In short the Gospel commands us to be Holy as God is Holy who is infinitely distant from the least conceivable pollution 2. The Precepts of Christ contain all solid substantial goodness that is essentially necessary in order to our supreme Happiness and prepares us for the Life of Heaven In his Sermon on the Mount He commends to us Humility Meekness and Mercy Peaceableness and Patience and doing good for evil which are so many beams of Gods Image the reflections of his Goodness upon intelligent Creatures And that comprehensive precept of the Apostle describes the Duties of all Christians whatsoever things are true Truth is the principal character of our profession and is to be exprest in our Words and Actions whatsoever things are honest or venerable that is answer the dignity of our High-calling and agree with the gravity and comeliness of the Christian profession whatsoever things are just according to Divine and Humane Laws whatsoever things are pure we must preserve the Heart the Hand the Tongue the Eye from impurity whatsoever things are lovely and of good report some
Graces are amiable and attractive in the view of Men as easiness to pardon a readiness to oblige compassion to the afflicted liberality to the necessitous sweetness of conversation without gall and bitterness these are of universal esteem with mankind and soften the most savage tempers If there be any Vertue and if there be any Praise think on these things And St. Peter excites Believers to joyn to their Faith by which the Gospel of Christ is embrac't Intellectual and Moral vertues without which 't is but a vain picture of Christianity Add to your Faith Vertue and to Vertue Knowledge and to Knowledge Temperance and to Temperance Patience and to Patience Godliness and to Godliness Brotherly kindness and to Brotherly kindness Charity He enforces the command give all diligence that these things abound in you and ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the Knowledge of Christ. Now these Graces purifie and perfect refine and raâ—se the humane nature and without a Command their Goodness is a strong obligation I will take a more distinct view of the Precepts of Christ as they are set down in that excellent abridgement of them by the Apostle The Grace of God that bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all Men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live Soberly Righteously and Godly in this present world Here is a distribution of our duties with respect to their several Objects our selves others and God The first are regulated by Temperance the second by Justice the third by Godliness And from the accomplishment of these is formed that Holiness without which no man shall see God 1. In respect to our selves we must live soberly Temperance governs the sensual appetites and affections by sanctified reason The Gospel allows the sober and chast use of pleasures but absolutely and severely forbids all excess in those that are lawful and abstinence from all that are unlawful that stain vilify the Soul and alienate it from converse with God and mortifie its lust to spiritual delights By sensual complacency Man first lost his Innocence and Happiness and till the flesh is subdued to the spirit he can never recover them The carnal mind is enmity against God Fleshly lusts war against the Soul Therefore we are urged with the most affectionate earnestness to abstain from them by withdrawing their incentives and crucifying our corrupt inclinations In short the Law of Christ obliges us as to deal with the body as an enemy that is disposed to revolt against the Spirit by watching over all our senses lest they should betray us to temptations so to preserve it as a thing consecrated to God from all impurity that will render it unworthy the honour of being the Temple of the Holy Ghost 2. We are commanded to live Righteously in our relation to others Justice is the supreme Virtue of humane Life that renders to every one what is due The Gospel gives rules for Men in every state and place to do what Reason requires As no condition is excluded from its Blessedness so every one is obliged by its Precepts Subjects are commanded to obey all the lawful commands of Authority and not resist and that upon the strongest motive not onely for Wrath but for Conscience They must obey Man for Gods sake but never disobey God for Mans sake And Princes are obliged to be an encouragement to good Works and a terror to the evil that those who are under them may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty It injoynes all the respective duties of Husbands and Wives Parents and Children Masters and Servants And that in all contracts and commerce none defrauds his Brother accordingly in the esteem of Christians he is more religious who is more righteous than others Briefly Christian righteousness is not to be measured by the rigor of Laws but by that rule of universal Equity delivered by our Saviour Whatsoever ye would have others do to you do it to them 3. We are instructed by the Law of Christ to live Godly This part of our duty respects our apprehensions affections and demeanour to God which must be sutable to his Glorious perfections The Gospel hath revealed them clearly to us viz. the Unity Simplicity Eternity and Purity of the Divine Nature that it subsists in three Persons the Father Son and Spirit and his Wisdom Power and Goodness in the Work of our Redemption It requires that we pay the special Honour that is due to God in the esteem and veneration of our Minds in the subjection of our Wills in the assent of our Affections to him as their proper object That we have an intire Faith in his Word a firm Hope in his Promises a Holy Jealousie for his Honour a Religious care in his Service And that we express our reverence love and dependance on him in our Prayers and Praises That our Worshp of Him be in such a manner as becomes God who receives it and Man that presents it God is a pure Spirit and Man is a reasonable Creature therefore â—e must worship him in Spirit and Truth And since Man in his fallen State cannot approach the Holy and Just God without a Mediator he is directed by the Gospel to address himself to the Throne of Grace in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who alone can reconcile our Persons and render our Services acceptable with his Father Besides the immediate service of the Deity Godliness includes the propension and tendency of the Soul to him in the whole conversation and it contains three things 1. That our Obedience proceeds from love to God as its vital Principle This must warm and animate the external action this alone makes Obedience as delightful to us so pleasing to God He shews Mercy to those who love him and keep his Commandments Faith works by Love and enclines the Soul to obey with the same Affection that God enjoins the Precept 2. That all our Conversation be regulated by his Will as the Rule He is our Father and Sovereign and the respect to his Law gives to every action the formality of Obedience We must choose our Duty because he commands it Whatsoever ye do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus that is for his command and by his assistance 3. That the Glory of God be the supreme End of all our Actions This Qualification must adhere not only to necessary Duties but to our natural and civil Actions Our light must so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our Father which is in Heaven Whether we eat or drink or whatsoever we do all must be done in a regular and due proportion to the Glory of God A general Designation of this is absolutely requisite and the renewing of our intentions actually in matters of moment For He being the sole Author of our Lives and
Happiness we cannot without extream ingratitude and disobedience neglect to glorifie Him in our Bodies and Spirits which are his This Religious tendency of the Soul to God as the Supreme Lord and our utmost End sanctifies our Actions and gives an excellency to them above what is inherent in their own nature Thus moral Duties towards Men when they are directed to God become Divine Acts of Charity are so many Sacred Oblations to the Deity Men are but the Altars upon which we lay our Presents God receives them as if immediatly offer'd to his Majesty and consumed to his Honour Such was the charity of the Philippians towards the relief of the Apostle which he calls An odour of a sweet smell a Saerifice acceptable well pleasing to God The same Bounty was an act of Compassion to Man and Devotion to God This changes the nature of the meanest and most troublesome things What was more vile and harsh than the employment of a Slave yet a respect to God makes it a Religious Service that is the most noble voluntary of all humane Actions For the Believer addressing his service to Christ and the Infidel only to his Master he doth chearfully what the other doth by constraint and adorns the Gospel of God our Saviour as truly as if he were in a higher condition All Vertues are of the same descent and family though in respect of the matter about which they are conversant and their exercise they are different Some are heroical some are humble and the lowest being conducted by Love to God in the meanest offices shall have an eternal Reward In short Piety is the principle and chief ingredient of Righteousness and Charity to Men. For since God is the Author of our common Nature and the relations whereby we are united one to another 't is necessary that a regard to him should be the first and have an influence upon all other Duties I shall further consider some particular Precepts which the Gospel doth especially enforce upon us and the Reasons of them 1. That concerning Humility the peculiar Grace of Christians so becoming our state as Creatures and Sinners the parent and nurse of other Graces that preserves in us the light of Faith and the heat of Love that procures Modesty in Prosperity and Patience in Adversity that is the root of Gratitude and Obedience and is so lovely in God's eyes that He gives Grace to the Humble This our Saviour makes a necessary qualification in all those who shall enter into his Kingdom Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven As by Humility he purchas'd our Salvation so by that Grace we possess it And since Pride arises out of Ignorance the Gospel to cause in us a just and lowly sense of our unworthiness discovers the nakedness and misery of the humane Nature devested of its primitive Righteousness It reveals the transmission of Original Sin from the first Man to all his Posterity wherewith they are infected and debased a Mystery so far from our knowledg that the participation of it seems impossible and unjust to carnal Reason We are dead in Sins and Trespasses without any Spiritual strength to perform our Duty The Gospel ascribes all that is good in Man to the free and powerful Grace of God He works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure He gives Grace to some because He he is Good denies it to others because He is Just but doth injury to none because all being guilty He owes it to none Grace in its being and activity entirely depends upon Him As the drowsie Sap is drawn forth into flourishing and fruitfulness by the approaches of the Sun so habitual Grace is drawn forth into act by the presence and influences of the Sun of Righteousness Without me our Saviour tells his Disciples ye can do nothing I have laboured more abundantly than they all saith the Apostle yet not I but the Grace of God in me The operations of Grace are ours but the Power that enables us is from God Our preservation from Evil and perseverance in Good is a most free unmerited Favour the effect of his renewed Grace in the course of our Lives Without his special assistance we should every hour forsake Him and provoke Him to forsake us As the Iron cannot ascend or hang in the Air longer than the virtue of the Loadstone draws it So our Affections cannot ascend to those glorious things that are above without the continually attracting Power of Grace 'T is by humble Prayer wherein we acknowledg our wants and unworthiness and declare our dependance upon the Divine Mercy and Power that we obtain Grace Now from these Reasons the Gospel commands Humility in our demeanor towards God and Men. And if we seriously consider them how can any crevise be opened in the heart for the least breath of Pride to enter How can a poor diseased wretch that hath neither Money nor can by any industry procure nourishment or Physick for his deadly Diseases and receives from a merciful person not only Food but Soveraign Medicines brought from another World for such is the Divine Grace sent to us from Heaven without his desert or possibility of retribution be proud towards his Benefactor How can he that only lives upon Alms boast that he is rich How can a Creature be proud of the Gifts of God which it cannot possess without Humility and without acknowledging that they are derived from Mercy If we had continued in our Integrity the praise of all had been entirely due to God For our Faculties and the excellent dispositions that fitted them for action were bestowed upon us freely by Him and depended upon his Grace in their exercise But there is now greater reason to attribute the Glory of all our goodness solely to him for He revives our dead Souls by the infusion of Grace without which we are to every good work reprobate Since all our Spiritual Abilities are Graces the more we have received the more we are obliged and therefore should be more humble and thankful to the Author of them And in comparing our selves with others the Gospel forbids all proud reflections upon our selves as dignified above them For who maketh thee to differ from another And what hast thou that thou didst not receive And if thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it If God discern one from another by special gifts the Man hath nothing of his own that makes him excellent Although inherent Graces command a respect from others to the Person in whom they shine yet he that possesses them ought rather to consider himself in those qualities that are natural and make him like the worst than in those that are divine proceeding from the sole Favour of God and that exalt him above them Add further that God hath ordained in the Gospel
Repentance and Faith which are humbling Graces to be the conditions of our obtaining Pardon By Repentance we acknowledge that if we are condemned 't is just severity and if we are Saved 't is rich Mercy And Faith absolutely excludes boasting For it supposes the Creature guilty and receives Pardon from the Sovereign Grace of God upon the account of our Crucified Redeemer The benefit and the manner of our receiving it was typified in the miraculous cure of the Israelites by looking up to the Brasen Serpent For the act of seeing is performed by receiving the Images which are derived from the objects 't is rather a Passion then an Action that it might appear that the healing Virtue was meerly from the Power of God and the Honor of it intirely his In short God had respect to the lowliness of this Grace in appointing it to be the qualification of a Justified person for the most firm reliance on Gods Mercy is alwayes joyned with the strongest renouncing of our own Merits Briefly to excite humility in us the Gospel tells us that the Glorious reward is from rich bounty and liberality The gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. As the Election of us to Glory so the actual possession of it proceeds from pure Favour There is no more proportion between all our Services and that High and Eternal felicity than between the running a few steps and the obtaining an Imperial Crown Indeed not only Heaven but all the Graces that are necessary to purify and prepare us for it we receive from undeserved Mercy So that God crowns in us not our proper Works but his own proper Gifts 2. The Gospel strictly commands Self-denial when the Honor of God and Religion is concern'd Jesus tells his Disciples If any Man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me Life and all the endearments of it Estates Honours Relations Pleasures must be put under our feet to take the first step with our Redeemer This is absolutely necessary to the being of a Christian In the preparation of his mind and the resolution of his will he must live a Martyr and whensoever his duty requires he must break all the Retinacula Vitae the voluntary bands that fasten us to the World and die a Martyr rather than suffer a divorce to be made between his Heart and Christ. Whatsoever is most esteem'd and lov'd in the world must be parted with as a snare if it tempts us from our Obedience or offered up as a Sacrifice when the Glory of God calls for it And this command that appears so hard to sense is most just and reasonable For God hath by so many titles a right to us that we ought to make an intire Dedication of our selves and our most valuable interests to him Our Redeemer infinitely denied himself to save us and 't is most just we should in gratitude deny our selves to serve him Besides an infinite advantage redounds to us for our Saviour assures us that whosoever will save his life when 't is inconsistent with the performance of his duty shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for his sake shall find it Now what is more prudent than of two evils that are propounded to choose the least that is Temporal Death rather than Eternal and of two goods that are offered to our choice to prefer the greater a Life in Heaven before that on the Earth Especially if we consider that we must shortly yeeld the present life to the infirmities of Nature and 't is the richest traffick to exchange that which is frail and mortal for that which remains in its perfection for ever 3. The Gospel enjoyns Universal Love among Men. This is that fire which Christ came to kindle upon the Earth 't is the abridgment of all Christian perperfection the fulfilling of the Divine Law for all the particular Precepts are in substance Love He that loves his Neighbor will have a tender regard to his Life Honour and Estate which is the sum of the second Table The extent of our Love must be to all that partake of the same common nature The universal consanguinity between Men should make us regard them as our allies Every Man that wants our help is our Neighbour Do good to all is the command of the Apostle For the quality of our Love it must be unfeigned without dissimulation The Image of it in Words without real Effects provokes the Divine displeasure for as all falshood is odious to the God of Truth so especially the counterfeiting of Charity that is the impression of his Spirit and the seal of his Kingdom A sincere pure affection that rejoyces at the good and resents the evils of others as our own and expresses it self in all real Offices not for our private respects but their benefit is required of us And as to the degree of our Love we are commanded above all things to have fervent Charity among our selves This principally respects Christians who are united by so many sacred and amiable bands as being formed of the same Eternal Seed Children of the same Heavenly Father and joynt-Heirs of the same Glorious Inheritance Christian Charity hath a more noble Principle than the affections of nature for it proceeds from the Love of God shed abroad in Believers to make them one Heart and one Soul and a more Divine pattern which is the Example of Christ Who hath by his Sufferings restored us to the Favour of God that we should Love one another as He hath Loved us This Duty is most stricty injoyn'd for without Love Angelical Eloquence is but an empty noise and all other Virtues have but a false lustre Prophesie Faith Knowledge Miracles the highest outward Acts of Charity or Self-denial the giving our Estates to the Poor or Bodies to Martyrdom are neither pleasing to God nor profitable to him that does them Besides That special branch of Love the forgiving of Injuries is the peculiar Precept of our Saviour For the whole World consents to the returning evil for evil The vicious Love of our selves makes us very sensible and according to our preverse judgments to revenge an injury seems as just as to requite a benefit From hence revenge is the most Rebellious and Obstinate Passion An Offence remains as a thorn in the mind that inflames and torments it till 't is appeased by a vindication 'T is more difficult to overcome the Spirit then to gain a Battel We are apt to revolve in our thoughts injuries that have been done to us and after a long distance of time the memory represents them as fresh as at the first Now the Gospel commands a hearty and intire forgiveness of injuries though repeated never so often to seventy seven times We must not only quench the Fire of Anger but kindle the Fire of Love towards our greatest Enemies I say unto you Love your Enemies
Bless them that Curse you do good to them that hate you Pray for them which despitefully use you and Persecute you This is urged from the consideration of God's forgiving us who being infinitely provoked yet pardons innumerable faults to us moved only by his Mercy And how reasonable is it that we should at his command remit a few faults to our Brethren To extinguish the strong inclination that is in corrupt Nature to revenge our Saviour hath suspended the Promise of Pardon to us upon our pardoning others For if ye forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive you But if ye forgive not their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses He that is cruel to another cannot expect Mercy but in every Prayer to God indites himself and virtually pronounces his own Condemnation 4. The Gospel enjoins Contentment in every state which is our great Duty and Felicity mainly influential upon our whole life to prevent both Sin and Misery Be content with such things as you have for he hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee It forbids all Murmurings against Providence which is the seed of Rebellion and all anxious thoughts concerning things future Take no thought for to morrow we should not anticipate evils by our apprehensions and fears they come fast enough Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof Our corrupt Desires are vast and restless as the Sea and when contradicted they betray us to Discontent and Disobedience The Gospel therefore retrenches all inordinate Affections and vehemently condemns Covetousness as a Vice not to be named among Saints but with abhorrency It discovers to us most clearly that temporal things are not the materials of our Happiness For the Son of God voluntarily denied himself the enjoyment of them And as the highest Stars are so much distant from an Eclipse as they are above the Shadow of the Earth so the Soul that in its esteem and desires is above the world its brightness and joy cannot be darkened or eclipsed by any accidents there The Gospel forbids all vain Sorrows as well as vain Pleasures and distinguishes real Godliness from an appearance by contentment as its inseparable Character Godliness with Content is great gain When we are in the saddest circumstances our Saviour commands us to possess our Souls in Patience to preserve a calm Constitution of Spirit which no storms from without can discompose For this end he assures us that nothing comes to pass without the Knowledge and Efficiency or at least Permission of God That the Hâ—irs of our Head are numbred and not one falls to the Earth without his License Now the serious belief of a Wise Just and Powerful Providence that governs all things hath a mighty efficacy to maintain a constant tranquillity and equal temper in the Soul amidst the confusions of the World God works all things according to the counsel of his own will and if we could discover the immediate reasons of every Providence we cannot have more satisfaction then from this General Principle that is applicable to all as light to every colour That what God doth is always best This resolves all the doubts of the most intangled minds and rectifies our false judgments From hence a Believer hath as true content in complying with God's Will as if God had complyed with his and is reconciled to every condition Besides the Gospel assures us that all things work together for the good of those that love God For their Spiritual good at present by weakening their corruptions for affliction is a kind of manage by which the sensual part is exercised and made pliable to the motions of the Spirit and by increasing their Graces the unvaluable Treasures of Heaven If the dearest Objects of our Affections the most worthy of our Love and Grief are taken away 't is for this reason that God may have our Love himself in its most full and inflamed degree And Afflictions are in order to their Everlasting good Now the certain expectation of a blessed issue out of all troubles is to the Heart of a Christian as the putting a Rudder to a Ship which without it is exposed to the fury of the winds and in continual dangers but by its guidance makes use of every Wind to convey it to its Port. Hope produces not only acquiescence but joy in the sharpest Tribulations For every true Christian being ordained to a Glorious and Supernatural Blessedness hereafter all things that befal them here below as means are regulated and transformed into the nature of the End to which they carry them Thus temporal evils are turned into good Our light Afflictions which are but for a moment work for us a far more exceeding weight of Glory To consider this Life as the passage to another that is as durable as Eternity and as blessed as the Enjoyment of God can make it that the present miseries have a final respect to future Happiness will change our opinion about them and render them not only tolerable but so far eligible as they are instrumental and preparatory for it If the Bloody as well as the Milky way leads to God's Throne a Christian willingly walks in it In short A lively Hope accompanies a Christian to his last expiring breath till it is consummated in Celestial fruition So that Death it self the universal terror of Mankind is made desirable as an entrance into Immortality and the first day of our Triumph Thus I have considered some particular Precepts of Christ which are of greatest use for the government of our Hearts and Lives and the reasons upon which they are grounded to make them effectual Now to discover more fully the compleatness of the Evangelical Rule I will consider it with respect to the Law of Moses and the Philosophy of the Heathens CHAP. XVII The Perfection of Christ's Laws appears by comparing them with the Precepts of Moses The Temple-Service was manag'd with Pomp suitable to the disposition of the Jews and the dispensation of the Law The Christian Service is Pure and Spiritual The Levitical Ceremonies and Ornaments are excluded from it not only as unnecessary but inconsist with its Spirituality The obligation to the Rituals of Moses is abolisht to introduce real Righteousness The Indulgence of Polygamy and Divorce is taken away by Christ and Marriage restored to its Primitive Purity He clear'd the Law from the darkening Glosses of the Pharisees And enforc'd it by new Obligations The Law of Christ exceeds the Rules which the highest Masters of Morality in the School of Nature ever prescribed Philosophy is defective as to Piety and in several things contrary to it Philosophers delivered unworthy Conceptions of God Philosophy doth not enjoin the Love of God which is the first and great Command of the Natural Law Philosophers lay down the servile Maxime To comply with the common Idolatry They arrogated to themselves the praise of
not only in the relation of a Creator and universal Governour that gave Laws to regulate Conscience but in a special relation to the Jews as their King And as in a Civil State a prudent Governour permits a less evil for the prevention of a greater without an approbation of it So God was pleased in his Wisdom to tolerate those things in condescension to their carnal and perverse humors for the hardness of their Hearts lest worse inconveniences should follow But our Saviour reduces Marriage to the Sanctity of its original when man was formed according to the Image of God's Holiness He that made them at the beginning made them Male and Female for this cause shall a Man leave Father and Mother and cleave to his Wife and they twain shall be one flesh What therefore God hath joyned together let no Man put asunder From the unity of the Person that one Male was made and one Female it follows that the super-inducing of another into the Marriage-bed is against the first Institution And the Union that is between them not being only civil in a consent of wills but natural by the joyning of two bodies something natural must intervene to dissolve it viz. the Adultery of one party Excepting that case our Saviour severely forbids the putting the Wife away 4. Our Redeemer hath improved the obligations of the moral Law by a clearer discovery of the purity and extent of its precepts and by peculiar and powerful Enforcements In his Sermon on the Mount he clears it from the darkning glosses of the Phaisees who observed the letter of the Law but not the designe of the Lawgiver He declares that not only the gross act but all things of the same alliance are forbidden not only Murder but rash Anger and vilifying words which wound the Reputation Not only actual pollution but the impurity of the Eye and the staining of the Soul with unclean thoughts are all comprised in the prohibition He informs them that every Man in calamity is their Neighbour and to be relieved and commands them to love their deadliest enemies Briefly He tells the multitude that unless their Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees that is the utmost that they thought themselves obliged to they should not enter into the Kingdome of Heaven Besides our Saviour hath superadded special Enforcements to his Precepts The Arguments to perswade Christians to be universally Holy from Christs Redeeming them for that great end was not known either in the Oeconomy of Nature or the Law For before our lapsed state there was no need of a Redeemer and he was not revealed during the Legal Dispensation His Death was only shadowed forth in Types and foretold in such a manner as was obscure to the Jews The Gospel urges new reasons to increase our aversion from sin which neither Adam nor Moses were acquainted with So the Apostle dehorts Christians from uncleanness because their bodies are Members of Christ and Temples of the Holy-Ghost and therefore should be inviolably consecrated to purity If the Utensils of the Temple were so sacred that the employing them to a common use was revenged in a miraculous manner How much sorer punishment shall be inflicted on those who defile themselves after they were sanctified by the Blood of the Covenant The Gospel also recommends to us Love to one another in imitation of that admirable Love which Christ exprest to us and commands the highest Obedience even unto death when God requires it in conformity to our Redeemers Sufferings These and many other Motives are derived from a pure vein of Christianity and exalt the Moral Law to a higher pitch as to its Obligation upon men than in its first delivery by Moses 2. The Laws of Christ exceed the Rules which the best Masters of Morality in the School of Nature have prescribed for the Government of our Lives 'T is true there are remaining Principles of the Moral Law in the heart of Man Some warm sparks are still left which the Philosophers laboured to enliven and cherish Many excellent Precepts of Morality they delivered either to calm the Affections and lay the storms in our Breasts whereby the most men are guilty and miserable or to regulate the civil Conversation with others And since the coming of Christ Prometheus-like they brought their dead Torches to the Sun and stole some light from the Scriptures Yet upon searching we shall easily discover that notwithstanding all their boasts to purge the Soul from its defilements contracted by its union with the Body and to restore it to its primitive Perfection They became vain in their thoughts and their foolish heart was darkened Although the vulgar Heathens thought them to be guides in the safe way yet they were Companions with them in their wanderings And Truth instructs us that When the blind lead the blind both fall into the ditch I will briefly shew that their Morals are defective and mixt with false Rules only premising three things 1. That I shall not insist on their Ignorance of our Redeemer and their Infidelity in respect of those Evangelical Mysteries that are only discover'd by Revelation for that precisely considered doth not make them guilty before God But only take notice of their defects in natural Religion and moral Duties to which the Law written in the heart obliges all Mankind 2. That Vertue is not to be confounded with Vice although 't is not assisted by special Grace Those who performed acts of Civil Justice and Kindness and Honour were not guilty as those who violated all the Laws of Nature and Reason Their heroic Actions were praise-worthy among men and God gave them a temporal Reward although not being enlivened by Faith and purified by Love to God and an holy Intention for his Glory they were dead works unprofitable as to Salvation 3. Their highest Rule viz. To live according to Nature is imperfect and insufficient For although Nature in its original Purity furnisht us with perfect Instructions yet in its corrupt state 't is not so enlightened and regular as to direct us in our universal Duty 'T is as possible to find all the Rules of Architecture in the ruines of a Building as to find in the remaining Principles of the natural Law full and sufficient Directions for the whole Duty of Man either as to the performing good or avoiding evil The Mind is darkened and defiled with error that indisposes it for its office I will now proceed to shew how insufficient Philosophy is to direct us in our Duty to God our selves and others First In respect of Piety which is the chief Duty of the reasonable Creature Philosophy is very defective nay in many things contrary to it 1. By delivering unworthy Notions and Conceptions of the Deity Not only the vulgar Heathens chang'd the truth of God into a lie when they measured his Incomprehensible Perfections by the narrow compass of their
Persecutors he had certainly obtained it He tells his Disciples that upon his request his Father would send twelve Legions of Angels for his rescue But he resigned the whole Power of his Will to his Fathers not my will but thy will be done was his Voice at his privat Passion in the Garden He submitted the act and exercise of his will not what I will but what thou wilt he saith in another Evangelist he yielded not only the faculty and exercise of his will to do what God enjoyned but in that manner which was pleasing to Him Not as I will but as thou wilt he expresses in the words of a third Now what is there in Heaven or Earth that can move our Wills to entire Obedience if this marvellous Pattern doth not affect us Let the same Mind be in you that was in Christ saith the Apostle How glorious is it to do what he did and what a reproach to decline what he suffer'd who had the Holiness of God to give excellency to the Action and the infirmity of Man to endure the sharpness of the Passion 3. Love to Mankind is exprest by our Saviour in a peculiar manner For although God is Infinitely Good to us yet he doth not prefer the happiness of Man before his own Blessedness The Salvation of the whole World were not to be purchas'd with the least diminution of the Divine Felicity But the Son of God suffer'd the extremest Evil to procure the most sovereign Good for us who were in Rebellion against his Laws and Empire Briefly The Life of Christ contains all our Duties towards God and Man exprest in the most perfect manner or Motives to perform them We may clearly see in his deportment innocent Wisdom prudent Simplicity compassionate Zeal perfect Patience the courage of Faith the joy of Hope the tenderness and care of Love incomparable Meekness Modesty Humility and Purity He spent the night in Communion with God and the day in Charity to Men. He perfectly hated Sin and equally loved Souls The nearest and readiest way to Perfection is a serious regard to his Precedent For the causes of all Sin are either the desire of what he despised or the fear of what He suffer'd He voluntarily deprived himself to Riches Honours Pleasures to render them contemptible and endured outrages of all sorts the contradiction of Sinners and the sharpest Sufferings to make them tolerable He ascended Mount Calvary to his Cross before he ascended from Mount Olivet to his Throne He was naked before He was cloathed with Light and crowned with thorns before with Glory And thus he powerfully teaches us to follow his steps who suffered for us If a Physician of great esteem in a Disease takes a bitter Potion it would perswade those who are in the same danger to use the same Remedy Since the Son of God to purchase our Happiness denied himself the enjoyment of worldly delights and endured the worst of temporal Evils nothing can be more effectual to convince us that the Pleasures of the world are not considerable as to our last end and that present Afflictions are so far from being inconsistent with our supreme Blessedness that they prepare us for it In short His excellent Example not only enlightens our Minds to discover our Duty but inables and excites to perform it As the Eye in beholding visible objects receives their Image so by contemplating the Graces that are conspicuous in our Redeemer we derive a similitude from them We all saith the Apostle with open face beholding as in a glass the Glory of the Lord that is by viewing in the Gospel the Life of Christ which was glorious in Holiness We are changed into the same Image from â—lory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord that is gradually fashioned in Grace according to his likeness And what can more powerfully move and perswade us to Holiness than to consider the President that Christ hath set before us For how honourable is it to be like the Son of God By conformity to Christ we partake of the Divine Perfections The King of Heaven will acknowledge us for his Children when we bear the resemblance of our elder Brother Besides the motive of Honour Love doth strongly incline to follow Holiness in imitation of our Redeemer This is one difference between Knowledge and Love the understanding draws the object to it self and transforms it into its own likeness Thus material objects have an immaterial existence in the mind when it contemplates them But Love goes forth to the object loved the Soul is more where it loves than where it lives that is there is more of its intellectual presence its thoughts and desires and it always affects a resemblance to it Thus Love humbled God and made him like to us in Nature and Love exalts Man by making him like to God in Holiness for it excites us to imitate and express in our actions the Vertues of him who hath called us to his Kingdom and Glory 3. In order to the restoring of Holiness to lapsed Man the Lord Christ purchas'd and conveys the Spirit to them A state of Sin includes a total privation of Holiness and an active contrariety against it The Sinner is dead as to the Spiritual Life and aâ—â—â—nable to revive himself as a carcase is to break the gates of Death and return to the light of the world but he lives to the Sensual Life and expresses a constant opposition to the Law of God He is without strength as to his Duty not able to conceive an holy thought or to excite a sincere and ardent desire towards Divine things but hath strong inclinations of Will and great Power for that which is evil Now to restore Spiritual Life to the dead Soul and to conquer the living enmity that is in it against Holiness no less than the Divine Power was requisite And the effecting this is peculiarly attributed to the Spirit Our Saviour tells Nicodemus Except a man be born of water and of the Holy Ghost he cannot see the Kingdom of God And the Apostle saith That according to his Mercy He saves us by the washing of Regeneration and by the renewing of the Holy Ghost As in the Creation where all the Persons concurr'd 't was the motion of the Spirit that conveyed the Life of Nature So in the Renovation of the World where they all cooperate 't is the powerful working of the Spirit that produces the Life of Grace He visits us in the grave and inspires the breath and flame of Heaven to animate and warm our dead hearts 'T was requisite not only that the Word should take Flesh but that Flesh should receive the Spirit to quicken and enable it to perform the acts of the Divine Life 'T is for this reason the third Person is frequently stiled in Scripture the Holy Spirit That Title hath not an immediate respect to his Nature but to the Operations which are assign'd to
those times Now this alteration was wrought by the force of natural Reason which prevailed on him to renounce those sensual and base lusts that were inconsistent with the Honour and Peace of a Man in this present Life But still he was exceedingly distant from the Purity of a true Saint who partakes of the Divine Nature and is inclin'd in all his motions to God All the Precepts of Morality to use the Similtude of Plutarch are like strong Perfumes that sometimes revive those that are in a Swoon by the Falling-Sickness but never heal them So they may recover those that are debaucht from the outward practice of those ignoble Vices which violate Natural Conscience but they cannot rectifie and cure the corrupt Nature The highest Philosophical Change was onely from those Vices which were scandalous in the view of men but consisted with those which were though more subtile yet not less sinfull and discernable by the pure Eye of God 'T was from one kind of Sin to another from sensual to spiritual Satan cast out Satan or from higher to lower degrees of Sin but not from Sin to Holiness And although the same good Works as to the external substance were performed by the Heathens as by Christians yet they vastly differ in their Principle and End A Brute performs all the acts of Sense that a Man doth but 't is meerly from the sensitive Soul that is of a lower order than that which animates a Man So in the Heathen 't was only the humane Spirit excited by Secular Interests self-Self-love servile Fear that performed Moral Actions But the Holy Spirit who infuses Grace that is as it were a second Soul to elevate that which before quickened the Body is the true Principle of Christian Vertues This sanctifying Spirit who transforms us into the Divine Nature and makes an entire and thorow Change in the Heart and Conversation they did not receive in the way of Nature Of this we have a convincing proof in the Example of the best Masters of Morality who by their Discourses or Writings rais'd it to the point of its perfection Socrates the Father of Philosophy to whom this honour is ascribed among the Grecians that he first made Wisdom descend from Heaven to earth because he left the study of Astronomy in which the Philosophers before him were most conversant and applied himself to that which was useful for the Government of Life and Reformation of Manners He that is propounded by Celsus as an unparallel'd Pattern as one that discovered to what degree of excellency Vertue might raise the humane Spirit yet was guilty of great immorality and impiety Those who pretend to have known the retirements of his Life accused him of impure commerce with Alcibiades He betrayed the Chastity of his Wife by giving her to his Friend Plato and Xenophon his admirers declare his compliance with the common Idolatry which is justly aggravated by St. Austin being against the Convictions of his Conscience For although in private Discourse with his Friends he acknowledged but one God and considered the Sun and Moon only as the works and instruments of the Divine Power and in the rank of other Creatures yet in his Apology before his Judges to prevent the fatal Sentence he charged his enemies to be guilty of impudent falshood who accused him that he did not believe the Gods since he believed as all other men that the Sun and Moon were Gods And during the time of his imprisonment he never addrest one Prayer to God for the pardon of his Sins for he had so high an opinion of his own Vertues that he was insensible of his Vices And dying he commanded a Cock to be offer'd to Aesculapius that is to the Devil under the disguise of that famous Physician To Socrates I shall add Seneca Never any excepting the Sacred Writers and those who are instructed by them hath writ more excellently He describes Vertue as if the living Original were in his Breast but how dull a Copy was drawn in his Life There is as great a difference between the expression of it by his Pen and by his Actions as between the lively Picture of a Face by a rare Pencil and the rude Draught of it with a Coal What a villainous part did he act in exciting Nero to murder his Mother and after in writing an Apology for it employing the colours of his Rhetorick to cover one of the foulest blots which hath appeared in the succession of all Ages His Philosophy was not a powerful Antidote against the Contagion of the Court What just excuse can there be of his Cruelty to his Wife in cutting her Veins that she might die with him from a vain-glorious desire to eternize their Reputation And whereas among the whole Chorus of Vertues he in a special manner exalts Magnanimity in the contempt of earthly things and determines that the necessities of Nature are the just measures of â—â—ches and Delights and all other things which the irregular Appetites of men pursue So that one would think him an Angel in flesh conversing below to instruct the world how to be happy yet the Historians of those times tax him for insatiable Avarice that in a little time by unworthy arts he rak'd up an incredible Sum of Money Supposing it a Calumny that he forged many Wills to seize upon the Inheritance belonging to others what excuse can there be for his excessive Usury his forcing the Britains to borrow a Million of Sesterces and calling for it in so much to their prejudice as was likely to have caused their Rebellion What for his sumptuous Palaces and Gardens of Pleasure exceeding the Luxury of Nero And all these possest by a man who had no Son to inherit a Philosopher a Stoick the great commender of blessed Poverty All the Apology he makes is that a Wise man that is himself Non amat Divitias sed mavult non in animum illas sed in domum inducit non respicit possessas sed continet Agreeing with Aristippus a Philosophizing Animal who being reproved for his intanglement in bruitish love with a famous Harlot replyed I possess her not she me The only difference is in the matter of their Affections the one was Riches the other Pleasure By these instances we may judg of the rest of the Philosophers Although a Vein of Gold appear in their Writings yet their Lives were full of Dross The best of them are charged to have practised vice with those to whom they commended the Precepts of Vertue The foulest Actions were approv'd by some and the most excellent condemned by others that pretended to Philosophical Perfection Unnatural Lust was allowed as indifferent by Zeno and Chrysippus And the noblest Love in giving Life it self for the Glory of God in Martyrdom is censured by Epictetus and Antoninus as the effect of foolish and incurable Melancholy in Christians who were disgusted with the World and
some temptations wherein the Flesh assaults the Spirit with that violence that Love it self is obliged to call in Fear to its assistance as being more proper to repress its inordinate motions 'T is only in Heaven that perfect Love will consume all concupiscence and cast out fear of Judgment but whilst we are encompast with temptations we must not think under the pretext of a more raised Spirituality that the fear of Hell is either unbecoming or unnecessary 'T is not unworthy a Child of God to employ all the Motives of the Gospel We are commanded to work out our own Salvation with fear and trembling But the opening of Hell to our view is not sufficient alone to make us Holy For the strongest terrors although they restrain from the outward forbidden act yet they do not change the Heart According to that of St. Austin Inaniter se victorem putat esse peccati qui poenae timore non peccat quia etsi non impletur foris negotium malae cupiditatis ipsa tamen cupiditas intus est hostis That is the fear of Punishment can never make us truly victorious over sin because although we do not actually accomplish the desires of the corrupt Will yet the corrupt Will is still an enemy that lives within and is only destroyed by the love of Holiness which allures us by the excellent Reward that is promised to it Besides Fear is a violent Passion to which Nature is repugnant so that although its power is great yet not constant how strong soever the force is by which a stone is thrown upwards yet 't is weakned by degrees and overcome by the natural weight of the Stone whereby it falls to the Centre So the Humane Nature resists Fear and lessens its impetuousness so far that frequently it returns to sensual Lusts. Therefore that the Law of the Spirit may be perfect and stable it must be confirmed by the hopes of Heaven As the Natural so the Spiritual Life must be nourisht by grateful food 't is not preserv'd with Aloes or Worm-wood For this reason our Saviour 2. To encourage and raise our Hopes offers to us a Reward infinitely valuable for as God is Infinite such is the Happiness he bestows on his favourites 'T is described to us in Scripture under the most enamouring representations as a state of Peace and Love of Joy and Glory The Prince of Peace reigns in the Holy Jerusalem that is above and preserves an everlasting serenity and calmness The mutinous Spirits that rebell'd were presently chased from thence into this lower Region where they brought trouble and disorder He maketh Peace in his high Places The Peace of Heaven is like the Chrystal Sea before the Throne of the Lamb which no unquiet agitation ever troubles or disturbs An inviolable Love unites all his Subjects no division or jealousie discomposes their Concord They enjoy without envy for infinite Blessedness is not diminished by the number of the possessours The Inheritance in light is communicated to all Although the Angels are distinguish'd by their several Orders and Ministrations as Seraphims and Cherubims Thrones and Powers yet a Chain of Holy Love binds all their affections together And the Saints although they shine with different degrees of Glory yet as in a Chorus of Musick although the voices are different they make but one intire harmony So Love that ever continues unites their wills in a delightful harmonious Agreement Although there are millions of the Celestial Inhabitants yet they all make but one Society Love mixing in one mass of Light and Glory all their understandings and wills And since all true Joy and Sweetness springs from Love 't is impossible but they must feel unspeakable complacency in the reciprocal exercise of so Holy and Pure an Affection But principally their Joy arises from the possession of God himself by the clearest Knowledg and purest Love of his Excellencies They see him as he is Sight is the most Spiritual and noble Sense that gives the most distinct and evident discovery of its objects The Soul in its exalted state sees the King in his Beauty all the perfections of that infinitely Glorious and Blessed Nature in their brightness and purity And this Sight causes the most ardent Love by which there is an intimate and vital union between the soul and its happiness and from hence springs perfect delight In thy presence is fulness of Joy It expels all evil that would imbitter and lessen our felicity And this is an admirable priviledge for the Humane Nature that is so sensible of trouble All complaints and cries all sighings and sorrows are for ever banisht from Heaven If the Light of the Sun be so pleasant that every morning revives the World and renders it new to us which was buried in the darkness of the night how infinitely pleasant will the Light of Glory be that discovers the absolute and universal Excellency of the Deity the beauty of his Holiness the perfection of his Wisdom the greatness of his Power and the riches of his Mercy How inexpressibly great is the Happiness that proceeds from the illumination of a purified Soul when such is the amiableness of God that his infinite and eternal Felicity arises from the fruition of himself The Joy of Heaven is so full and satisfying that a thousand years there are but as one day Inferiour earthly goods presently lose the flower of novelty and languish in our enjoyment of them Variety is necessary to put an edge upon our appetites and quicken our delights because they are imperfect and fall short of our expectation But the object of our Blessedness is infinitely great and produces the same pure and perfect Joy for ever After the longest fruition it never cloys or satiates but is as fresh and new as the first moment And that which is the peculiar Pleasure of the Redeemed is that they shall be with Christ and see his Glory What a marvellous joy will fill our hearts to see our Blessed Saviour who suffer'd so much for us on Earth to reign in Heaven Here He was in his enemies hands there he hath them under his feet Here He was in the form of a Servant there He appears in the form of God adorn'd with all the marks of Majesty Here He was under the cloud of his Fathers displeasure there He appears as the Brightness of his Glory Here He was ignominiously Crucified there He is crown'd with Immortal Honour Now considering the ardent Affections which the Saints have to their Redeemer the contemplation of him in this glorious state must infinitely ravish their hearts Especially if we consider that the exaltation of Christ is theirs The Members triumph when the Head is crown'd His excellent Glory reflects a lustre upon them and by the sight of it they are chang'd into his Likeness If the imperfect and dim sight of his Divine Vertues in the Gospel hath a power to change Believers into his
ever to Glorifie him will proportionably to our state in this life cause us to observe his Commands with delight and constancy A true Christian is moved by Fear more by Hope most by Love CHAP. XIX The Compleatness of our Recovery by Jesus Cist He frees us from the Power as well as Guilt of Sin Sin is the Disease and Wound of the Soul the meer Pardon of it cannot make us happy Sanctification equals if not excels Justification It qualifies us for the enjoyment of God Saving Grace doth not encourage the Practice of sin The Promise of Pardon and Heaven are conditional To abuse the Mercy of the Gospel is dishonourable to God and pernicious to Man The excellency of the Christian Religion discovered from its design and effect The design is to purge Men from Sin and conform them to God's Holiness according to their capacity This gives it the most visible preheminence above other Religions The admirable effect of the Gospel in the primitive Christians An earnest Exhortation to live according to the purity of the Gospel and the great Obligations our Saviour hath laid on us 1. FRom hence we may discover the Perfection and Compleatness of the Redemption that our Saviour purchased for us He fully repairs what was ruin'd by the Fall He was called Jesus because He should save his People from their Sins He reconciles them to God and redeems them from their vain conversation He came by Water and Blood to signifie the accomplishment of what was represented by the Ceremonial Purification and the Blood of the Sacrifices Satisfaction and Sanctification are found in Him And this was not a needless Compassion but absolutely requisite ingorder to our Felicity Man in his guilty corrupt state may be compar'd to a condemn'd Malefactor infected with noisom and painful wounds and diseases and wants the Grace of the Prince to pardon him and Sovereign Remedies to heal him Supposing the Sentence were reverst yet he cannot enjoy his Life till he is restor'd to health Thus the Sinner is under the condemnation of the Law and under many spiritual powerful Distempers that make him truly miserable His irregular Passions are so many sorts of Diseases not only contrary to Health but to one another that continually torment him He feels all the effects of Sickness He is inflam'd by his Lusts and made restless being without power to accomplish or to restrain them All his Faculties are disabled for the Spiritual Life that is only worthy of his Nature and whose operations are mixt with sincere and lasting Pleasure Sin as 't is the Disease so 't is the Wound of the Soul and attended with all the evils of those that are most terrible The whole head is sick the whole heart is faint from the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundess in it but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores Now our Redeemer as he hath obtain'd a full Remission of our Sins so he restores Holiness to us the true health and vigour of the Soul He hath made a Plaister of his living Flesh mixt with his Tears and Blood those divine and powerful Ingredients to heal our Wounds By the Holy Spirit 't is applied to us that we may partake of its vertue and influence His Grace that pardons us doth also purifie the Conscience from dead works that we may serve the Living God Without this the bare exemption from Punishment were not sufficient to make us happy For although the guilty Conscience were secure from Wrath to come yet those fierce unruly Passions the generation of Vipers that lodg in the breast of the Sinner would cause a real Hell Till these are mortified there can be no ease nor rest Besides Sin is the true dishonour of Mans Nature that degrades him from his excellency and changes him into a Beast or a Devil So that to have a licence to wallow in the mire to live in the practice of Sin that defiles and debases him were a miserable Priviledg The Scripture therefore represents the curing of our corrupt Inclinations and the cleansing of us from our Pollutions to be the eminent effect and blessed work of Saving Mercy Accordingly St. Peter tells the Jews that God having raised up his Son Jesus sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from his Iniquities that is Christ in his glorified state gives the Spirit of Holiness to work a sincere thorough Change in men from all presumptuous reigning Sins to universal Holiness An unvaluable benefit that equals if not excels our Justification For as the evil of Sin is in its own nature worse than the evil of Punishment so the freeing us from its dominion is a greater Blessing than meer impunity The Son of God for a time was made subject to our Miseries not to our Sins He devested himself of his Glory not of Holiness And the Apostle in the extasie of his affection desired to be made unhappy for the Salvation of the Jews not to be unholy Besides the end is more noble than the means Now Jesus Christ purchased our Pardon that we might be restored to our forfeited Holiness He ransomed us by his Death that he might bless us by his Resurrection He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and to purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Sanctification is the last end of all he did and suffered for us Holiness is the chiefest excellency of Man his highest advantage above inferiour Beings 'T is the Supream Beauty of the Soul the resemblance of Angels the Image of God Himself In this the perfection of the reasonable Nature truly consists and Glory naturally results from it As a Diamond when its earthy and colourless parts are taken away shines forth in its lustre so when the Soul is freed from its Impurities and all terrene Affections it will appear with a Divine Brightness The Church shall then be glorious when cleansed from every spot and made compleat in Holiness To this I will only add that without Holiness we cannot see God that is delightfully enjoy Him Suppose the Law were dispenst with that forbids any unclean person to enter into the Holy Jerusalem the place cannot make him happy For Happiness consists in the Fruition of an object that is suitable satisfying to our desires The Holy God cannot be our Felicity without our partaking of his Nature Imputed Righteousness frees us from Hell inherent makes us fit for Heaven The sum is Jesus Christ that he might be a perfect Saviour sanctifies all whom He justifies for otherwise we could not be totally exempted from suffering evil nor capable of enjoying the supreme Good we could not be happy here nor hereafter 2. From hence it appears that Saving Grace gives no encouragement to the practice of Sin For the principal aim of our Redeemers Love in dying for us was to sanctifie and cleanse us by the washing of water and
Injur'd and Incensed to forgive their Enemies and all this for Love to God an affection unknown to all other Laws and Institutions Where-ever it came it miraculously transform'd Pagans into Christians which was as truly Wonderful as for the Basilisk to part with its Poison for a Wolfe to be changâ—d into a Lamb nay for Dogs such were the Gentiles in our Saviours Language to be chang'd into Angels of light and purity An eminent instance we have of its efficacy in the Corinthians who in their Heathen-state were guilty of the vilest enormities But after their receiving the Gospel the Apostle testifys they were washed sanctified and Justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Justine Martyr tells Triphon that those who had been stain'd with all filthiness and enslav'd by charming imperious lusts yet becoming Christians they were purified and freed and delighted in those Vertues that were most contrary to their former Vices This Alteration was so visible that the lives of the first Christians were an Apologie for their Faith And 't is strongly urged by Origen Tertullian Lactantius and others as a convinceing proof of the Divinity of the Christian Doctrine that it made the Professours of it Divine in their conversations The Creation of Grace was like the Creation of Nature when trees sprang up in an instant laden with fruits so in the converted all the blessed fruits of the Spirit Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance abounded This testimony even a Pagan Persecutor gives the common sort of Christians that they assembled to sing Hymns to Christ that they obliged themselves solemnly to injure no Person to deceive none to preserve faithfully what was committed to them to be alwayes true And as in obedience to the Gospel they gave a divorce to all the sinful delights of sense so which was incomparably more difficult they embrac't those things which Nature doth most abhor no Religion in the World ever exposed its followers to such Sufferings nor inspir'd them with such resolution to sustain them All other Religions were productions of the flesh and being allyed together if any time jealousy caused a discord between them yet an open Persecution was unusual But when Christianity first appear'd they all turn'd their Hatred and Violence against it as a foreigner of a different extraction How many living Martyrs were Exiles for the Faith and depriv'd of all humane consolation yet they esteem'd themselves more blessed in their Miseries than others in their Pleasures How many thousands were put to Death for the honour of our Redeemer yet the least thing is the number in comparison of the manner of their Sufferings If they had suffer'd a mild Martyrdome an easie sudden Death wherein the Combat and Victory had been finisht at a Blow their Love and courage had not been so admirable but they endur'd torments so various and terrible that had they not been practis'd upon them by their enemies it were incredible that ever Malice should be so ingenious to invent or cruelty so harden'd to inflict them If all the Furie of Hell had come forth to suggest new Tortures they could not have devised worse Neither was their mere suffering such Torments so astonishing as their readiness to encounter them and their behaviour under them They maintained their Faith in the presence of the most formidable Princes Some who might by favour were afraid to escape the common Persecution esteeming no Death precious but Martyrdom They contended earnestly to suffer and envied others the honourable Ignominy and happy Torments that were endur'd for their beloved Redeemer We have an instance of their Courage in Tiburtius who thus spake to his Judges Bind me to Racks and Wheels condemn me banish me load me with Chains burn me tear me omit no kind of Torment If you banish me the smallest corner of the Earth shall be to me as the whole World because I shall find my God there If you kill me by the same act you will give me the happy Liberty I sigh after and deliver me from a Prison on Earth to reign in Heaven If you condemn me to the fire I have quencht other flames in resisting Concupiscence Ordain what Torment you please it shall not trouble me since my Heart is fill'd with Love to suffer and desire it They were thankful to those who condemned them and regarded their Executioners with the same eye as St. Peter did the Angel that brake off his Fetters to restore him to Freedom They chearfully received them as those who brought the keys of Paradise in the same hands wherewith they brought their Swords They enter'd into the Fire with joy and were not only patient but triumphant in their Sufferings as if they had been glorified in their Souls and impassible to the Sufferings of their Bodies I have seen saith Eusebius the Executioners tired with tormenting them lie down panting and breathing and others not less fierce but more fresh succeed in their cruel Service But I never saw the Martyrs weary of Sufferings nor heard them desire a Truce much less Deliverance from them If the Judges were softened with their Blood and by the force of Nature were compell'd to be compassionate so as to offer them a release if they would but feign to deny Christ They were fill'd with indignation esteeming it the worst injury that their Persecutors expected they would be guilty of but the shadow of Infidelity to their dear Saviour They were ambitious of the longest and most terrible Sufferings for His sake to be Martyrs in every member They sang the Praises of Christ their Tongues being harmonious with the affections of their Hearts in the Flames they preach'd Him from the Crosses they rejoiced in him as their only Good in the midst of devouring Beasts Briefly They preserved an inviolable Faith to Him notwithstanding the most furious Batteries against them The barbarous Enemy might tear their Hearts from their Breasts but never Christ from their Hearts to whom they were inseparably united by Love stronger than the most cruel Death Now what less then the Divine Power could support them under those Torments which 't is almost incredible a Body made of flesh could endure I wil not Dispute whether it exceeds all Natural force to suffer such from a vitious Affection of Pride or obstinacy but the frequency of it exceeds all Natural Possibility 'T was not impossible for one of the Romans to hold his Right Hand unmoved over a burning Torch to extinguish in the King their Enemy all hopes 〈◊〉 drawing 〈◊〉 him the Secrets of his Country by the force of Torments but it was not Possible that many thousands such should have been in Rome For then that single Example had not been so wonderful in all Antiquity But the Noble Army of Martyrs who overcame in the most bloody battels was numerous beyond account and compos'd of all sorts of Persons of
made in the likeness of Man this is a lower degree of condescension than the assuming the naked humane nature A Servant is not simply a Man there being many Men of higher quality but a Man in a low State Now he that was in the form of God lessened himself into the form of a servant that is took the humane nature without honour attended with its infirmities So that by the visible condition of his life he was judged to be an ordinary person and not that under that meanness the Lord of Angels had been concealed This will more distinctly be understood if we consider the lowness of his extraction the poverty of his birth and the tenor of his life whilst he converst with Men. What Nation was more despicable in the esteem of the World than the Jews and Christ came of their stock and among the Jews none were more vilified than the Galileans and in Galilee-Nazareth was a contemptible village and in Nazareth the Family of Joseph was very obscure and to him our Saviour was nearly allied His reputed Father was a Carpenter and his Mother a poor Virgin that offered two Pigeons for her purification He first breathed in a Stable and was covered with poor swadling-cloaths who was Master of Heaven and Earth and adorns all creatures with their glory But Love made him who is Heir of all things renounce the priviledge of his supernatural Sonship Incredible condesension Therefore an Angel was dispatcht from Heaven who appeared with a surprizing miraculous light the visible character of his dignity to prevent the scandal which might arise from the meanness of his condition and to assure the Shepherds that the Babe which lay in the Manger was the Redeemer of the World The course of his Life was a preface and preparative for the Death of the Cross. He had a just right to all that Glory which a created Nature personally united to the Deity could receive An eminent instance of it there is in his Transfiguration when Glory descended from Heaven to encompass him that which was so short should have been continual but he presently returned to the lowness of his former condition The fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily yet in his humble state he was voluntarily deprived of those admirable effects which should proceed from that union Strange separation between the Deity and the Glory that results from it God is light and the Son is the brightness of his Fathers Glory yet in his Pilgrimage upon the Earth he was alwayes under a cloud Astonishing Miracle transcending all those in the course of Nature yet the power of Love effected it He was made not only lower than the Angels but less than all Men joyning Oh amazing abasement the Majesty of God with the meanness of a Worm The High and Lofty-One whom the Prophet saw Exalted on a High Throne and all the Powers of Heaven in a posture of Reverence about Him was despised and rejected of Men they turned their eyes from him not for the lustre of his Countenance but for shame If the Lord had assumed our Nature in its most honourable Condition and appeared in its Beauty the condescension were infinite For although Men are distinguish'd among themselves by Titles of Honour yet as two Gloworms that shine with an unequal brightness in the Night are equally obscured by the light of the Sun So all men those that are advanc'd to the most eminent degree as well as the most abject and wretehed are in the same distance from God But He emptied himself of all his Glory he grew up as a tender Plant and as a Root out of a dry ground there was no Form or Comliness in him From his Birth to the time of his Preaching he lived so privately as only known under the quality of the Carpenters Son There was a continual repression of that inconceivable Glory that was due to him the first moment of his appearing among Men. In short His despised Condition was an abasement not only of his Divinity but his Humanity And how conspicuous was his Love in this darkning Condescension We know the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich he became poor for our sakes He did not assume that which was due to the excellency of his Nature but what was convenient for our Redepmtion which was to be accomplisht by Sufferings Where can be found an Example of such Love Some have favourable Inclinations to help the distressed and will express so much Compassion as is consistent with their state and quality But if in order to the relieving of the miserable one must submit to what is shameful who hath an affection so strong and vehement as to purchase his Brothers Redemption at the loss of his own Honour Yet the Son of God descended from his Throne and put on our vile Mortality He parted with his Glory that He might be qualified to part with his Life for our Salvation How doth this exalt his Compassion to us And further He took our Nature after it had lost its Primitive Innocency The natural distance between God and the creature is infinite the moral between God and the sinful creature if possible is more than infinite Yet the Mercy of our Redeemer overcame this distance What an extasie of Love transported the Son of God so far as to espouse our Nature after it was defiled and debased with Sin He was essential Innocence and Purity yet He came in the similitude of sinful flesh which to outward view was not different from what was really sinful He was the Holy Lawgiver yet He submitted to that Law which made Him appear under the character and disreputation of a Sinner He paid the bloody Tribute of the Children of wrath being circumcised as guilty of Adam's Sin and he was baptised as guilty of his own 2. The most evident and sensible proof of the greatness of Gods Love to Mankind is in the Sufferings of our Redeemer to obtain our Pardon He is called in Scripture A man of Sorrows the title signifies their number and quality His whole Life was a continual Passion He suffered the contradiction of Sinners who by their malicious Calumnies obscur'd the lustre of his Miracles and most innocent Actions He endured the Temptations of Satan in the Desert He was often in danger of his Life But all these were nothing in comparison of his last Sufferings 'T is therefore said that at the bare apprehension of them He began to be sorrowful as if He had never felt any Grief till then His former Afflictions were like scatter'd drops of Rain But as in the Deluge All the Fountains beneath and all the Windows of Heaven above were opened So in our Saviours last Sufferings the Anger of God the Cruelty of Men the Fury of Devils broke out together against him And that the degrees of his Love may be measured by those of his Sufferings it