cry out Sero te amavi Domine Lord 't was late e're I loved thee True Faith would have none but Christ loving him as St. Bernard used to say Plus quam mea meos me More than all my goods my friends my self And as another holy Man did weeping that it can love Christ no more As touching our Love to our Neighbour it is also actuated by Faith Reason and Humanity raise up a Love towards Man the Barbarians kindly received St. Paul and his Shipwracked Company Act. 28.2 Titus Vespasian was called Amor deliciae humani generis the Love and delight of Mankind Suffering none to go away sad from his Presence Nay Herod himself in a Famine turned all his Plate and rich Houshold-stuff into Money therewith to fetch Corn out of Egypt for the necessities of the People Only this Love for want of Supernatural rectitude squints at Vain-glory or moves upon some other selfish Principles or at best rises up out of a simpathy of the common nature True Love towards our Neighbour such as issues out of Faith unfeigned 1 Tim. 1.5 is propter Deum for Gods sake And as the School-men say There is but one root or habit of Love whereby we love God and our Neighbour because God as he is supream Goodness is the formal reason of Love to our Neighbour He only being to be loved for himself and others but the material Objects of Love to be loved for him hence also damned or irrational Creatures are not properly the Objects of Love because not capable of Union with God in bliss Unto this true Love Faith presses by some such Divine motives as these is not Love a Command nay the sum of the second Table and must it not be obeyed Can we wait for Promises and not observe Commands Or may we have the Love of the first Table without that of the second Hath not God loved us in an incomparable unparalleld way and shall we not love our Brother Shall infinite bowels open and finite ones be shut If any shut them how dwelleth the love of God in him saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 3.17 A touch a sense of his Love let in by Faith will make ours flow out towards our Neighbour Such a sweet pressure of it was on Mr. Fox That he never denied any that asked for Jesus sake A Believer acting as a Believer cannot be hard to his Neighbour or say Go and come again as long as the Mercy-seat is open And what is thy Neighbour is he not thine own flesh Nay doth he not in a sense bear Gods Image and is he not capable of eternal Blessedness And who that hath a hope of singing Hosanna's in Heaven would not love such an one And will not God be glorified thereby Graces shew forth more of God than Creatures and Love more than all the rest because he is Love it self The Primitive Christians told the World whose they were by their one heart and one soul Terrull Apol. Act. 4.32 And afterward their Love was pointed at by the very Pagans saying Vide ut invicem se diligant See how they love one another And do we know what and how great a thing may be in acts of Love Some entertaining strangers have entertained Angels Heb. 13.2 But possibly we may do more we may feed or cloth or visit Christ in his poor members and in the other World be repaid all again with usury From such Divine Motives as these Faith actuates Love to our Neighbour but this is not all Faith actuates it in a regular and congruous way according to relations and propinquities giving out a Love of delight to the Saints as having most of God in them a Love of mercy to the poor as being Christs Treasurers a love of reverence to Parents by whom we received our being a Love of provision to Children who are our selves multiplied and a Love of benevolence to all not excluding enemies to love enemies is as one saith inter mirabilia legis one of the wonders of the Law and yet Faith in the gospel-Gospel-grace will reach it Hence it is observable that when our Saviour bids his Disciples to forgive even such as trespass against them seven times in a day They reply in a Prayer Lord encrease our faith Luk. 17.5 because Faith will move Love into act even in the difficult duty of forgiving others Another Grace actuated by Faith is holy Fear of God the very light of Nature revealing some glimmerings of his Greatness and Justice raises up a Fear of him The Barbarians seeing the Viper on St. Pauls hand cried out of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a revenging justice as if he had been a murderer Act. 28.4 Pythagoras begins his Golden Verses with Veneration of the Gods Among all Nations there hath been a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fearing of God The ancient Gauls out of reverence to their gods would not touch the consecrated Gold lying in their Temples Upon the same account there were among many Ethnicks Nudipedalia sacra barefooted devotions Only this Fear was in it self but servile and further corrupted by false opinions of the Deity and hence sprung all that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worship or superstition which was among the Heathens The progeny of their ancient Daemons their Charms and Exorcisms their Festivals and Purifications their Lustrations and human inhuman Sacrifices and all their strange Rites and Ceremonies of Adoration whereby they endeavoured to flatter and compound with their gods and guilty Consciences This servile Fear is further advanced when to the light of Nature is superadded that of the pure Law which flashes in upon the Conscience and sets it on sire with reslections upon guilt and expectations of wrath thereupon but it is servile still and chiefly looks at punishment A man in such a state may forbear an act of Sin but he is corrupt within adbue vivit in eo peecandi voluntas the love of Sin is in him still as an Ancient hath it His heart saith to his Sin as the Emperour Bassimus did to his beautiful Mother in Law Quà m vellem si liceret Oh that there were no Law against it or punishment to follow after it He may do good but not well Intus reus est in animo non facit he is guilty within and in mind doth it not as St. Austin saith there wants that love of righteousness out of which true Obedience issues but where Faith is there is castus timor a pure filial fear of God such as reverences his Majesty as supream and sears Sin as the greatest evil and withal punishment in its due place though not principally or in a servile way and among punishments chiefly that of loss and separation from God as a greater evil than the rest And as Faith sees the invisible one more or less so this holy Fear is more or less moved into act Of old the appearances of God in outward Symbols of glory struck an a we
immense Treasures of Grace in Christ set open in this Ordinance to all comers Here 's Eye-salve for our Blindness Strength for our Weakness Melting for the hard Heart Cordials for Fainting-fits quenching Grace against the fiery darts of Satan and Healing for the bloody issues of Sin From this Table we go saith Chrysostome as Lions breathing fire terrible to the Devils themselves Ante faciem Vnctionis Christi nullus omnino stare potest morbus animae quamvis inveteratus saith Bernard Before the Vnction of Christ the most inveterate disease of the Soul will vanish away When once the Venetians were boasting of their great Treasures a Spanish Ambassador told them That his Masters Treasure had a root in the Mines of America However worldly Men may boast of outward things the Believers joy is That his Graces have a sure root in the Mines and rich Treasures of Christ in whom dwells all fulness of abundance and redundance running over in shares and measures upon all that are in him As a spirit of Love it inflames the Heart towards Christ Oh! what manner of Love is here set before us the Father 's own Son and Image passing by Angels assumed our frail Flesh and in it stood in our room Having though the Holy One the Sin of the World cast on him by a wonderful Imputation and though the beloved Son the Wrath of God bruising and pressing him into a bloody Agony and Passion on our behalf The Fathers Eternal Joy and Splendor lay for a time in a dark Eclipse of Sorrow and Desertion as one forsaken of God that we might not be cast out into utter darkness and bled and died on a Cross as one accursed of God to keep us from bleeding in eternal flames and to purchase a place in Glory for us And all this in outward Elements is not only limmed out and figured to our senses but sealed to our hearts as that which we have a real share and interest in And what attractives and inflammatives are here Now if ever our Heart will breath out it self in holy Raptures after Christ and faint and swoon away in Love-sick desires till it can catch hold and embrace him and so taste the rare Delights and Complacencies of an Union with Him And the greater those Complacencies are the higher are the Desires and reciprocally the higher the Desires the greater the Complacencies till at last the Believing Soul in rapes of Love breaks forth into Hosanna's and Hallelujahs touching its great Redeemer Such Experiments as these prove this Ordinance to be Divine Thus much touching the Ordinances in Scripture and the Experimenting their Divinity In the last Place I shall mention The great Works of Power Recorded in Scripture many of these are Types of the Magnalia or Spiritual Wonders wrought in or for the Souls of Men. Thus the Ark which saved from the Deluge was a Type of Salvation from Wrath in and through Christ Isaac born of a dead Body and Womb a Type of the New-creature brought forth by supernatural Grace and The bringing Israel out of Egypt a Type of the great Redemption wrought by Christ These a Believer may Experiment in their Spiritual Imports and Mysteries which are more great and glorious than the Things themselves Not to be prolix in this I shall only instance in two Things viz. The Creation of the World Historically set forth Gen. 1. and The Miracles wrought by Christ related in the Gospel As touching Creation as clear a Glass as it is of the Eternal Power and Godhead the Philosophers were much mistaken about it Aristotle asserting That the World was Eternal as if it were possible That there should be an infinite orderly Succession of Things or a third fourth fifth c. without a first or as if a World a Creature could be made as the Son of God was Begotten or joyn Eternities with its Creator The Stoicks dreaming at least of an Eternal Matter or Chaos as if that Axiome ex nihilo nihil fit which runs true in Nature did reach God himself or as if He like our Mechanicks on Earth could not work without Tools or Materials Or as if the Gulf between Nothing and Being were so great that Infinite Power could not fill it up and setch over a Creature from Nullity into Being The Epicureans fancying the World to be made by a fortuitous concourse of Atomes luckily meeting together in the framing of it as if the blind Particles of Matter could range themselves into a World full of delicate Order and Harmony or as if the various parts regular motions and orderly dispositions in the great Universe could be but a chance or as if the admirable consent and confederation of all the parts therein in which contraries conspire and agree together for the good of the whole were but a fortunate casualty Such were the dreams of the Sophi but the Believer by Faith understands That the Worlds were framed by the Word of God Hebr. 11.3 And over and above may experience a Creation a pretious New-creation in his own Heart We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus saith the Apostle Eph. 2.10 In this Creation Almighty Power is as much laid out as in the Old and the Products of it are much more excellent than the other Spiritual Light excels Natural and the Firmament of Faith the outward One. The Living Water within exceeds the great Ocean and Christ in the Heart the Sun in the Heavens Graces are transcendent Creatures and surpass even the Immortal Soul which yet outweighs a World The Believer may look upon his Holy Faith Fear Love Joy Hope and Patience which make up the New-Creature and say All these were created out of Nothing and called into Being when they were not Here is dextra excelsi The right hand of the most High the very same which made the World and Vestigia Spiritûs Sancti The footsteps of that Holy Spirit which of old moved on the Face of the Waters Now I know That God is a Creator indeed and have a practical proof of it in my own Heart every part of the New-creature bearing witness thereunto As to the Miracles of Christ related in the Gospel these were so famous That Josephus mentions them Celsus and Julian in their Writings against Christians durst not deny them Grot. de Ver. Relig. 44. Camero de Verbo 441. Petr. Gal. de Arranis 447. The Jews in their Talmudical Books nay and the Mahometans in their Alchoran confess them And the Heathens moved with envy at them caused the life of Apollonius Thyanaeus and his lying Miracles to be described in meer opposition to Christ and his true ones When John sent his Disciples on that errand Art thou he that should come that is the Messias Christ returns this answer Go and tell John the blind receive their sight the lame walk the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear and the dead are raised up As much as to say In such Wonders as these is
other of Hope which afforded her great Comfort in her Torments Caspar Olevian a German Divine being asked by one Whether he were certain of his Salvation answered just at the brink of death Certissimus I am most sure of it Mr. Bolton being near death expressed himself thus My whole heart is filled with joy I feel nothing within but Christ Mr. Hieron said His Soul was full of joy as if be had seen Heaven open to receive him Such Paradises of Joy Sabbatisines of Spirit and Prepossessions of Glory have the Saints found in their way to Heaven Again there being an infallible Connexion between truth of Grace and Pardon and also between Perseverance in Grace and Salvation a Believer may be assured of the truth of his Graces and so of his Pardon and again he may be assured of his Perseverance in Grace and so of his Salvation These two demonstrated will make good the Point First I say A Believer may be assured of the truth of his Graces and so of his Pardon which cannot but be where those are And for the truth of Grace a double Testimony may be vouched one from Conscience the other from the holy Spirit the Apostle mentions both The spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit Rom. 8.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it co-witnesseth with ours and in the mouth of two such Witnesses there must needs be establishment Hence St. Chrysostome on these words breaks out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What scruple can remain after such a Testimony I shall begin with the testimony of Conscience Conscience is a spy in our bosom which marks every thing a spiritual Eccho which returns our actions and makes them sound again after they are past and gone from us By it the Soul turns its eyes in ward and becomes a Speculum or Looking-glass to it self representing to it self its own acts By it it bends back the beams of general Truths and applys them to Particulars That Righteousness and Virtue should be followed is an universal Truth but Conscience can reflect it back upon us and bids us do so in particular and if we indeed do it Conscience will say Euge this or that is well done by us The Testimony of Conscience was of great repute among Pagans Plato calls it his Daemon and Menander a God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he Conscience is a God to Mortals And Seneca Deus in humano corpore hospitans God dwelling in an humane body Hence came Pythagoras's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or self-reverence And Sextius his parly with himself every night what Vice he had in the day resisted and Virtue promoted And the Satyrists complaint touching the neglect of the reflexive faculty Vt nemo in sese tentat descendere nemo few or none would descend into themselves Among Christians the Testimony of Conseience must needs be sacred their Consciences not lying as the Pagans in their blood or natural pollution but being purified by the precious Blood and Spirit of Christ their lamps of Reason not lying as the others in the damp and darkness of the fall but brought forth and new-lighted at the Scripture and Sun of Righteousness shining therein as in its orb Conscience in a Believer is as St. Bernard hath it Purum Religionis speculum a pure glass of Religion And as another Major pars clavium the greatest key in the Church such an excellent Witness may well speak in this Point In David it speaks thus O Lord I have walked in my integrity Psal 26.1 that is in the exercise of Faith Love Obedience and other Graces which as so many Pearls make up Sincerity In Hezekiah it speaks much after the same manner Remember O Lord how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart Isa 38.3 And it is the more to be noted because Conscience saith so in a way of appeal even to God himself and by a right 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holds up the truth of its Graces to so pure a Sun This is such a Testimony as St. Paul joys and glories in 2 Cor. 1.12 Est quidam modus in Conscientia gloriandi ut noveris fidem tuam esse sinceram spem tuam certam caritatem tuam sine simulatione saith St Austin There is a kind of glorying in conscience when thou knowest thy Faith sound Hope certain and Love undissembled A Man that repents believes and loves may by the pulse of Conscience know that he doth so True saith Bellarmine he may know that he doth them but not that he doth them sicut oportet as he ought to do them Unto which I answer Conscience according to its Light and Line of Principles can bear Witness to Integrity natural Conscience to natural Integrity and renewed Conscience to gracious Integrity An instance of the former we have in Abimelech whose Conscience told him That he meant not to take away another mans Wise Gen. 20.5 and of the latter in St. Paul whose Conscience told him That his Conversation was in simplicity and godly sincerity 2 Cor. 1.12 Conscience which Witnesses Integrity must look beyond the meer matter of Acts into the modus for therein Integrity especially such as is gracious consists more than in the Acts themselves Unless a man know that he repents believes and loves sicut oportet he cannot know his own Sincerity and if he know his Sincerity he knows that he repents believes and loves aright A Believer converses much between Scripture and Conscience fetching his Notions from the one and his Evidences from the other In the Word he sees the Characters of Grace and in the Conscience the state of his Soul True Repentance mourns over sin as sin hates it as the greatest evil and casts it away as an accursed thing saith the Word and such is thy Repentance saith Conscience True Faith prizes Christ overcomes the World and works by Love saith the Word and such a Faith is thine saith Conscience True Love is inflamed from Gods sweetly acquiesces in him and obedientially resignes to him saith the Word and such a Love is thine saith Conscience Interroga cortuum Ask thy heart If Love be there saith St. Austin Ask again If Faith and Repentance be there thou hast an Oracle within that can tell thee what thou lovest most trustest in most and grievest for most that can shew thee thy Uprightness witness the Truth of thy Graces and feast thee with Divine Comforts such as pass understanding It was a great Comfort to the Nobleman when his Servants met him and told him Thy Son liveth John 4.51 But oh What is it to the Believer when such an one as Conscience comes and saith Thy Faith liveth or thy Love burneth towards God or thy Repentance is pure godly forrow Then the Oyl of Joy is upon every Grace and the Cup of Consolations runneth over Conscience becomes a banquetting-house and Assurance as Latimer calls it is the Sweet-meats We have heard one Witness but the Supream who drops all
in Charity draw out thy Alms and with them thy Soul give outward Things and which is more thy Self in real compassion Cast thy Bread upon the Waters upon the Tears of the Poor that it may be carried into the Ocean of Eternity and there found again in a glorious Reward When an Object of Charity meets thee Say not Go and come again pass not by as the Priest and Levite did but as the good Samaritan immediately pour in thy Wine and Oyl into the Wounds of thy Brother omit no Season of Charity Now is thy Seed-time scatter thy good Works Sow upon Blessings as the Phrase is 2 Cor. 9.6 Now Christs Bank is open put in thy Money upon holy Usury and God himself will be thy Pay-Master Be still a-doing of good that in thy little sphere thou mayst resemble him who doth good in the great sphere of Nature His Sun shines and Rain falls every-where Be as like him as thou canst shining in good Works and dropping in Charities upon all occasions Give a Portion to seven and also to eight saith the Preacher Eccles 11.2 From this Text the Jews ground a Custom to give an Alms to seven or eight poor people every day However that be we should be much in Charity Look on the Poor as Gods Altars erected on purpose That upon their Backs and Bellies thou mayst offer up thy Charity as an Odour of a sweet smell a Sacrifice acceptable well-pleasing to God Be rich in good Works ready to distribute willing to communicate laying up a good Foundation against the time to come This is the way to Assurance Works of Mercy and Charity make Faith visible and withal put the Believer into a nearer capacity to have the Love of God manifested to him They make Faith visible no Assurance can be had unless that Query Whether we be in the Faith be resolved in the Affirmative That cannot be done unless Faith become visible and more visible it cannot be than in such good Works which as the holy Blossoms of it prove that there is Life at the root The Mercy and Charity which hang upon it may tell thee That thou hast indeed closed by Faith with the infinite Love and Grace above and from thence brought down all those drops and models of Goodness which thou sheddest forth in thy Conversation The Fruit may prove thy standing in Christ the true Root of fatness and sweetness The Image of Goodness limmed and drawn out upon thy Life shews it self to be from the pure Spirit St. John exhorting the little children to a real practical Love adds this as a singular Comfort 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In this Love we know that we are of the Truth and shall assure our hearts before him 1 John 3.18 19. It thou love thy Brother in Deed and in Truth assure thy self that thou art of the Truth That the holy truth of the Gospel is mixed with faith in thy Heart and there grows up into the Divine life and likeness Say not That thy Faith is dead or idle as long as it can shew forth the Coats and Garments the Alms and good Works which it hath done these shew the life and labour of it Nay further these put thee into a nearer capacity to have the Love of God manifested to thee God in the Prophet commands them to deal their bread to the hungry to cover the naked not to hide themselves from their own flesh and immediately after lets out himself in sweet Promises to them Thy righteousness shall then go before thee Isa 58.8 that is thy Graces shall visibly appear to thee And again Thou shalt call and the Lord shall answer thou shalt cry and he shall say here am I ver 9. that is He will be very near and ready at hand to reveal himself to thee And which is more as St. John tells us he will dwell in thee He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4.16 He dwells in the Divine Life and the Divine Presence dwells in him He hath a Shechinah nay and an Oracle in his own bosom God will speak peace to his Saints Psal 85.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to his merciful ones with them he will shew himself merciful to them he will speak from the Mercy-seat they give but ordinary Bread but receive from him hidden Manna they draw out their Souls to their Brethren and he draws out his Soul to them In the last place if thou wouldst be assured set thy heart on God and Christ and Heaven stay no longer in the straits of this lower World take thy flight by Faith and Love into the sphere of Infinity where thy Soul may open and dilate it self for ever Hang no longer about the drops and little particles of Being put forth thy Soul might and main into the great ocean of Sweetness and Perfection which is able to fill up thy two vast Capacities of Mind and Will with its unmeasurable Truth and Goodness Warm thy Heart no more among the little sparks of Good here below soar up upon the wings of Desire and ardent Affection to that pure immutable Sun of Love and Goodness one of whose golden rays of favour will be more to thee than a World Thou hast O Believer a Soul twice Heaven-born once as it is in its own nature an immortal spark from above and again as it bears the impress of Heaven in its Graces And answerably thou hast a double impetus after Happiness one in the instinct of nature thirsting after it and another in the more Divine impulses of Grace pressing towards it as its Center Think not that such a Soul shall ever find rest till it come back to the first point from whence it issued and resign up it self to its Original in the bosom of God Inflame thy Heart with Love to Jesus Christ who is altogether lovely and wholly desirable In his Righteousness thou maist stand and look up to the sweet reconciled face of God In his bleeding wounds thou hast a passage into the infinite bowels of Mercy through the veil of his flesh the way is open to the Holy of Holies The oyl upon his head can fill thee with joy unspeakable and glorious Lift up thine eyes O Believer to that wonder of wonders God manifested in the flesh from whence come all the admirable indwellings of God in the spirits of Men. Set thy Heart upon that Infinite Mass and Treasure of Merit which paid off all the scores to Divine Justice and over and above bought all the Glory of Heaven for poor worms Ravish thy Soul in the rich redundancies and over-measures of the Spirit upon him which overflow and fill so many thousand precious Souls with Grace Look stedfastly upon that pure mirrour of Love Holiness Meekness Goodness Obedience Patience which is in his flesh look till thou shine with the same image or spiritual Idea of Grace look till thou art captivated in raptures and flames of Love towards
him count the whole World dross and dung for him espouse him in the dearest and sweetest affections Again set thy heart upon Heaven call back thy Affections from this vain World where they have been scattered a-gathering up stubble unto Heaven thy native Country that thou maist have a pregnant proof in thy self that thou art born from thence and a-going thither Follow those attractions which Heaven the great Center of Grace and Holiness put upon thy Faith and Love to draw thee up to it self Long to be up in that pure region of Bliss where God is All in All There are sinless Perfections and tearless Comforts rivers of Pleasures and plenitudes of Joy for ever Thou maist there read all Truths in the Original and satiate thy self at the fountain of Goodness Have thy Conversation above drive on a constant trade there by Prayers and good Works that thou maist have rich returns of Grace and Love from thence This is the true way to Assurance A notable instance we have in the Psalmist O God thou art my God early will I seek thee my soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is Psal 63.1 and what is the issue of it his Soul which had so emptied out it self in holy Pantings and Anhelations after God was soon satisfied with the marrow and fatness of his love ver 5. No sooner was the Spouse sick of love to Christ Cant. 2.5 but his left hand is under her head in Supports and his right hand embraces her in the sweet manifestations of his Love to her ver 6. The more Heavenly the Believer is the sitter he is for Assurance which serves as a lesser Heaven for him till he come to the great one which is above Thus much touching the second thing the ways in which Assurance is attained To conclude all the Believer having arrived at Assurance which is the highest step on this side Heaven may sit down with joy upon his head and begin that Song of Free-grace and the Lamb which is sung above though in an higher tune in the Heavenly quire of Angels and glorified Saints for ever and ever Well may he say Oh! what hath God wrought what was he a lump of dust and sin to be brought hither How did he lie in blood and death till Grace came by and put in the breath of Spiritual life into him Was not his Reason the lightest part in him veiled and covered over with gross darkness when the rosie morn and day-spring of Grace first broke out upon him in Spiritual illuminations Was not his Will though a free Principle fast shut up in Hardness and Unbelief when Grace opened the Iron-gate and made him free to his own Happiness What a poor broken Man and under what innumerable debts was he when Grace came and paid off all by the Blood of the Covenant How much of Earth and Hell was upon him before Grace made him a Son and limmed out the Divine Image upon his Heart What swarms and legions of Lusts kept possession in his Heart when Grace set up its standard and drove them out to make room for the holy seed there And after he became a Saint what an hand had Grace with him to cure his many weaknesses and nurse up his infant-Graces What a vast charge was it at in fresh anointings and supplies of the Spirit to keep the holy lamp and fire from going out And at last how rich and glorious is Grace towards him when it carries him up into the mount of Assurance and there shews him the great things which it hath done and will do for him the true Graces and blossoms of Glory in his Heart and a fair Heaven that lies beyond them where Crowns and Robes of Happiness wait for his coming Oh! Grace infinite Grace thou art the Origine of all Graces and Center of all Praises All the Saints owe their birth and safe conduct to Heaven to thee and to every step of thine from the first beams and drops of Mercy to the Bliss-making Vision and rivers of Pleasures above Hosannabs and Halielujahs must be sung for ever and ever FINIS The TABLE A ADam Preacht of Christ Pag. 376 Adoption a fruit of Faith 241. It s Priviledg 242 to 249 hereby a greater Glory than in Adam Pag. 244 Adriatick Sea a Popish Fable about the calming of it Pag. 104 105. Albertus Magnus his Statue speaking articulately Pag. 164 Ambrose's saying of Cain and Abel Pag. 367 Armas Burgus his Prayer at his Martyrdom 176 His Patience Pag. 318 Andelots brave answer when questioned to Henry 2d of France Pag. 315 Anselm's Interrogatory and Counsel to a Man at the point of death Pag. 80 Antinomians Error about Sin the Law Pag. 121 Assurance and Faith how differ 137 to 149 That it is attainable 397. Of our good estate is attainable 387. Names given to Faith shew it 399 410. Another ground 404. Examples of it 403 Popish errour about it 388. Like the Sceptick Philosophers herein 389. It puffs not up 395 396 Assurance of Pardon 397. Of Perseverance 412. Ways by which it is attained 424. It begins the Song of Free-Grace here Pag. 460 Athanasius his saying when Banished by the Emperour Pag. 198 Augustin's mistake about Faith retracted 6 Strugling against Sin in his own strength he heard a voice 279. His Spiritual application of Christs raising up three from the dead Pag. 385 386 B Baptism several Names given it by the Ancients 371. How a Jewish Custom then a Divine Ordinance 372. Though received in Infancy yet hath a bond on Conscience ibid. 373. One confirmed in Martyrdom by it by his Mother ibid. Burgundians Baptism Pag. 374 Bellarmine died in doubt Pag. 426 427 Belief of the Divine Authority of the Scriptures of what kind 37 to 41. What the consequences of it in order to Resignation 69 to 75. A Believer keeps to the Written Word in all things 122 to 126. The only wise man 170. His knowledg of the Invisible God 171 172. The Presentiality of Things future 186. Vnderstands seeming Contradictions 187. It s spiritual extraction the best Chymist 192 to 201. What he desires to know of himself Pag. 381 Belial a son of Belial what it imports Pag. 160 Bernards reflection on himself when he saw another Sin Pag. 313 Bishop no non-preaching Bishops of old Pag. 377 378 Blessing of Jacob and Esan differ 344. Promise of Temporal Blessings not absolute Pag. 345 Blood a little drop given out to be the Blood of Jesus Christ Pag. 364 365 C Cardinal Cajetan's Commentaries on the Master of the Sentences extold by Papists above Luther yet 200 Errors in it Pag. 156 Christ earthly things often in competition 159 His Conception in the Womb and the Heart compared 288 361 362. He is the Samplar of our Graces 291. How he died in his person and in the Believer Pag. 373 Conditions of the Promises really in Believers Pag.
PRECIOUS FAITH CONSIDERED In its Nature Working and Growth By Edward Polhill of Burwash in Sussex Esq LONDON Printed for Thomas Cockerill at the Atlas in Cornhil near the Royal-Exchange 1675. To the CHRISTIAN Reader HE that with serious eyes looks on that dreadful spectacle lapsed Angels lying in Chains of Darkness for ever and that for one Sin may very well stand and wonder at the Salvation of Men in which worms are as it were Angelized and little lumps of corrupted dust are first refined by Grace and then transfigured into Glory The pure Origine of this great Work is no other than the Divine Grace and Love which have so fairly pourtraied and limmed out themselves upon every piece of it that all the Saints above and below may read the Characters thereof and have reason to cry out Grace Grace Indeed Heaven and Earth too should ring with the Praises of it and Eternity it self will be short enough to behold and admire it in To compass this Glorious design the Son of God left his Fathers Bosom and appeared in our Flesh to make a Robe for us of his own Righteousness and a Laver for us in his own Blood Our Nature in him is now in Heaven and his Spirit is descended to impress his Image on us thereby to make us meet for that Blessed Region to secure all to us Heaven hath let down a great Charter in the precious Gospel in which we have a Map of Glory and Eternal Life set before us to elevate our Souls which are sparks of Immortality out of the dust and rubbish of the Fall and to set them aspiring after the true Pleasures and Beatitudes which are above That we may not mistake our way or faint in it the holy Spirit hath in the Gospel drawn many lines of Holiness and Comfort There are pure Precepts to chalk out the Way to Heaven and sweet Promises to cordial us therein and to give us some Tastes of Heaven before we come there The great condition of this Salvation which streams down out of the fountain of Grace through the Blood of Christ into the Evangelical Promises is no other than Faith This is the Aurora of Glory Heaven and Eternal Life dawn in it This is the Hypostasis of Things hoped for It presentiates the Celestial Paradise and in some sort sets the Believer by the rivers of Pleasures which are there This receives all from Grace and ascribes all to it prompting the Believer to confess touching his Spiritual Being and Working By the Grace of God I am what I am and by the Grace of God I do what I do This unites to Christ wraps up it self in his Righteousness feasts on his precious Body and Blood unto Life Eternal and surrenders up Heart and Life to the blessed duct of his Spirit and Word Walking on in holy Precepts it drinks Comfort out of Promises following hard after Holiness it meets with Peace such as passes understanding overcoming earth with all its Troops of vanity it ascends and takes Heaven by violence and renting off the dark veil of Time it looks into Eternity and aspires after that Bliss-making Vision which is the true Center of it Where this Grace is there the Gospel is not in word only but in power The Truth stands not meerly without in the letter but is entertained within and springs up in the Heart as a seed of Immortal Happiness The Divine Excellencies of this noble Grace have drawn out my Thoughts in the ensuing Discourse now offered to publick view The Errata's and Infirmities in it beg the Readers kind Indulgence And the holy Truths therein call for a Practical Improvement If but any Mite may get into the Treasury if any thing thereby may redound to the Glory of God or profit of Men it is enough and a sufficient recompence for him who is A Lover of Truth Edw. Polhill PRECIOUS FAITH CHAP. I. Some general acceptions of the word Faith in Scripture premised Precious Faith described and considered in the general nature of it as it is a grace of the Holy Spirit THE word Faith hath many acceptions in Scripture among which I shall touch upon some Sometimes it imports the Gospel or object of Faith thus St. Paul preached the faith Gal. 1.23 that is the Gospel which is worthy to be so called because it is the great Engine which lets down Gods faith to men and catches up mens faith to God Sometimes it imports a dogmatical or historical Faith which is an assent to the word of God as true and infallible thus the very devils believe a God and which is more then many sinful worms do they tremble Jam. 2.19 Sometimes it imports a temporary Faith which is but a dogmatical faith budding and blossoming with some tasts and joys in the things of God thus the stony ground received the word with joy Mat. 13.20 Sometimes it imports a miraculous Faith which by a special instinct gives such a touch upon the power of God as to produce wonderful effects in nature a grain of this is enough to remove mountains Mat. 17.20 Sometimes it imports saving Faith called by the Apostle precious Faith 2 Pet. 1.1 Omitting the rest I shall fix my Discourse upon this and that upon a double account First This precious faith virtually includes the rest In Faith in the first notion there is only the Gospel or object standing alone by it self but in this faith the act and the object are in sweet conjunction the soul is Gospellized and the Gospel which outwardly runs in the letter is inwardly glorified in the believers heart In dogmatical faith there is an assent to the truths of God and so there is in precious faith but in a more eminent manner the first embracing the Gospel only in its naked truth and history is but a dead and a cold notion but the second embracing the same in its goodness and spiritual mystery carries life and warmth in it temporary faith hath some joys in the things of God but precious faith hath the same in a more excellent way the former is but a flash and away a flower without a root the Gospel is not radicated in him but lies as it were upon the surface of his heart Jesus Christ is not entirely received by him but by parcels only hence a little storm of persecution blows off all the blossoms of his joy but the latter is a thing of a higher excellency and permanency In the true believer the Gospel is intimately rooted and Christ impartially received even cross and all Hence such an one can joy in tribultions and under afflictions wait for consolations Miraculous faith can work wonders and so can precious too the first works wonders in the body of nature by a touch upon Almighty power and the second works wonders in the souls of men by a touch upon Almighty grace A grain of this can remove spiritual mountains mountains of guiltiness off from the Conscience mountains of hardness
his passion in drinking of the brook in the way there 's his ascension in lifting up the head there 's his intercession in sitting at Gods right hand there 's his Church Catholick a willing people made so by the power of his grace This was Symbolum Davidicum Davids Creed as a learned man hath it reaching in a manner as far as ours Moreover the Saints of old by their faith kenned a resurrection and life eternal Jobs faith looked through worms and dust to the vision of God Job 19.26 Abrahams faith travelled beyond Canaan unto the heavenly city and country Heb. 11.10 David is in a rapture at the full joys and right-hand pleasures with God Psal 16.11 When Cain talked with Abel his brother Gen. 4.8 the Hebrew text sets not down what he said but it hath an extraordinary pawse implying further matter the Jerusalem Targum says Cain asserted that there was no judgment no judge no world to come no rewards of evil or good but believing Abel said there were all these and then his brother slew him It seems the first fall out was about the future world Wisdom causes her lovers to inherit substance Quid est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nisi futurum saeculum or essence as the original word imports Prov. 8.21 and this substance or essence is as some Jews affirm no other then eternal life in the world to come Now to make my inference from all this If faith were in a measure explicite in those early Saints who had but the twilight of the holy types and cock-crowing of the Prophets how much more should it be so in us who live in the noon-day of the Gospel and as it were directly under the Sun of righteousness in such a Church-state wherein the least is greater then John Baptist we should expand and spread abroad the fails of our faith to take in the larger gales and effusions of the holy spirit Secondly Faith unless explicite cannot arrive at those ends for which it is ordained viz. to raise up the heart to a reliance on the free grace of God in Christ to inslame the heart with the love of God and holy things to sanctifie the heart through the truth and to overcome the world with its lusts A meer implicite faith cannot reach these it cannot raise the heart up to a reliance on Gods grace in Christ to that reliance is prerequired not only a belief that God is true in the Scriptures in general but also a belief that God is true in the precious promises in special We are like Jacob not believing in the mercies of God till we see the chariots the gracious promises which he hath sent down from heaven to carry up our faith to himself They that know thy name will put their trust in thee Psal 9.10 they and they only Neither can it inflame the heart with the love of God and holy things light and heat ever go together Implicite faith is a dark and cold thing affording no spiritual warmth at all he that hath no more is but a Nabal a fool in religion and his heart as dead and cold as a stone within him till the love of God in the explicite notion of it shine into the soul it will not like the disciples at Emmaus burn within us with love to God and his ways neither can it sanctifie the heart through the truth the word did not profit them not being mixed or tempered with faith saith the Apostle Heb. 4.2 Where there is only an implicite faith the word lies upon the heart all in a lump whole and undigested affording no blood or spirits of sanctity to the soul it is explicite faith only which breaks the truth in the heart and mixes and tempers every holy particle therewith from whence the soul comes to be changed and assimulated into the truth receiving a divine likeness from it according to the measure of its faith more or less digesting the same truth in the heart neither can it lastly overcome the world and the lusts thereof this is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 5.4 And this Faith doth by putting a right estimate of things into the heart whereby it manifestly appears that heavenly things do infinitely outweigh earthly in themselves and should do so in the minds of men A man of a meer implicite faith is a man without a ballance or judgment he knows not how to estimate or weigh the excellent things of God and therefore is ever poized down by the world and the lusts thereof It is the explicite faith only which is in the soul as the ballance of the Sanctuary rightly determining the true weight of things and thereby giving heavenly things the victory above earthly in the heart Oh! where this is what a feather a vanity a nothing is the world what in it can weigh against God or Christ or the exceeding eternal weight of glory surely nothing wherefore the followers of faith become conquerors of the world Fourthly This belief must be total and absolute without any salvoes or limitations The Gospel must captivate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the intellect or every thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.5 The Reason must not go at large or random but be kept in safe custody under the Gospel and the divine mysteries thereof it is not to be trusted to never since the fall put an enmity into it against God The Socinians believe the Scriptures only so far forth as they are congruous to reason thus Socinus professes that if this proposition that Jesus Christ satisfied God for our sins were once and again extant in the sacred monuments yet non ideirco he would not therefore believe the thing to be so as we ordinarily conceive of it And another laies down this for a rule Nihil credi potest quod à ratione capi intelligi nequeat that cannot be believed by faith which cannot be comprehended by reason It seems they will trust God no further then they can see him and depend more on their blear-eyed reason then the divine oracle Touching this Socinian faith I shall endeavour to shew first the inrationality of it and then the nullity First The Irrationality of it will evidently appear if we distinguish between the two states of reason before the fall of man and since Reason before the fall was a pure and virgin light without any spot in it afterwards it was destoured and overshadowed with the fall and by that means all that is in the mind of man in his lapsed estate is not reason the blinds and dark shades there are not so but only that which is the relique of the pure primitive light and congruous thereunto the blemish in the eye is not the light the rust in the gold is not the pure metal neither is all that is in lapsed reason to be reckoned reason If then in this case we would know what is rational we
willing and cries out Father thy wâ—ll be done even in the death of my darling lusts Christ died a violent death and sin must not dyâ— a natural one If it dye alone or of it self it is no sacrifice it must be cropt in the flower and stabbed at the heart and dye of its wounds the violence done to God and Christ and the Spirit must be upon it till it give up the ghost Christ died a tormenting death in pains and agonies and we must dye so to sin we must suffer in the flesh 1 Pet. 4.1 bleeding under sin and being sorrowful to the death of it Christ died a lingring death and so doth sin it doth not dye all at once but languishes by little and little the believer dies daily to sin The Colossians were dead Câ—l 3.3 and yet saith the Apostle mortisie your members v. 8. Mortification must be upon mortification because sin is long a dying the genius of faith is to have sin crucified as Christ was following his steps as much as may be Secondly He yields up his soul to Christ as the meritorious cause of mortification Christs death merited sins hence faith glories in the cross of Christ as in that whereby the world is crucified to the believer and he to the world Gal. 6.14 there it would hang up every lust as an accursed thing Faith lies at the bleeding wounds of Christ watching for the breathings of that spirit which can mortisie the deeds of the body waiting for that mind of Christ which can make us suffer in the fiesh that we may cease from sin Christ was crucified and the believer would have the old man crucified together he would dye with him as the graft doth with the stock There is a Popish fable that the angry Adriatick Sea was becalmed by one of the nails of Christs cross cast into it the moral is true the troubled sea of lust in our heart cannot be subdued but by the application of Christ death the winds and waves there obey no other voice but that of Christ crucified he yields up his soul to Christ as the royal worker of mortification When he sees his lusts as so many rebels rising up in arrns he flies to his soveraign Christ for a power to subdue them the high things and strong holds appearing in his understanding make him cry out Treason Treason the Jebusite is in the tower of David the fleshly wisdom hath got into the understanding O thou wisdom of God captivate and cast it down The Pagan lusts and Gentile-wills shewing themselves in the heart force him to break forth like the Psalmist O God the heathen are come into thine inheritance thy temple they have desiled cast them out O thou mighty Saviour that my soul may be a sanctuary for thy self When the battel is set before and behind corruptions surrounding and encompassing him his eyes are upon his Lord sitting above at the right hand of power till his enemies be made his footstool And as the believer yields up his foul to Christ for mortification of sin so also for vivisication of the soul And this in the very same respects First He yields up his soul to Christ as the grand pattern of vivisication the parallel is the Apostles own Like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 Look what was done in the flesh of Christ in his corporeal resurrection that is done in the spirits of Christians in the spiritual resurrection there the stone was rolled away from the sepulchre here from the heart there the flesh of Christ was raised up by an Almighty power called by the Apostle the glory of the Father here the soul of the believer is raised up by the same power as appears Eph. 1.19 20. there after the corporceal resurrection Christ appeared in humane lineaments here after the spiritual resurrection the Christian appears in divine graces the genius of faith is to assimilate the Christian to Christ risen Secondly He yields up his soul to Christ as the meritorious cause of vivisication Christ merited all graces for us saith doth not dare to go immediately to God no not for holiness it self but it goes and sucks at the breasts of Christs humanity well knowing that all graces are from the spirit and the way of the spirit is by the blood as Tagmon Archbishop of Magdenburg took the last breath of his dying Master Wolfgang by applying mouth to mouth so faith applies its mouth as it were to the wounds of a dying Christ from thence to receive the spirit of all grace that love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness meekness temperance as so many rivers of living water may flow in the heart to make glad the habitation of God therein that the holy spirit may be as it were the soul of the soul breathing in the believers prayers and shining on his Bible and melting in his charity and impowering in his infirmity and honey-dropping in his converses and being a Shechinah a presence and a glory in all his ways Thirdly He yields up his soul to Christ as the Royal Donor of all quickning graces Christ as a Priest merited all graces but as a King he gives them out unto us him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance Act. 5.31 and so to give all other graces A melting heart is but a word of power from him at Gods right hand an heavenly heart but a touch from him sitting in heaven every piece of holiness is a beam of glory from him meekness and mercy and obedience and patience are as so many pearls dropping from his crown all the sheddings of the holy spirit slow from him who is exalted above he ascended up that he might fill all things Eph. 4.10 that is all the spiritual world of believers with grace Faith therefore looks up for the sweet illapses of the spirit and waits for graces as so many golden apples dropping down from that tree of life which stands in the upper Paradise of God Secondly In and through the Mediator this resignation is made unto God it is God that sanctisieth God as the supream fountain of grace and in this resignation faith climbs up to him partly by the Attribute of free-grace cast thy burden upon the Lord saith the Psalmist Psal 55. 22. or as the Original imports omnia donabilia tua all that thou wouldest have given thee whatever thy want be mortifying grace or quickning grace faith hath an art to cast and unload all upon free-grace there being a famine of grace in lapsed nature faith brings out the empty vessel the soul void of self-worthiness and sets it under one ordinance or other waiting upon God till he rain down righteousness upon the soul This is the rain of liberalities as the Original is Psal 68.9 this faith waits for without money or price of its own
dependence the Spirit comes down in auxiliary Grace and there is an effectual working in every part of the New Creature Love in the Spirit as it is called Col. 1.8 and Joy in Spirit and every other Grace in the Spirit badding and blossoming and filling the face of the life with holy fruits Only it must be remembred that this Dependence is in Gods way where Christ is experimentally Immanuel God with us to stir up all holy Graces into act Thus Faith actuates Graces in a general way common to them all I now proceed to shew how Faith actuates this or that Grace in particular And that I may not be too prolix in running over all Graces I shall single some choice ones out instead of all First I shall begin with the Grace of Love This is the great Command the sum of the Law a Divine Union with God a bond of perfection among Men a holy fire kindled by the Holy Ghost in the Heart and the sweetness and easiness of every good Duty This Grace whether it respect God or Christ or our Neighbour is actuated by Faith As touching our Love to God it is so actuated The very light of Nature reveals a God an excellent perfect Being or the Being of Beings whose Love as the Philosopher said is the principle and knot of the World and so cannot but raise up a kind of Love toward him the Will being necessarily in some sort affected with such an Excellency though seen but by a glimmering light Not that this Love is a Grace or a Love in sincerity or a Love sicut oportet as an ancient Council speaks or indeed in Scripture sense any love at all because it loves not God above all it must needs be inordinate there being the same ataxy in loving God below the Creature as in loving the Creature above God But that there is a kind of Love such as that dark light can raise up in faln man But when the light of Faith comes it raises up the Grace of Love towards God and ever after moves it into act by the pure discoveries of him which it lets into the Heart from Scripture He is saith Faith an immense infinite Goodness Creatures are but drops of Being lying in the shell of Time but he is the Ocean of all Perfections They may be good for this or that in particular according to their finite kinds and spheres but he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the All-things as the Aposile calls him 1 Cor. 15.28 And withal he is Love it self as another Apostle hath it 1 Joh. 4.16 Not shutting up his Allness in unapproachable Glory but letting it out to Believers His Love though he ever had perfect Blessedness in himself would yet pour out it self in making a world of good Creatures and after Mans fall in giving his only Son to take hold of our nature and in it to bring us back again to himself that he might be our God and make over his Allness to us and all this in pure Grace without any Money or Merit on our part and in rich Mercy towards worms and forlorn Sinners and to assure it to us a Gospel is let down from Heaven full of great and precious Promises such as are the very counterpanes of that Grace and Mercy which flow in his Heart towards Sinners Vnder such musings of Faith Oh how the holy fire of Love kindles What high rates and estimates are set upon him How is the Heart inflamed towards Union to be one spirit with him What Complacencies and Sabbaths of rest doth it find in him What little things are Worlds and Creatures What an All is He and an Heaven his Love What tastes are there of his Goodness and surrenders to his Will and Glory Our Love goes after him as his is by Faith let in upon the Heart Moreover Faith excites the Love of him by every act which it sets about in its recumbencies it enamours the Heart that he should give us leave to lean on his Grace and in so doing bear up our weakness with Promises and sweetly answer us in Pardons and suitable Graces in its Obedience it is very ravishing that he should chalk out such pure ways for us and take us by the hand and teach us to go and at last crown our faultring Obedience with Eternal Life Ordinances which to Unbelief are but dry things are to Faith the lovely Chariots of the Spirit Creatures which are Idols to carnal sense are to Faith fair mirrors of the infinite Goodness and Beauty in the Creator Which way soever Faith turns it self it meets with something or other inflammative of our Love towards him who is every-where and all in all As touching our Love to Christ it is actuated in the same manner A meer notion of Christ raises up some Love towards him as we see in those Temporaries who receive the word with joy Mat. 13.20 which though it be but fructus horarius hints out a kind of Love Such a story as that of Codrus the Athenian King 's dying for his Country could not but affect his Subjects much more must the History of Christ dying for a World do so Only this Love to Christ raised up by meer Evangelical notion as the Love to God raised up by natural is not right nor elevated to a Divine pitch till Faith come and shew him forth by a light more congruous than all literal knowledg and then there is as the Church after an elegant description concludes Totus desideria all loves or desires Cant. 5.16 Every thing in him is attractive What a person is the Eternal Word the brightness of the Fathers glory What an Union Immanuel God and Man in one Heaven and Earth admirably blended together as a pledg that God would be at one with us What a robe is his Righteousness made as broad as the Law and woven all of Love from the top to the bottom What a Laver his Blood able to expiate a world of Sins and save a world of Sinners What a treasure is his Fulness where the Spirit is in over-measure and all its Graces in redundance running over into the vessels of Faith and filling all its capacities Who that hath eyes of Faith would not love him To ask why we should love him is as the Philosopher told him who demanded Why Beauty was so taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a blind mans question nothing but blind unbelief can hold us from his Embraces Whatever posture Faith be in whether contemplating him in the Mount or leaning on the bosom of his Grace or hiding in his Wounds or sitting at his feet for Wisdom or lying under his Scepter for power against Sin still it stirs up an holy Love to him It finds his Blood in every Pardon his Spirit in every Grace his Wine-cellar in every Ordinance his Seal in every Promise and his Purchase in every Creature No wonder if St. Paul count all things dung and dross for him And St. Austin
the Soul unto God as the fountain of all Good As in every lust there is a depression of the Heart to one Creature or other so in every right Prayer there is an holy elevation of it to God This gives great Glory to God as it is humble it reveres his Majesty as upright it owns his Omniscience as believing it glorifies his condescending Grace and as importunate it overcomes the Almighty and takes the Kingdom of Heaven by violence opening a door to that infinite mass or treasure of Grace which is laid up for those that strive and wrestle with him for supplies out of it This is a Catholick Duty good in all places The Jews prayed in or towards the Temple but now the whole World is consecrated for it every where holy hands are to be lifted up fit for all times praying always saith the Apostle Ephes 6.18 Not that we are to do nothing else as the Euchitae or Messaliani of old dreamed but that there is no time wherein the Mercy-seat is shut or Christ not interceding above or the holy Spirit not ready in some measure to assist Believers Neither is there any time in which we should not carry about with us a virtual confession in our sense of Sin or a virtual Prayer in our sense of Wants or a virtual Praise in our sense of Mercies Continuum desiderium est continua oratio as St. Austin hath it Vita hominis saith Luther nibil aliud est nisi oratio gemitus desiderium suspirium ad misericordiam Dei Mans life should be a perpetual breathing after God And withal it is incumbent on all Men the first Adam in Innocency probably addressed himself to God in Prayer and Jesus Christ the second Adam was much in it the Ethnicks by the light of Nature used it It was an old Gentile-Law Ad divos adeunto go to the gods Socrates prayed that he might be Intus pulcher inwardly fair with virtue Plato saith Every one who is compos mentis will in the beginning of any work invoke the gods How much more must Christians pray who have before their eyes a Gospel a Mercy-Seat and an open way into the Holy of Holies through the Veil of Christs flesh Unregencrate persons are bound to this Duty as we see in the Command to Simon Magus being in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity Act. 8.22 Much more Believers Prayer is the breath of the new-creature and badg of Christians who are thus deciphered by the Apostle All that call upon the name of the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 1.2 Such and so great is this Ordinance that the Jews who prayed standing and therefore called Prayer Gnammuda or Standing used to say Sine stationibus non staret mundus The world would not stand without Standing or Prayer That this is an Ordinance of God the Believer experiments many ways First He experiments it in the Assistances of the Holy Spirit which is as Gales to the Sails of Prayer in its Voyage to Heaven and as holy Fire to the Incense of it causing it to ascend to the Throne of Grace The Spirit helpeth our infirmities Rom. 8.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It lifts over against us or helps us to lift up a Prayer which else would be too heavy for us Whilst the Believer is a-praying O what heavenly meltings are there The Believer is like Ephraim bemoaning himself or as the Children of Israel at Mizpeh lamenting after the Lord and pouring out water as if their eyes were turned into Fountains of penitential tears or as the man in the Gospel crying out with tears Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief Catching at Mercy with an hand trembling at his own Infirmity Such meltings and spiritual mournings over Sin plainly shew That the Spirit of Grace and Supplication is poured out upon the Prayer making it like the bruised Incense sull of fragrancy breathing out from a broken heart dissolved into tears by the beams of Gods Love And in this Evangelical thaw What Divine enlargements are there The heart is no longer in the Straits of Sin and Earth but opened and expanded towards Heaven E're the praying Believer is a ware his Soul sets him on the wheels and his lips drop as the honey-comb if not in the very entrance of the Duty yet in the progress of it The Psalmist in the beginning of the 38th Psalm seems cold and frozen in Unbelief Gods arrows stick fast in him his hand presseth him sore the iniquities are too heavy the wounds stink and are corrupt There are nothing but bowings breaches and miserable roarings But before he hath done praying his heart recovers again In thee O Lord do I hope thou wilt hear O Lord my God ver 15. Sometimes at first there is a Cloud and dark Eclipse upon the Prayer and yet a little after Grace breaks forth with its Sunny beams and draws out the heart towards God They looked unto him and were lightned as David speaks Psal 34.5 or as the words may be read they looked unto him and flowed their hearts were as a River running out with spiritual fluency and enlargments such as are a real proof that the free Spirit is in the Prayer and withal What an heavenly ardor is there While I was musing the fire burned saith David Psal 39.3 While the Believer is a-praying the Holy Spirit is as fire upon the heart inflaming it into religious ascents towards God The Believer stirs up himself and takes hold on God by some Promise or other and Jacob-like wrestles with him for Mercy and will not let him go till there be a dawn or day-break of Grace He prays in his Prayer and urges the Attributes of God upon him and presses hard upon him with an holy immodesty or impudence as the expression is Luk. 11.8 and will not be said Nay Much like Gorgonia the pious Sister of Nazianzen who lay at the Altar with Tears and Prayers and said That she would not depart till she had her request and accordingly obtained it of God This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jam. 5.16 the inwrought Prayer or Prayer wrought by Gods Spirit in ours and from thence poured out in an agony or vehemence of holy Assections panting and breaking with longings after God and his Grace Luther having prayed with great fervency said Vtinam eodem ardore orare possem Would to God I could always pray with the like ardor then should I always have this answer Fiat quod velis Be it unto thee as thou wilt After this manuer doth the Holy Spirit come down on the Believers Prayer and bear witness to this Ordinance Secondly He experiments it in his Access to God The Devils who are in Chains of Darkness can make no approaches to God there is an unpassable gulf between them and him It is storied of a German Nobleman that there was acted before him a Play of the five Wise and five Foolish Virgins the Wise were St. Mary St. Catbarine St.
the Suavities and dictates all the comfortable words in conscience is the Holy Spirit The Spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God saith the Apostle Rom. 8.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the Gifts or Graces but the very Spirit it self beareth witness that not only out wardly in the Word but in wardly in and with our spirit and its Testimony is That we are the children of God And the import of that Testimony over and above the title of Sonship is That our Faith which makes us his children Gal. 3.26 is true and our Love and other Graces which manifest us such are so also And what a Testimony is this To call it dubious or opinionative or conjectural is blasphemy Cornelius a Lapide as one under a necessity confesses this Testimony certain in it self but as a Salvo to the Doctrine of doubting adds That it is not certain to us But this is to forget the Apostles words That the Spirit witnesseth it in and with our spirit and withal absurdly to say That the Spirit indeed witnesseth but would not be believed or rather That it witnesseth and witnesseth not because an unheard Testimony is as none Bellarmine saith The Spirit witnesseth not by an express word but by an Experiment of internal peace and suavity which begets but a conjectural certainty I answer It 's true that it is not by an express word but as Learned Dr. Ward well observes The Question is not de modo Testandi but de Re. It is certain there is such a Testimony and that proceeding from the Spirit of Truth must be infallible and being made to our spirit must be known to us and so beget a true certainty in our hearts Nevertheless to illustrate this Point I shall a little consider the Modus of it The Spirit bears witness to ours partly by an application of the Promises to the heart partly by an irradiation of the Graces there These two make up the sealing of the Spirit of Promise given after believing Ephes 1.13 The Spirit applies the Promises to the Heart that is one part of the Seal As the spirit of bondage applies threatnings and thereby makes a kind of Hell in Conscience so the Spirit of Adoption applies Promises and by it makes a kind of Heaven there The same Spirit which endited the Promises of Pardon and put them into Scripture Seals and in a way of appropropriation puts them upon the Heart as if it should say This and that Promise is thine like that in the Prophet Speak to her heart that her iniquity is pardoned Isa 40.2 Now when the Promises come so close and pour out their sweetness into the heart the Believer may not guess only but know that true Faith and Repentance are there God and his Promise speak peace only to Saints and not a comfortable Word to impenitent sinners I have read of one who apostatized from his profession and on his sick-bed began to apply the Promises to himself but alas after a little seeming ease he cried out in despair That the Plaister would not stick God only can make it do so and he makes it do so only to penitent Believers and they may conclude the Truth of their Graces when the Gospel and its Promises come to them in the Holy Ghost and in much Assurance as the Expression is 1 Thessal 1.5 Again as another part of he Seal The Holy Spirit irradiates the Graces in the Heart The same Spirit which formed them there at first comes and owns them as its own off-spring bringing in such a Divine light and making such an efficacious representation thereof that the Believers Conscience may as the Apostle speaketh in another case Rom. 9.1 Bear witness in the Holy Ghost and say This is sound Repentance indeed and that is Love undissembled and the other is Faith unfeigned and so of other Graces in the new Creature These Graces carry in themselves a kind of heavenly light rendring them visible But when the Spirit comes it puts such a gloss and oriency on them that the Believer may know them to be freely given to him of God that this and that Grace are so given and such and such are the sure marks of the truth thereof Such a Testimony as this made learned Rivet at his dying hour break forth into these words Expecto credo persevero dimoveri nequeo Dei Spiritus meo spiritui testatur me esse ex filiis suis O amorem ineffabilem I expect believe persevere and cannot be moved Gods Spirit witnesseth to mine That I am one of his Children Oh ineffable Love This anointing is truth and no lye as St. John tells us 1 Joh. 2.27 It manifests its testimony and it self together The Believer cannot doubt who the Witness is or what he speaketh both are plain and satisfactory Our Saviour Christ speaking of the Spirit of Truth tells his Disciples Ye know him for he dwelleth with you Joh. 14.17 If the Spirit do but pass by and drop in an holy motion into the heart he may be known in it much more when he dwells and witnesses there Cul. White-stone The eloquent Culverwell compares him to the Sun The Sun saith he by its glorious Beams does Paraphrase and Comment upon its own glittering Essence and the Spirit Displays himself to the Soul and gives a full Manifestation of his Presence And a man may sooner take a Glow-worm for the Sun than an experienced Christian can take a false Delusion for the Light of the Spirit We have heard the two Witnesses the Holy Spirit by an application of Promises and irradiation of Graces witnessing to the Conscience and the Conscience ecchoing and resounding that Testimony to the Believer And hence it appears That he may be assured of the truth of his Graces and so of his Pardon It remains to treat of the second thing that is That he may be assured of his perseverance in Grace and so of his Salvation He knows That his Graces are true and withal That they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things having or containing Salvation Heaven buds and Eternal Life begins in them He that believeth hath everlasting life Joh. 5.24 He hath it in the first-fruits and irrevocable earnest of it The Seed of God in him will grow up into Immortality the Well of living Water will spring up into everlasting Life Only it may be alledged That these Graces may be lost Unto which I answer Abstractively in their meer creature-essence they may but in their dependance they cannot Their Standing if on mans Will only might fail but their Foundation on the Covenant of Grace cannot The Believer may not only see his own Graces but beyond them that Eternal Election which is the great Fountain thereof Reflecting on the true Graces in his heart he may say Here is the Faith of Gods Elect and Here is the Love and Patience of Gods Elect. Spiritual Blessings are given according to Election
the use of thy Talents exercise thy self unto Godliness that the Divine Life now latent in Principles may shew it self in acts blow up the holy fire in thy bosom that what was buried under ashes may revive into a flame Be still a putting forth one Grace or other melting in repenting tears or clasping thy Faith about Promises or kneeling down in obedience to Commands or inflaming thy Love at Gods or perfecting Patience under his hand or drawing out thy Soul in Charity As the season is let one Grace or other be still a-budding and bearing holy fruit Thy Graces thus exercised will become radiant and visible those which before lay hid like Saul among the stuff as if they had been upon the common level of nature will now come forth in their Supernatural statures and appear as the virtues of God Thou maist now dsscern in thy self that which is more than Humane a Divine Nature which sparkles out of thy flesh in holy Operarations Another an higher Spirit than thy own which follows God fully in holy walking Thou maist now sit down under Christs shadow and reckon thy self in the very borders of Assurance waiting the good hour when the irradiating Spirit shall take thee by the hand and lead thee into the full possession thereof Moreover unto the exercise of Grace add growth as a fruit thereof Grow in Grace and in the knowledg of Christ 2 Pet. 3.18 Abound more and more 1 Thes 4.1 Let thy Motto be Plus ultra and thy Christian Arms like Josephs a fruitful bough by a well Thou hast Faith but be strong in it that thou maist wrestle with God and not let him go till he bless thee with Assurance be great in it that he may condescend to thee and say Be it unto thee even as thou wilt Thou hast a being in Christ but be rooted in him by a more close adherence and intimate Union within him grow up into him in statures of Grace till thou come to the oylof gladness upon his head There is some holy Love in thee but be rooted and grounded in it that thou maist comprehend the breadth and length and depth and height and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledg and be filled with all the fulness of God Ephes 3.17 18 19. Through radicated and well-grown Graces as the Apostles assures us in that place admirable and wonderful things may be attained In a sober sense we may take Infinity know Transcendencies and be filled with a Deity Labour to grow every way downward in Húmility and self-denial upward in holy desires and raptures inward in the vitals of Faith and Love and outward in all holy fruits and good works fill up the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is lacking in Faith and other Graces let Patience and all other Graces have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their perfect work that thy path may be as the shining light shining more and more to the perfect day As an Heavenly Pilgrim go from faith to faith and from strength to strength travelling to meet the day coming towards thee in the light of Gods Countenance In such a growth as this as in a clear glass thou maist discover that thy Graces are vital and true feeds of Immortality Statues and Pictures such as Hypocrites are grow not Essentials and Vitals are Vltra penicillum Sincerity and Divine Vitality cannot be painted Confider therefore with thy self how it hath been with thee there was but a little dawn in thy Heart and now a pure morning Thy Grace was but a little grain of Mustard-seed and now it is become a Tree Thou wast but a little Embrio a babe in Christ and now a man of strength and spiritual stature And what doth this argue but Life in thee Confider again thou hast an ocean of Corruption in thy Heart and yet thy little spark of Grace hath grown thou hast stood in the midst of Satans winds and withering blasts and yet thou growest thou hast had many a sharp frost from the World to nip thy fruit in the bud and yet thou growest And what doth this speak but a seed and life of God in thee such as will spring up into Life Eternal Take this as an Earnest from God that maugre Satan and all the power of Darkness thou shalt grow and grow on till thou art transplanted into the Heavenly Paradise Again If thou wouldst have Assurance be much in mortifying of Sin This is the great troubler If thou indulg it a cloud will come over thy Conscience darken thy Evidences thy Graces will all droop and like a Candle in the socket be ready to die the Law will arm it self against thee and from one threatning or other will flash Hell in thy face Satan will rake in thy old wounds of Guilt and put thee into fresh torments the holy Spirit will be gone and carry away all his Cordials with him the Promises will be as dry Breasts and let out never a drop of sweetness to thee thy Duties will hang the wing and become dead and spiritless and without comfort In the end thou wilt experimentally find That in crooked Paths Peace cannot be found Awake therefore O Believer to the work of Mortification Look upon sin as it is an evil an only evil an hellish abomination infinitely more loathsom than the Dogs Vomit or the Sow's Mire or the menstruous Cloth by which it is shadowed out in Scripture Arraign it as the greatest Malefactor that ever was Call in Death and Hell and a blasted World and groaning Creatures and the Ruins of Angels and Souls of Men and the bloody Passion of Christ and the horrible Injuries done to God himself To bear witness against it Each of these can tell sad stories about it and all of them cry out Crucifie it Crucifie it It is worthy to dye Pass therefore thy doom upon it that it may do to Strip it of all its veils and false covers and bewitching appearances pluck off its Golden Profit and Silken Pleasures and Purple of false Honour that it may look as it is in its own ugly nakedness sinful out of measure sinful Nail it to the Cross by holy Restraints if it start in a Thought or creep in at a Sense or hide it self under thy Lawful things have one holy Truth or other as a Nail ready to fasten it that it move no further in thee Pierce it let out its vital blood I mean the love and joy and delight of it Surrender up thy Affections to God and Christ and heavenly things that it may give up the ghost bury it out of thy sight never give it a look or glance more converse no more with it than thou wouldst do with the dead raise it not up again into any fresh embraces no not so much as the picture of it in a sinful thought or fancy After this manner mortifie sin and above all thy darling only one which thy Heart hath been tender of and could wish
the unregenerate man with all his notions lies as a man in a Lethargy never feeling the weight of sin and wrath though heavier then rocks and mountains nor indeed savouring the sweetness of Christ and grace though infinitely out-relishing all the things in nature But as soon as faith comes there are all the senses of the inward man a seeing the sun of righteousness an hearing the sweet charms of Gospel-grace a smelling the odours of Christ and the holy unction a tasting how good and gracious the Lord is and a touching and handling the word of life The Learned Anatomists curiously pry into the head to find out the commune Sensorium where all the species and images of sensible things meet together In the spiritual man faith is an universal sense taking in all the species and images of heavenly things into the heart The learned Junius with all his notions coming into a poor Country mans house and hearing him discourse warmly and feelingly of Christ immediately thought that Religion was more then a notion and thereupon reflecting on himself was turned unto God and no doubt sound by experience that faith was much fuller of life and sense then meer notion Fifthly The meer notional knowledge gathered in by reason puffeth up as if some of the Serpents poison were in it it blows up the heart into proud reflexes Bonaventure to keep his mind from swelling used to sweep rooms and wash vessels I suppose it was lest his School-notions should swell and make a tumor in his heart But the light of faith is an humbling thing If it enter in within the vail and see God on his Throne it cries out as the Prophet Isaiah Wo is me I am undone If it fly up to Sinai and sense the thunders and lightnings of the fiery Law it puts the soul into a trembling sit If it go a pilgrimage to Calvary and there take a view of Christ crucified it is greatly abasive bowing the heart down under the conscience of sin If it look inwardly into the heart and there see the silthy and nasty corruptions in every corner it will far more humble then Bonaventures sweeping and washing And the reason of this difference is meer notions are but the progeny and issue of our own reason and therefore we are apt to be fond and fall a cockling of them But supernatural light comes from above and is ushered in with a kind of majesty and therefore humbles and makes us fall down and say God is in it of a truth Sixthly The meerly notional knowledge is but superficial a flash and away a light tast such as was in those Apostates Heb. 6.5 a word sown but unrooted such as that in the stony ground Mat. 13.21 But the light of faith is another thing it is truth in the hidden parts Psal 51.6 wisdom entring into the heart Prov. 2.10 and a word ingrafted or innaturalized in the mind Jam. 1.21 As an appendix to this difference I may add another meer notions being but superficial things floating in the brain do not so establish the heart in Religion as that supernatural light which intimately mixes it self with the heart Hence many Princes and Grandees of the Letter have been sick with intellectual bottles and shamefully reeled up and down in Articles of Faith Some stumbling in the mire of gross Pelagianism and others rowling in the ditch of foul Socinianism with them Christs Deity is but somnium Athanasii and original sin but Augustini sigmentum such horrid spuing from learned mouths hath been made on the glory of Religion And no wonder for the notionalist wants that love of the truth which is an antidote against errors and that pure conscience which is the Cabinet of Divine mysteries On the other hand supernatural light is a more establishing thing the Apostle calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the firmament of faith Col. 2.5 all the heavenly truths are there as so many fixed stars in their Orb. Gerson relates this story A man vexed with doubts in Articles of Faith at last came to such a certainty in them that he no more doubted of them then of his own life and this he had saith he Non ex ratione aut demonstratione sed ex humiliatione ac admirabili quâdam Dei illuminatione à montibus aeternis All grace because divine hath an establishing property and among the rest so hath the light of faith because it comes from the eternal mountains Seventhly Meer notions are very apt to fume up into niceties and vain curiosities A famous instance of this we have in the School-men whose books are the spiders house made of cobwebs and fine subtleties and those spun up into the Palace of the celestial King and there fastned upon the ineffables of God and the sacred Trinity as if these might be wrapped up in the quiddities of reason and Philosophy insomuch as a learned Divine startled at this audacious vanity saith he reads the School-men about such things as he hears men swear or take Gods name in vain even seldom unwillingly and with horror And the learned Capito who professed Scholastical Divinity was soon weary thereof because there is subtilitatis multum utilitatis parum found therein But supernatural light doth not vapor upwards into niceties and curious questions but influence downwards into the will and affections It brings the day of power into the heart and makes a willing people the holy unction drops from the head to the heart and sets all on a flame with love to God and Christ and heavenly things wisdom speaks excellent things Prov. 8.6 or as the original is it speaks princes or princely things holy things are such in themselves But when they are taken in by faith they have a mighty power in the soul Gods command to Abraham entring by faith wrought down into his will and he offered up his Isaack Gods warning to Noah entring by faith wrought down into his fear and he prepared an Ark. The word works effectually in them that believe filling the inward man with holy affections and the outward with holy fruits I shall conclude this difference with an excellent simily of a worthy Divine A child and a man come into a corn field together the child falls in love with the blue and red weeds but the man is for the solid corn a man of meer notions falls in love with curiosities and fine speculations but a man of supernatural light is for the spiritual and practical truths in Scripture these are the corn his soul must live upon whilest the other are but gaieties and for a shew Thus far I have spoken what this supernatural light is I shall now proceed to shew that it is requisite to faith and this will appear in the particulars following First Unless a man know that God is he cannot believe how can he rest on the testimony of him whom he knows not to have a being This proposition Deus est is according to Aquinas the
lay by his proud plumes and sensibly feel a carnal mind and a spiritual Law a weak heart and strong corruptions let him groan and cry out of the blind eyes which cannot unscale the iron sinewed Will which cannot bow the false heart which cannot go true and the fallen nature which cannot reach so high as an holy thought Let him be weak in his impotency till God set up Jachin and Boaz in his heart poor in his poverty till he have a share in Christs riches a captive in his chains till God break them off and bid him go free and nothing in his nothingness that creating grace may pass upon him and God be all in all This is the way to resignation such is Gods method to bring light out of darkness perfect power in weakness and call things that are not as if they were Fifthly There is a denial of a mans own righteousness Every man naturally would be a self-justifier as the Apostle saith Rom. 10.3 he would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 establish or make to stand his own righteousness though it be but a dead carcass he would set it upon its legs though but a breathless image he would have it stand alone and the reason is because he would be justified by somewhat within he would not go out for a righteousness But alass all this while he doth not cannot resign thus the Apostle in that place going about to establish their own righteousness they submitted not themselves to the righteousness of God A man whilest upon his own bottom will not surrender but take him up into Moriah into the vision of God and shew him the purity of Gods nature and the sinfulness of his own carry him to Sinai and let him see the necessity of a perfect righteousness and the impossibility of an inherent one in himself pluck away his fig-leaves of false righteousness and open his eyes upon his own nakedness and poverty this is the true way to resignation Thus far of the second thing in faith what manner of belief of Scripture this is and how in the consequents of it the holy spirit strikes in the holy light upon the heart and by certain steps brings it to the very borders of resignation which is the third and last thing in faith now to be opened CHAP. IV. Of the third and last thing in Faith an holy thorough dependant Self-resignation to the terms of the Gospel What it is to whom and to what it is made and for what purposes with the adjuncts and properties of it THE third and last thing in Precious Faith is a dependant yielding or resignation of the soul unto Jesus Christ the Mediator and through him unto God according to his word This is the vital and essential act of faith as faith is the condition of the Gospel Touching it I shall first explain what this resignation is and then offer my reasons why the vitality and essential nature of Faith doth consist therein First I must explain what this resignation is in general It is no other then a surrender of the soul to God according to theterms of the Covenant God hath chalked out in the word a method of salvation and man resigns up his soul to God in his own way God says to man if ever thou art saved it must be through the Mediator Jesus Christ his blood must wash out thy sins his righteousness must answer the Law for thee Content saith the soul I resign up my self to the Mediator I lean my self upon his blood and righteousness for pardon and acceptance with thee Among Anselms interrogatories to be proposed unto men lying in extremis at the point of death one which the Minister offers to the sick man is doest thou believe that thou canst not be saved but by Christs death unto which when the sick man answers yea I so believe the Minister is appointed to speak to him thus Age dum superest in te anima in hâc solâ morte siduciam tuam constitue in nullâ aliâ re siduciam babe buic morti te totum committe bâc solâ te totum contege totum immisee totum involve Whilest there is any breath in thee place all thy considence in his death and in nothing else commit thy whole self to it cover and intermingle and involve thy whole self in it this conference I have set down because it doth emphatically express this act of resignation God says further my Christ must not cannot be divided if he save thee as a Priest he must teach thee as a Prophet and rule over thee as a King for I have made him all these Content saith the soul his blood is not cannot be spiritless I give up my self to his holy spirit to be taught and ruled I desire to say with Baldassar the German Divine Veniat veniat verbum Domini submittemus illi sexcenta si nobis essent colla Let the word of the Lord Christ come let it come teaching and ruling and I desire to submit to it even six hundred necks if he had so many God says further my Christ is a crucified one and you cannot must not divide him from the cross No saith the soul I will take him cross and all I would fain say as the noble Ignatius veniant crux ignis ossium confractiones modò Christum habeam let the cross and the fire and the broken bones come so I may but have Christ I hope nothing shall separate me from his love God says again through this Christ thou must in all thy wants cast thy self upon me for a supply I cannot saith the soul bear up my own weight in this respect I would fain lay all upon thee my guilt upon thy mercy my unworthiness upon thy free-grace my folly upon thy wisdom and my weakness upon thy almighty power if thou doest not help me the barn-floor and wine-press of the creature cannot do it if thou fail me I am confounded and expect to be miserable Moreover says God in all thy addresses unto me thou must look to thy warrant and see whether Scripture will bear thee out in it or not The Scripture saith the soul is the Great Charter above sealed by infinite veracity and below by faith this this is the sacred rule I desire to go by in all my resignations After some such manner as this doth the believing soul surrender up it self But for the more clear opening of this resignation I shall consider three things First Unto whom or what this resignation is made Secondly For what things or purposes it is made Thirdly What are the Adjuncts and properties thereof First Vnto whom or what this resignation is made I answer it is made unto Jesus Christ the Mediator unto God the whole sacred Trinity and unto the Word unto Christ as the Mediator and grand medium of salvation unto God as the Center and ultimate object of Faith and unto the Word as the warrant rule and way in by and according
holiness and justice with his holiness providing a perfect righteousness and with his justice providing a perfect satisfaction for them in a surety hence the Apostle saith we are justified freely by his grace Rom. 3.24 Freely by his grace he uses two words the more plainly and emphatically to decipher out to us the pure fountain of love and grace out of which pardon and justification issue forth to poor sinners Secondly There must be a perfect righteousness fully answering the holy Law God cannot deny himself he cannot deny his holiness so as to justifie us without a righteousness therefore there must be one he cannot deny his truth so as to account that a righteousness which is none therefore it must be perfect fully answering the Law all-fair without any spot in it all-pure without any mixture in it all-perfect without and defect in it such a thing as is not to be found in any meer man The Jews as it seems by Josephus thought a meer outward righteousness enough but alass what is this without a pure heart The Popish Doctors look upon inherent graces as our very righteousness in justification indeed these because the denomination is à meliore parte denominate men righteous but they are but inchoate and imperfect and therefore are short of that perfect and absolute righteousness requisite to justification They denominate men righteous but they do it but in their own weak degree and not in full proportion to the holy Law a gracious man is not all grace there is flesh as well as spirit dross as well as gold water as well as wine in him his mind is not all Light his will is not all love his affections are not all harmony what of grace he hath is but in part and if this be his righteousness he can be justified but in part or rather not at all Neither can our good works no not those which flow from grace ever be our righteousness in justification Those are good as they flow from the pure fountain of the spirit but as they proceed from us in whom there is much of the old Adara they smell of the cask and soil in the channel and contract a great deal of dross from the indwelling sin Hence they are so far from justifying us that they themselves need a justification Hence holy Nehemiah prays that his good works may be remembred with a spare me O Lord according to the greatness of thy mercy Neh 13.22 Neither will it suffice to justification if our good works are more then our evil The Papists fable that Henry the second Emperour was weighed in the ballance to see whether he were worthy of heaven or hell his good works were put into one scale his evil into the other and these were like to out weigh and sink him to hell but that St. Lawrence put in the Chalice by the Emperour given him and so made the scale of good works preponderate O vain tale nothing weighs with God in the point of justification but a compleat rightcousness and that can no where be found but in Christ alone he and he only fulfilled all righteousness and therefore he is called by the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the end of the Law for righteousness to the believer Rom. 10.4 the Law hath its total sum and perfect compleature in him Thirdly There must be an expiation of sin or else there can be no justification The very Gentiles themselves stung with the conscience of sin and vengeance had their expiatory and lustratory Sacrifices The antient lews being Gods people had their offerings and sacrifices for sin to make an Atonement according to the Levitical Law The latter Jews though they reject the sacrifice of the Messiah yet that they might not be wholly without an expiation offer a cock for sin because the word Gebher in Hebrew signifies a man and in the Talmud a cock hence they say Gebher that is the man sinneth and Gebher that is the cock suffereth If the Prophet Isaias in the 53. chapter had used the word Gebher the Rabbins saith a Learned man would have turned the man into a cock but there it is not Gebher but Ish a man of sorrows But these expiations not availing God hath provided an expiation in the death of his son Without shedding of blood there is no remission saith the Apostle Heb. 9.22 and because creature-blood could not do it the blood of God was shed to redeem us from sin Jesus Christ who is God-man offered up himself through the eternal spirit to purge our consciences from dead works he paid the utmost farthing to Divine justice and hath left nothing at all to pay for the believing finner The Gentile sacrifices were no expiations at all being indeed sacrifices to devils and not to God nay in their own account they did not expiate in all cases Hence when the Emperor Constantine was haunted with the innocent blood he had shed the Gentile Flamius could tell him of no expiation But the blood of Christ is a true and universal expiation cleansing from sin and all sin 1 Joh. 1.7 The Levitical sacrifices though of Divine Institution were but types and shadows making nothing perfect But a crucified Christ is the sum and substance of them really atoning what those did but typically The Rabbinical cock is a strange vanity in which we may stand and wonder at the Jewish blindness but what their vain Gebher could not do that our Ish the man of sorrows upon whom all our iniquities met hath done indeed he was wounded for our iniquities his soul was an offering for sin his life a â—â—nsom for many his blood was shed for the remission of sins he paid that he never took he made 〈◊〉 through the blood of his cross in him God is 〈◊〉 and reconciled These things being premised I say the soul by Faith doth resign up it self for pardon and justification And that I may observe my first method this resignation is made First To Jesus Christ the Mediator The believer conscious to his own spiritual poverty doth as the poor man in the Psalm commit himself or as the Original is leave himself on the Lord Psal 10.14 In stead of a perfect righteousness he hath raggs of weakness and imperfection but he leaves himself upon the perfect righteousness of Christ as a thing fully answering every jot and tittle of the Law Indeed some great Rabbies cry out upon imputative righteousness as a thing impossible calling it putative a meer imagination Luthers spectrum the pleasing dream of simple Christians but in sober sadness the dream is on their own side If imputative righteousness be impossible how can we stand before the righteous Law dooming and cursing the least defect or non-continuance in all things Imputative righteousness is impossiblé and inherent is imperfect and how can we stand if we stand the righteousness of God must be upon us Rom. 3.22 Christ must be the end of the Law for righteousness unto
darkness and see little or no light their light may be like that in the Prophet Zach. 14.6 neither clear nor dark they may live in crepusculo in a kind of twilight in a mixture of light and darkness Secondly Faith goeth before justification but assurance followeth after it Faith goeth before justification Scripture is express in it by him all that believe are justified Acts 13.39 with the heart man believeth unto righteousness Rom. 10.10 the righteousness of God is upon all them that believe Rom. 3.22 we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified Galat. 2.16 might justification go before faith it were possible that a man might be saved in his sins a child of wrath might be in the arms of divine love a captive of Satan might be a son of God a man out of Christ might be justified in him all which are impossible but assurance follows after justification justification is necessarily presupposed to assurance for to believe my sins forgiven that they may be forgiven is absurd to believe my sins forgiven before they be forgiven is false to believe my sins forgiven because I believe so is vain and foolish Remission must first he before it can be manifested to be it must first be granted out of the Court of heaven before there can be any true Copy of it in conscience unless we allow a distinction between a faith of resignation before and a faith of assurance after justification we cannot possibly deal with the Romanists Bellarmine speaking of that special faith whereby a man believes himself just before God in and through Christ puts this Quaere De notis Ecclesiae l. 4. c. 11. Cum incipio credere me esse justum vel sum justus vel injustus si justus non justificor per fidem banc quia ista fides posterior meâ justitiâ si injustus ista fides est falsa when I begin to believe my self just am I just or unjust if just I am not justified by this faith which is after my righteousness if unjust this faith is false neither is there any imaginable way to dissolve this knot regularly without such a distinction between faith as antecedent to justification and faith as consequent Thirdly Faith justifieth us in foro Dei before God assurance justifieth us in foro conscientiae in our feeling and declaratively only Faith justifies us before God all those expressions in St. Paul touching justification by faith are meant of a justification before God I shall name but one or two that no man is justified by the Law in the sight of God is evident for the just shall live by faith Gal. 3.11 the justification before God here denied to the Law is attributed to faith And again a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the faith of Jesus Christ Gal. 2.16 He doth not say faith declares a man justified for that even the excluded works may do but saith justifies Faith uts on Christ and his righteousness assurance only bears witness that the wedding garment is on Faith waits at the footstool of free-grace to have a pardon sealed in heaven assurance copies it out and proclaims it in conscience unless we admit this distinction we open the flood-gates to Antinomianism Fourthly Faith is a permanent thing an immortal seed which never dies it is built upon the rock of ages and cannot be moved it hangs upon an infallible word the least jot or tittle thereof cannot fall to the ground it is fed with an everlasting spring the holy spirit being in the believer as a well of water springing up to eternal life but assurance is transient now the believer hath nothing but wine and honycombs of grace and a little after he hath a cup of gall and wormwood now a sheet full of celestial joys and comforts is let down to him and then all is taken up into heaven again he is much like Joseph sometimes in the coat of many colours in the visible badges of his fathers love and anon stript and cast into the pit like poor Heman free among the dead and laid in darkness he is a spiritual Heliotrope who is all day in heavenly amours wheeling and turning about to the light of Gods countenance and anon when night approaches contracts his leaves and hangs down his head till there be another Sun it the effence of faith be in assurance the believer stands as it were upon a sea of glass in a very lubricous condition 't is well with him whilest he hath the light of Gods countenance whilest Gods spirit bears witness to his that he is a child of God but what if God withdraw and retire as it were into his unapproachable light what if the crannies of the heart be all shut up so that neither the sunny beams of Gods favour nor yet the starry graces in the heart can appear what if the arch-enemy Satan come with those instruments of death the threatnings and rake in the old wounds of sin and join the darkness of temptation to the darkness of corruption in the believer to cause if it were possible utter darkness must he be an Apostate a cast-away a man fallen from grace God forbid St. Bernard speaking of the manifestation of Gods love cries out Rara hora brovis mora O si durâsset it is a rare hour but a short stay Oh that it would continue with me the believers standing is not in it but in his union with Christ this was notably exemplified to us in Christ when he cried out My God My God why hast thou forsaken me Math. 27.46 the hypostatical union was not dissolved but the present vision substracted in like manner the believer the man in Christ when in desertions and temptations hath a sure conjunction with Christ even whilest there is a suspension of comforts unless we own this distinction we cannot maintain the doctrine of perseverance against the Remonstrants Fifthly Faith is the first-born of all graces and leads the van to all the rest it is the mother-grace and as it were teems out all other graces and no wonder for it unites us to Christ out of whose fulness we receive grace for grace and into whose image we are changed from glory to glory as by the spirit of the Lord but assurance follows after faith and all other graces This will be evident if we consider the manner how assurance is produced it is not an Enthusiasm a voice an internal locution speaking to the heart some such words as these thou art in Gods favour or thy sins are forgiven or thou art a son of God no it is in another way the holy spirit doth so irradiate the heart in its reflections and all the pretious graces lodging there that it plainly appears that the grace of God is there of a truth as it was with the blind man in the Gospel when his eyes were opened he could look abroad in the world and say here 's the earth
and there 's the sea and yonder 's the Sun Moon and Stars sensibly pointing from one creature to another so it is with the believer when he is irradiated by the holy spirit he can look into his own heart and experimentally say this is the pretious faith and that is the love in incorruption and the other is the meekness of wisdom and so go over all the parts of the new creature formed within him or at least over such or so many of them as may assure him that he is in a state of grace This is the way of assurance first there is a constellation of faith and other graces in the heart then these graces irradiated by the holy spirit send forth a kind of splendor which the soul reflecting on it self taking up it comes to attain assurance well knowing that such and such things accompany salvation and import no less then a Divine favour notable is that of St. Paul in whom after ye believed ye were sealed with the holy spirit of promise Eph. 1.13 Mark after ye believed first there must be faith and the train of graces attend thereon and then comes the seal of the spirit of promise the same spirit which endited the promises in the word comes and seals them on the heart whereas in the word there are such promises made to faith and love and holiness the irradiating spirit plainly discovers that faith and that love and that holiness to be indeed in the heart and so seals up the promises to the believer in particular as if it had expresly said this or that promise belongs to thee Hence the believer so sealed may say of the promises as Origen did of those Scriptures which did much affect him haec est Scriptura mea this promise is mine and that promise is mine nay all the Land of promise as much as I can set my foot on is mine own There are three seals to the promises first God seals them for true in the blood of his own Son in whom all of them are Yea and Amen then man seals them for true by faith he that believeth sets to his seal that God is true and then again God seals them for true to the believer in particular by his irradiating spirit Faith then goes before all other graces but assurance comes after them as being no other then the clear evidence of their true existence in the soul Unless we allow this distinction we gratifie the Enthusiasts who declaim against all marks of grace as legal things and sandy foundations Sixthly Faith stands upon the word of God purely totally and entirely In point of expectation it will not look without a word of promise in point of obedience it will not stir a foot without a word of command in point of doctrine it will not lend an ear without a word of instruction Hence Reverend Calvin saith Inst l. 3. c. 2. Perpetuam esse fidei revelationem cum verbo nec magis ab eo posse divelli quà m radios à Sole unde oriuntur Faith hath a perpetual relation to the word and can no more be sundred from it then the beams from the Sun from whom they arise should it be sundred from it it would lose its nature and cease to be faith but assurance doth not stand so purely totally and entirely upon the word this is also manifest by the manner of attaining assurance that is not made axiomatically in an Enthusiastical way as if there were an inward voice saying thou art justified but discoursively and after some such manner as in this practical Syllogism Whosoever believeth his sins are forgiven but I believe Ergo my sins are forgiven Here the conclusion which imports assurance in it stands upon two propositions the Major is meerly grounded upon the word but the Minor stands upon spiritual sense and experience caused by the holy spirit irradiating the soul in its reflections upon its own estate therefore assurance which is comprized in the conclusion doth not stand so meerly upon the word as faith doth Thus the Learned Pemble speaking of that Syllogism saith the major is of faith the minor of sense and experience And the conclusion of both but chiefly of faith as it follows on the premises by infallible argumentation and partly of sense as it is founded on the inward experience of Gods grace working upon our souls What the doctrine of Faith is is to be sought in Bibles but whether there be a particular act of faith or not such as is comprized in the minor Com. R m. 8. cap. must be looked for in the heart Fides non creditur sed habetur sentitur in corde saith Learned Pareus Faith is not believed but had and felt in the heart Actus reflexivus in ipsam fidem quo credo me credere non est ipsa fides sed potiùs sensus fidei Loc. Com. 689. saith Maccovius The reflexive act whereby I know that I believe is not properly faith but the sense of it But you will say if the minor stands upon sense and experience how can the conclusion which imports assurance be de fide And Bellarmine argues thus D. justificat l. 3. c. 8. Nothing can be certain with a certainty of faith unless it be conteined in the word of God upon which if it lean not it is not faith but that such or such a man is justified in particular is not conteined in the word neither can it be deduced from thence for then I must argue thus the word saith All that truly turn to God shall find mercy but I do truly turn to him therefore I am sure of mercy in which the minor is not in the word By the way we may observe what an excellent foundation the Jesuite layes for his disputation Fides non est nisi verbi divini auctoritate nitatur that is not faith which is not bottomed on the authority of the divine word Oh rare if this were believed what would become of Popery What of all the hay and stubble of their vain Traditions Why do they play the wily Gibeonites with their old bottles and clowted shoes obtruding their unwritten verities and mouldy customs upon the Church of God I can be assured of no Religion which is not founded on Scripture But for answer The certainty of the Doctrine of Faith which respects the whole Church is to be found in the Scripture but the certainty of an act of Faith which is in a particular man is to be found in the heart by spiritual sense and experience and so in Bellarmines minor the certainty of my turning to God stands not upon the word but upon spiritual sense and experience yet nevertheless the conclusion which imports assurance is de fide for every conclusion is so which stands upon one proposition contained in Scripture and upon another gathered from sense or experience as the case is in all such practical Syllogisms yet withall as I said at first the
whose origine is light such ignorant ones cannot resign sin to them because unknown is no burden holiness to them because unknown is no beauty Christ and grace to them because unknown are no attractives and how can they resign resign recumbentially they cannot for they know not the promises resign obedientially they cannot for they know not the precepts resign in an humble docibleness they cannot for they know not so much as their want of knowledge Again some sins though unknown carry in the matter of them a direct repugnancy to resignation and so to faith For instance every man hath some natural Popery in his heart he would be justified by a righteousness of his own The Jews being asked whether they believed to be saved by Christs righteousness made this answer every fox must pay his own skin to the flayer every man must stand upon his own righteousness he that doth thus need not cannot resign to Christs righteousness he need not for why should he go out of doors for a righteousness which he hath within in his own heart and he cannot for justification by our own righteousness and justification by Christs are contraries and so are a dependance on our own righteousness for justification and a dependance on Christs for it Hence the Jews when they went about though ignorantly to establish their own righteousness could not believe they submitted not themselves to the righteousness of God saith the Apostle Rom. 10.3 their own unresigned righteousness kept them from believing as being in the very matter of it contrary thereunto Moreover some sins which may not be known for fins in the matter of them may yet be darlings Delilahs and as the Hebrew word imports exhausters such as drain out the very marrow of the heart I mean the prime love choice desire and supream delight thereof These in respect of their intimate conjunction with the soul are barrs to resignation and so to faith How can ye believe which receive honour one of another saith our Saviour Job 5.44 their darling vain-glory made their believing impossible After the same manner all lawful things when once they are set up as Idols in the heart and the love and the joy dance before them are obstacles to faith thus we find They would not come to the marriage-supper of the Gospel and why their darling farms and merchandise kept them away Math. 22.5 Haec vincula hae catenae quae carnales constringunt these are the bonds and the chains which keep men from resignation and the more dangerously because they lie invisible and hid among the stust of our lawful things Christ and earthly things saith a Great Divine come often in competition in every unjust gain Christ and a bribe in every oath Christ and a blasphemy in every sinful fashion Christ and a rag or excrement in every piece of vain-glory Christ and a blast in every intemperance Christ and a vomit whatever the thing be in it self lawful or sinful as soon as it becomes the Idol of the heart it proves an obstacle to faith Thirdly All known actual sins are not absolute barrs to resignation and so not to faith there are peccata quotidianae incursionis sins of meer infirmity such as are not the proper formal issues of deliberation but the inevitable effluviums of humane frailty these may be in a man and may be known to be in him and yet through grace he may resign notwithstanding these black moats slying round about him his faith may look up to the mercy-seat on the other side known actual sin issuing out of deliberation if it be but in one single act doth whilest it is acting put a barr to resignation and so to faith for that single act is rebellion and how can a man whilest he is knowingly in arms against God resign it is as the sin of witchcraft 1 Sam. 15.25 and how can a man who is virtually in covenant with the devil enter into terms with God that faith is not truly recumbential which is not also obediential neither doth it can it indeed lean upon Gods grace whilest his holiness is rejected And if such known deliberate sin in one single act put a bar to faith much more will it do so when it is in a course and series of successive rebellions Thus St. John saith whosoever sinneth that is makes a trade and runs a course of known sin hath not seen him that is Jesus Christ who was manifested to take away sin 1 Joh. 3.6 such an one though never so full of Scriptural notions never yet saw a crucified Christ by faith never yet looked upon the right mercy-seat never yet set foot on the precious promises of the Gospel Christ and Belial cannot be in concord for Christ is a holy Christ a Christ upon his throne and the trader in sin is a man of Belial a man as the Hebrew word imports absque jugo who casts off the holy yoke from his heart and life Fifthly That faith stands in resignation may appear from the act of resignation made by faith Faith in Enoch resigned up his life and in a spiritual sense every believer is by faith translated Enoch-like he is not in the lower world but so far as he believes taken up by God and conversing in heaven Faith in Abraham resigned up his only one his Isaac and every believer every child of Abraham treads in the same steps of faith going up into Moriah into the vision of God and there offering up the only one of the heart the darling love and joy there Faith in Moses resigned up Egypt and in that resigned up all the world for in doing thereof his eye was not on some other part of the visible world but on the invisible God and in every believer faith takes the world and casts it behind his back as dung and dross for the excellency of Christ regard not your stuff saith faith all the Land of promise a heaven of glory is before you wonderful are the surrenders which faith makes in the believer it surrenders up his understanding to super-rational mysteries Meer reason goes no farther then its own sphear of natural notions but the line of faith runs as far as supernatural mysteries such as the lingua lutea the clay tongue of man cannot utter such as lippus oculus the weak eye of reason cannot see Again it surrenders up his will to super-moral self-denials The Moralists self-denial is but the artifice of his reason but the believers is a very great mystery The Moralist denies only the beast the brutish lusts in his sensitive affections but the believer denies the more fine and spiritual fins in the Will it self The Moralists design is only to advance the Empire of Reason over the lower faculties but the believers is to advance God and his holy Will over himself and all that is in him Moreover it surrenders up his affections to super-sensual joyes and pleasures The Sensualist is for the Paradise of sense
on a cross for them why the word is nigh him manifesting these heavenly mysteries unto his heart still he hangs upon a word that if we make a true search lies at the very bottom of all his faith as the foundation thereof Fourthly It exalts the justice of God Many great Rabbies have been caught by the head in the Controversal thickets whilest they have disputed about Gods justice in the condemning impotent men Not to enter into the briers there seems to be much in this that God condemns none for bare impotency but for height and pride and contumacy in that estate Christs question to the impotent man is very remarkable wilt thou be made whole Joh. 5.6 O thou impoten man if thou art sensibly weak in thy impotency poor in thy poverty and low in thy low estate surely creating grace is passing upon thee but if thou art strong in thy impotency rich in thy poverty and high in thy low estate thy condemnation is just because in the pride of thy heart thou wilt not yield to be saved on the terms of the Gospel Spondand Annal. Eccles Anno 491. Zeno the Eastern Emperor being in a fit of the Falling-sickness taken for dead was buried alive and when he cried out lamentably to be taken up but into a Monastery his wife Ariadne would not suffer it If the poor sinner lying in his spiritual grave mourn and groan under his impotency CHAP. VI. Precious Faith confiuered in the fruits and glorious progresses of it and here first of the Divine Sagacities of Faith THUS far I have treated of Pretious Faith in its first and lowest measure as it is the condition of the Gospel consisting of supernatural illumination a belief of the Divine Testimony and a dependant resignation to the terms of the Gospel Now I come to consider the fruits and glorious progresses of faith Faith is like Rebecca the Mother of thousands That blessing of Abraham in blessing I will bless thee and in multiplying I will multiply thee falls down upon all the seed of believers their faith is blessed with a fair progeny of graces and comforts only these are not born all at once for though adoption and justification immediately ensue upon faith comforts and statures of graces do not do so but come forth into being gradually in some sooner in some later as grace is actuated and as God is pleased to dispense them wherefore what I shall lay down touching the fruits of faith I intend not as universally applicable to all believers at the very first and before a progress made in grace justification and adoption are found in every believer nay and some measures of sanctification but higher degrees of grace and manifestations of Divine Love are not so neither do I mean critically to time when each holy fruit buds forth but only to explain the things themselves And here I shall first begin with the sagacities of Faith There hath been a great stir in the world about wisdom Philosophers have hunted after it the Jews have vainly cried up themselves nos sapientes we are the wise men say they but in truth the only Sage under the Sun is the believer Upon Gods own survey it was found that there is none that understandeth Rom. 3.11 none but the believer only his knowledge is divine all Arts and Sciences are but toyes to it which occasioned the worthy Pitiscus to say that he played in Mathematicks with his rule and compass but he sweat in Divinity his design is the wisest he seeks a crown a kingdom of glory the Primitive Christians were wont to talk so much of the kingdom the kingdom that the Pagan Emperors grew jealous of them but alass their aims were much higher in comparison whereof earthly Monarchs do but play at push-pin about Crowns of dust and spend their time like Domitian in catching flies the believer leaving the world behind his back pitches upon heaven and God the heaven of heaven in him to enjoy mirrors of truths Sabbaths of love rivers of pleasures and plenitudes of joy and bliss for ever and what wiser design can enter into mans heart surely none as the last day will demonstrate when it shall put an eternal blush on all other designs And as his end is the wisest so his way to it is the surest he goes to it by Jesus Christ whose merit as a golden key unlocks the doors of bliss to the believer and whose spirit attires him with all graces to make him fit to enter in and all this is not a fancy a fools Paradise but a truth a real thing founded on that infallible word which stands faster then the pillars of heaven and earth But to unfold the sagacities of faith more fully I shall consider them with relation to several objects As to God the believer sees the invisible one and that after another rate then meer Naturalists and Notionalists do he hath more then a bare notion he hath the mystery of God in his heart as the phrase is Col. 2.2 he that hath but the meer notion sees him afar off and knows not how to sanctifie such a Majesty in his heart no more then Cardinal Perron did who first in an excellent Oration before the French King proved there there was a God and then being much applauded by the Auditory offered the next day to prove the contrary but he that hath the mystery sees him neer at hand and so prepares a room for him in his heart a fear for his Majesty a love for his goodness a faith for his truth and mercy a joy for his salvation putting each affection into a posture suteable to some one or other of his Divine Attributes he that hath but a notion of Gods Omnipresence can sport with his sins as if there were no God in the place but he that hath the mystery of it Abraham-like walks before God on to his faces as the Original is Gen 17.1 every where there is a face of God appearing to deter him from sin and excite him to holiness he that hath but a notion of Gods grace hath no favour no relish of the sweetness thereof which I suppose makes the converse of some great Scholars as dry and sapless as Cardinal Pools Sermon about the Pall but he that hath the mystery of it tasts how gratious the Lord is and is ravished as if heaven opened and some drops from the rivers of pleasure there were let down upon his heart he that hath but a notion of Gods justice can sit in his lusts before the sparks of his own kindling and be no more afraid at the threatnings in Scripture then Jehojakim was at the burning of the roll Jer. 36.24 one lust or other consumes all the roll of Divine threatnings but he that hath the mystery of it cannot do so to him hell flames out in every threatning he trembles at the word and saith O my soul be not deceived if thou live after the flesh thou wilt dye
if thou sow unto the flesh thou must reap corruption He that hath but a notion of Gods power can despise Gods hand in small crosses just as the proud Greeks who when Callipolis was lost said the Turks had taken but a bottle of wine but he that hath the mystery of it dares not do so well knowing that the lightest afflictions come from Shaddai the Almighty and if need be he can strike harder he that hath but a notion of Gods All-sufficiency hath his affections scattered up and down the earth as the poor Israelites were over Egypt for straw to gather if it were possible a happiness from the flowers of the creature but he that hath the mystery of it knows how by a compendious wisdom to have all in God roll over all worlds the world of thoughts wishes and desires in the heart the world of riches honours and pleasures in nature the world of pardons graces and comforts in Saints the world of joy glory and beatitudes in heaven and after all this the believer can tell you all these are to be found in God habet omnia quihabet habentem omnid after this manner the secret of the Lord is with the believer As to Jesus Christ the believer hath the mystery of him in his heart A man may have a notion of God manifest in the flesh but unless he have an heart of flesh an yielding resigning heart for God to manifest his spirit and graces in that the heart may in some measure be made answerable to the spirit and graces in Christ he wants the mystery of it St. John speaking of love saith which thing is true in him and in you 1 John 2.8 Why so because saith he the darkness is past and the true light now shineth a man may tell the story of the meekness humility holiness obedience charity patience it Christ but if the true light do not shine in him by faith if these graces be not true in Christ and in him he hath not the mystery thereof the spyes coming back from Canaan brought not only a bare report of the good Land but clusters of grapes also he that hath the mystery of Christ hath not only a meer notion of the full treasures of grace in him but clusters of graces from thence as so many real proofs thereof the Apostle Paul doth notably decipher this sagacity that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death Phil 3.10 If a man hath only a notion of Christ crucified and Christ risen we may character him as Erasmus did the Monastery he was in there is nihil Christi nothing of Christ crucisied where lusts are living and reigning nothing of Christ risen where the soul is dead in trespasses and sins he only knows the fellowship of Christs sufferings who hangs up his earthly members on the cross to dye and expire the only knows the power of Christs resurrection who hath felt the same Almighty power which raised up Christ quickning his soul to a heavenly life this is the mystery the so learning of Christ as the expression is Eph. 4.20 learning him so as to put off the old man with his corrupt lusts and to put on the new man in true holiness and so as to be found in him and count all dross and dung for him It deeply concerns all Christians nay the greatest Clerks to understand this so which without faith no man doth as being void of Christ and his spirit As to inherent grace the believer knows it to be an excellent thing an accident more worth then the substance of the soul it self and yet withall he knows it to be a creature and in it self defectible he knows it to be an excellent thing excellent in its supernatural parentage a thing not born of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God an holy thing formed by the overshadowing of the blessed spirit a beam of grace from the eternal grace in the heart of God excellent again as it is the souls lostre knowledge its glass humility its vail obedience its golden ear-ring love the chain of its neck righteousness its fine linnen every grace its inward glory and beauty elevating natural faculties above their own pitch into a state congruous for communion with God above all excellent as it represents God himself in every creature there is a print or footstep of God but in grace there is his very image and resemblance a believer can see more of God in an holy beam then in the great Sun in a little of heaven then in all the earth intal poor meek spirit then in all the Nimrods and mighty Potentates of the world and yet after all this the believer sees grace to be but a creature and in it self defectible without a spiritual concourse from heaven should God bid him stand alone he would be in an agony and pray as Annas Burgus did at his Martyrdome Deus mi ne me derelinquas ne ego te derelinquam my God forsake me not lest I forsake thee Should God offer him all the Angels in heaven to guard his little spark of grace in being he would tremble and say not so Lord let me be kept by thine Almighty power unto salvation that is the only keeper I desire he dares not say my mountain is strong now I am full now I am rich now I reign as a King by my self were he full of grace it would be but as a room is of light no sooner could he shut the windows and possess it in a self-subsistence but he would be in the dark and experiment every beam to hang upon the Sun of righteousness were he rich in grace it would be but as a Merchant is in his trade if the rich returns from heaven should fail he would soon spend all his stock and like a son of Adam turn bankrupt were he a spiritual King ruling over his lusts he would and must confess himself under the kingdom of Christ and to hold all his power from thence or else Mene Mene his kingdom is numbred and divided among lusts and devils St. Paul saith I live but immediately he calls it back again yet not I but Christ liveth in me Gal. 2.20 well knowing that all his grace had its being from the true Immanuel Jesus Christ and its continuance from the continual influxes of his spirit which are in a sober sense a kind of Immanuel God with us strengthening graces where they are weak quickning where they are dead upholding where they are falling and by an incessant spiration influencing Being into them that they may not vanish into nothing As to the opposite sin the believer sees more of the sinfulness of sin and yet more of the holy God about it then others do He sees more of the sinfulness of sin then others Next to Christ who weighed sin upon the cross he of all men knows best how to
the presentiality of all these Job looks through the worms and dust upon a resurrection my Redeemer liveth saith he Job 19.25 though I dye my Redeemer liveth and will fetch me up again if there were an Engine made which could pull away all the intermediate bodies between us and the heaven of heavens we might look into Paradise faith doth the same thing spiritually it puts by the world and time and lies at the door of heaven and eternity Thus the Apostle we look not at the things temporal but at the eternal 2 Cor. 4.18 he puts by all temporal things which as the lower heavens hold back the face of Gods throne and so he looks into eternity There is a story of an Oxford Monk who by his skill in Magick conveyed himself into the Northern Regions and there took a view of the Pole the believer by the art of faith doth much more in conveying himself out of this world and taking a view of eternity in the promises he sees heaven opening and letting down some sparkles of glory in the threatnings he sees hell flaming and some of the fire unquenchable breaking out heaven and hell are no longer notions but sensations in the raptures and joyes of faith he hath been caught up into Paradise and there drunk of the wine of Angels in convictions and deep humiliations he hath been as it were at Gods barr and hanging over the bottomless pit As to seeming contradictions the believer hath a rare dexterity to enucleate them Touching which I shall give some instances God commanded Abraham offer up thy son thine only son Isaac to offer up a son was a seeming contradiction to nature to offer up an Isaac a son of promise was a seeming contradiction to Gods truth who before had said in Isaac shall thy seed be called but faith unlocks all these difficulties God is able to raise him up from the dead saith Abraham and from thence he received him in a figure Heb. 11.19 a parallel to this we may find in all true believers the children of Abraham God calls upon them mortifie the deeds of the body and ye shall live mortifie and live is a seeming contradiction to offer up our only ones our wills our loves our joys to be slain looks like a piece of unnaturalness but what saith faith it is no such matter offer up your only ones your wills your loves your joys unto God and you shall receive them again from the dead raised up in the incorruption of the new-creature that which was sown a natural will natural love and natural joy shall be raised up a spiritual will spiritual love and spiritual joy your souls before dead in sins shall have the life of God in them this is the first resurrection such things as these nature laughs at as strange paradoxes but faith embraces as rare mysteries Again Christ saith take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easie and my burden is light Math. 11.29 30. what is Christs yoke but the Commandements and are these portable by any meer man so say the Romanists from this very place but the mistake is so gross that the communis sensus of Christians runs against it faith can unriddle it another way the impossibles of the Law the sinless perfection unattainable by us were fulfilled by Christ the heavy end of the Law the dreadful curse unavoidable by us was born by Christ the Covenant of grace is satisfied with uprightness in the wayes of God which is easie to a renewed man its true while there is only the pressure of a Law without and nothing but a natural heart of enmity within the wayes of God are irksom and tedious which occasioned a Divine to say that a man might take a carnal man tye him to a table and kill him with praying and preaching but it is far otherwise with the believer who serves God not in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the spirit who hath a Law within answering to the Law without and a spirit within prompting the same in the heart which the spirit in the command doth outwardly dictate Prayer is but the breathing of the new-creature holy desires its pulse holiness its element obedience its common walk alms but the opening of its hands contemplation but the lifting up of its eyes all natural and easie because from inward principles of life and grace My yoke is easie is durus sermo an hard saying to every man but to the believer who does all sweetly and in the easiness of the new-creature Moreover to give another instance work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure saith the Apostle Phil. 2.12 13. what strange language is here work and yet God worketh all and all of his meer pleasure how can these things be if God work all there seems to be no place left for virtue or vice rewards or punishments because man can do nothing of himself O what sweats have Learned brains been thrown into whilest they have laboured to tune free-grace and free-will into harmony what craggy thorny Volumes of meer speculation have they put forth de concordiâ liberi arbitrii gratiae and after all is done the believer understands it best of any man his life of faith is a plain practical solution thereof for he acts and moves but under the first Agent and Mover he works but under the Master-workman he is free but under the free-making spirit he spreads his sails and withall looks up for the holy gales he labours and sows precious seed and at the same time waits for the spiritual dews and sun-beams he hath graces in him but layes all under that spirit that created them that that spirit may touch upon his charity and draw out his soul in alms and touch upon his devotion and pour out his soul in prayer and touch upon every grace and make the spices thereof flow out still he waits for the touches of the spirit Moral virtues like the fabled cymbal of St. Telian may seem to ring alone by their own self-power and self-confidence but spiritual graces like Davids harp must be awakened by divine influences as it was in Christ on earth the Humanity alwayes ministred to the Divinity so it is with the believer so far as his faith acts all his faculties and graccs are but as it were so many gardens aery rooms and working-houses for the holy spirit to walk breath and work its pleasure in Hence the believer is said in Scripture to walk in the spirit pray in the spirit live in the spirit doing all under the conduct thereof after some such sort as this doth the believer work out his salvation with fear and trembling in a way of humility and holy dependance upon God who worketh to will and to do of his own good pleasure We have an eminent instance of this in holy David see how he hangs
upon God in the 119 Psal thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts but O that my wayes were directed to do so ver 4 5. I will keep thy statutes but O forsake me not utterly ver 8. with my whole heart have I sought thee but O let me not wander from thy commandements ver 10. I will run the way of thy commandements but do thou enlarge my heart ver 32. I love thy precepts but quicken me O Lord according to thy loving kindness ver 159. I have chosen thy precepts O let thine hand help me ver 173. how working is David and how depending how sweetly do mans obedience and Gods influence accord together this a believer practically understands and none but he whilest others labour to fathome it by speculation the mystery is too deep for them but the believer hath it practically and in experience every day As to spiritual extractions the believer is very sagacious Chymists by racking and torturing of nature have forced her to a confession of many secrets and choice mysteries which made Paracelsus so triumph over Galen vaunting proudly that the least hair of his head had more learning then all the Vniversities besides The believer is the best of Chymists no extractions are like those of faith he extracts heaven out of earth could a man extract gold out of base metals it would be but earth out of earth purer out of grosser but the believer extracts heaven out of earth As Jacob saw more then meer Esau he saw Gods face in Esaus so the believer sees more then the meer creature-comfort he sees the goodness of God in it which is the sweetness of all Carnal men are content with the bulk and gross matter of an earthly blessing but the believer draws out the spirits and quintescence thereof that is the love of God without which oil and wine and corn and all other earthly things are but a caput mortuum a piece of dross and dead mattor in his eyes earthly things are transient and perishing in themselves but he hath an art to melt them down by charity into a fixed condition though he cannot say his house yet he can his charity shall continue for ever Silver and gold will not go in speeie in the upper world but he knows how by the poor which are Christs bankers to return them thither for everlasting habitations given in exchange by free-grace Again he extracts good out of evil Carnal men see nothing in affliction but a lump of sorrow but the believer knows that there is a blessing in it the sharpness of it may let out his corruption the suddenness of it may alarum his spiritual watch the bitterness of it may wean him from the breast of the creature the weight of it may try the back of his faith and patience it is no longer meer trouble but made out into fans to unchaff him of his vanity into furnaces to resine his golden graces into moulds to cast him into the image of a meek suffering Christ into spiritual wings to elevate the soul in devotions and heavenly affections towards the everlasting rest which is above much of the love and faithfulness of God is to be seen in it which made Munster sick of the pestilence to shew the ulcers and plague-tokens on his arm ut armillas preciosas Christi gemmas as the bracelets and rich jewels of Christ such noble extractions can faith make out of sore afflictions as if they were the only love-tokens to feal up a son of God according to that old saying Qui excipitur à numero flagellatorum excipitur à numero siliorum Again he extracts strength out of weakness Satans shocks and the fluxes of inward corruption may make him weak and ready to perish but his faith tells him that the power of God which can do all things is perfected in weakness and the weakness of man under which he groans is a capacity for that power to shew forth it self in when our power is gone there is room for Gods when there is no might he increaseth strength as it was in Christ the weakness the humane flesh was anointed with the divinity so it is in the believer the weakness the humane frailty is anointed with the power of grace when he is weak in himself then he is strong in God when weak in the flesh then strong in the spirit The Psalmist hath some Psalms upon Machalath that is upon instruments Musical say some but upon infirmity say others the believer is able to glory and make Musick over his weaknesses because his faith can fetch down the power of God upon him wait on the Lord and he shall strengthen thine heart Psal 27.14 as faith goes up so power comes down hence the believer out of weakness is made strong as the Apostle expresses it Heb. 11.34 Again he extracts grace out of unworthiness well knowing that the way of grace is to move it self into act from our unworthiness a notable instance whereof we have Hos 2.13 14. she went after her lovers and forgate me saith the Lord therefore behold I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably unto her as if he had said she is idolatrous therefore behold I will be gracious Oh what a stupendious therefore is here deservedly is it followed with a behold a note of admiration So wonderful it is that some Learned men among the Papists not understanding how such a connection could possibly be have thought that it referrs not to that which immediately went before but to some precedent words about the beginning of the Chapter a parallel place to this we have Isa 57.17 18. he went on frowardly in the way of his heart I have seen his wayes and will heal him Oh! what strange grace is here one would have thought he would have said he went on frowardly I have seen his wayes and will damn him but it is I have seen his wayes and will heal him Some Jewish Commentators gloss it thus I have seen his repenting wayes and will heal him I suppose not understanding how grace should immediately follow upon perversness but the believer knows that this is the method of grace and therefore by an holy art presses for it even from his own unworthiness Our Saviour Christ calls the Canaanitish woman crying out for mercy no better then dog Math. 15.26 a word of reproach such as the proud Jews put on all the Gentiles such as made the Saracens revolt from the Emperour Heraclius his army and set up for themselves under their Captain Mahomet but see how admirably her faith gathers upon him and even from that word presses for mercy truth Lord yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their Masters table ver 27. ipsum Dominum in verbis capit she takes the Lord in his own words saith Ferus proving her title to the crumbs from her being a dog Holy David prayes O Lord pardon mine iniquity for
very instant of believing a man is justified before God The Antinomians indeed makes as if it came forth much sooner even as early as eternity it self as if it were an immanent eternal act in God But the error of this opinion may be easily made appear For First An immanent act abides in God and doth not as the transient make any change at all in the creature but in justification there is a great change made in man though not a Physical one such as is made in sanctification yet as moral and a relative one the sins which before cried at heaven gates for vengeance are now cast into the depths of the sea the soul which was at the brink of hell is now in the suburbs of heaven the pure beams of grace breaking forth upon it the prison garments of guilt are changed and the righteousness of God is upon the believer the blood of the Lamb is upon his conscience and the damning destroying Law passes over him Again an immanent act in God is the same with Gods essence and not as the transient the same with the effect produced Gods willing is but the divine essence with an habitude to such an object his decrees are himself decreeing otherwise the simplicity of his nature would be overthrown such an immanent act is the decree of justification but justification it self is an effect in time else Gods judicial act may be exercised about a non-existing creature a non ens may be justified a man that is not may be made righteous fin may be remitted before it is committed absolution may anticipate guilt and righteousness Law all which are things hard to be swallowed If any thing in justification look like an immanent act it is either Gods complacential love or the imputation of righteousness but that neither of these are such is clear in Scripture which expresses the same as things future he that loveth me shall be loved of my father saith our Saviour Joh. 14.21 righteousness shall be imputed to us if we believe Rom. 4.24 a shall be cannot be put upon an immanent act futurity cannot be found in eternity Secondly If justification were an immanent eternal act what means a Mediator God and man were at one before would the Lord of all be made under his own Law to bring in righteousness into an already righteous world would he shed his precious blood on a cross to purge away sins eternally forgiven was his sweet-smelling sacrifice to atone a reconciled God did he pay down so great a sum of merits to purchase a freedom for such as were free-born long before doth he still intercede with God to save those from wrath who before were secure from it by an eternal justification this opinion seems to make void the whole satisfaction of Jesus Christ what the Apostle said of the Law if righteousness come by the Law then Christ is dead in vain Gal. 2.21 the same may be said here if righteousness come any other way then by the death of Christ if it come by an immanent eternal act then Christ is dead in vain Thirdly No man can be at once in two contrary states in a state of wrath and in a state of love too every man whilest an unbeliever is in a state of wrath the wrath of God abides on him Joh. 3.36 God is angry with him every day Psal 7.11 and whilest he is in a state of wrath he cannot be in a state of love Joseph whilest he was in prison in his old cloaths was not in change of raiment in Pharaohs Court St. Paul reckoning up a black Catalogue of sins barring men from inheriting the kingdom of God saith of the unconverted Corinthians such were some of you 1 Cor. 6.11 as yet they were in the chains of sin and wrath and immediately after speaking of them as converted he saith but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God then the prisoners were become favourites in the Court of heaven and stood in their robes of grace and righteousness then and not before as evidently appears by the words were and are relating to two distinct states in two distinct times they were not could not be in both states at once but if justification be eternal a man may be at once in contrary states as an unbeliever he may be under wrath and yet as a justified one under love I know a man under wrath may be under a love of benevolence which is the purpose of God to bestow grace and glory but he cannot at the same time be under a love of complacence which is directly contrary to a state of wrath nevertheless eternal justification makes a man capable of both at once Fourthly Justification and sanctification are inseparable companions no more to be sundred then the merits and spirit of Christ which are the respective causes thereof where grace pardons there it heals where Christ is made righteousness there he is made sanctification for he cannot be divided and taken by piece-meal but if justification be an eternal act then these twins of grace may be parted an unconverted man may be justified because that is from eternity and withall unsanctified because unconverted in which case he must needs be in a strange posture at once under two contrary reigns of grace and sin partly in Christ as justified by his blood and partly out of Christ as void of his spirit the light of Gods countenance shines upon him and yet within he wears the image of Satan a blessed one he must needs be because his iniquity is forgiven and an anathema too because no lover of Jesus Christ he is a justified and accepted man and yet a man in his sins all which absurd consequences are unavoidable if justification be an eternal act Thus much may suffice to discover the error of this opinion only there are two Quaeres which must be answered First The first Quaere is this If justification be not an eternal immanent act is not there a change in God God displicentially hates all the workers of iniquity and such are all men before conversion if therefore before conversion he hate and after it he love them is there not a change in him I answer no there is none God such is his infinite sanctity cannot but complacentially love righteousness and displicentially hate iniquity love and hatred are not in God as sin and righteousness are in man in man sin and righteousness succeed one the other but in God love and hatred are eternal and simultaneous the change therefore which is where the succession is and not where the eternal sameness is is in man only and not in God the man who was in a state of sin and so the object of Gods displicential hatred is now in a state of righteousness and so the object of Gods complacential love thus the Apostle you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works
totally perfectly evil but suffering for the Gospel is not meer suffering In temporal losses there may be eternal gain in reproaches a spirit of glory in outward racks inward joys In the Burning-bush God may dwell and death may open a door to life everlasting Hence come the famous Triumphs of Martyrs the Apostle rejoyced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ Act. 5.41 In the Original it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they were honoured to be dishonoured for Christ Others have stiled their Prisons a Paradise and their Iron-Chains a goodly Neck-kercher and at last have kissed the Stake and thanked the Executioner accounting Suffering the only eligible thing in the World Thus Faith destroys all Sins eligibilities and in so doing as the Apostle speaks overcomes the World which is the purest of Victories The great ones who captivated the World outwardly and martially were themselves captivated by it in one lust or other Not unlike Amaziah who subdued the Edomites and was himself taken with their gods But Faith which overcomes inwardly and Spiritually subdues the lusts themselves Further yet Faith doth not only strike at the love of Sin by destroying its eligibilities but by surrendring the Heart to a better Object whilest the love and joy and delight is in Sin it lives as a body with a spirit in it but when these are surrendred up to God and Christ and Heavenly things it becomes inanimate as a dead Carcase This was notably deciphered in Christ crucified the grand pattern of our Mortification he was not only stript and nailed but commending his Spirit to God be gave up the Ghost Answerably in Mortification Sin is not only stript of its eligibilities and nailed by restraints but it dies away in the surrenders of Faith by which the Soul Enoch-like is translated into Heaven and its affections are not here below to animate Sin Were this surrender in perfection Sin could not so much as be as is evident in Christs Humane Nature upon which no spot could fall because it ever was in perfect surrender to his Father And proportionably where it is but in truth only Sin is a-dying because the love and joy whilest in the raptures and triumphs of Faith afford no quickning thereunto hence the Apostle exhorts Walk in the spirit in the elevations of Faith and other Graces and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh Gal. 5.16 Sin shall grow heartless and be able to do little or nothing Here we see how the dear intimate lusts come to die they cease to be dear as Faith turns the stream of the Heart and give up the Ghost as the love and the joy go out to God It was Luthers method in Reformation that first the Images were to be removed out of the minds of Men and then all would suceed and it is Faiths method in Mortification by holy surrenders to sever the Heart from its lusts and so do the work Moreover Faith casts out the love of Sin by conversing in the holy Word after which the Soul becomes pure and shining like Moses face after he had been with God conversing with the Law it sees a rectitude and pure splendor and then to love Sin is to embrace crookedness and hellish darkness and withal it sees wrath and vengeance threatned against transgressors and then to love Sin is to take death and hell into our bosom Conversing with the Gospel it hath such a fair prospect of Grace and Christ as renders Sin the most ungrateful and unnatural thing in the World Shall God give up his Son his eternal joy to die upon a cross and a man a worm spare a lust a brat of his corrupt Heart Shall Christ pour out his Blood and very Soul to expiate Sin and a Believer a redeemed one fall in love with the Crucifier Shall the holy Spirit come down and dwell in Man as his Temple and he who is so honoured embrace that which is the only offence and grievance to such a guest Or shall the Kingdom of Heaven come down and offer it self and that which is the only bar and obstacle be received Surely a Believer with his eyes open will not do so the more of converse he hath with the Word the less of the love of Sin As Sense when it lies brooding on the Creature inflames the love of Sin So Faith when it dwells on the Word abates it that Concupiscence which at first crept in upon Eve in a slumber of Faith while Sense was doting on the fruit must be driven out again by Faith fixing on the Word and soating above sensible things Thus far how Faith strikes at the love of Sin Thirdly Faith mortifies Sin by watching against all the occasions and inducements thereof The Jews were not to name the Idol-gods the Nazarite was to abstain from the very husk of the grape Valentinian could not bear a little drop of Julians holy-water accidentally sprinkled on his garment without detestation The Children of Samosatane would not play with their Ball after the Ass of the Heretical Bishop Lucius had trod on it but burnt it in the Market-place as unclean Faith is nice and curious it will not go in with such a dissembler nor come nigh the door of such an Harlot as Sin is knowing that the Soul may soon be cheated and adulterated thereby Apprehensions of danger make men watch and to Faith there is no danger like that of Sin If the good man of the house had known when the thief would come he would have watched saith our Saviour Mat. 24.43 Faith knows Sin to be a thief and a murderer to the Soul and therefore sets guards within and without that it may not creep in by the ports of Sense nor rise up out of the deep of the Heart Within there is a watch over the Thoughts and without over the sensible Objects And if a snare appear Faith cries out as the suffering Martyr did when a Box with a Pardon in it was set before him Away with it as you love my Soul During this watch Sin pines and famishes away as in a Spiritual siege the common commerce between the Thoughts and the Objects fails and with it those provisions which use to be made for the flesh Hence our Saviour would have his Disciples To watch and pray that they might not enter into temptation Temptations will offer themselves but the watching Believer will not enter into them by a consent Fourthly Faith mortifies Sin by those actings of Grace which it puts forth in the Believer As Sin the more it is acted makes the fuller blot on the Soul so Grace the more it is acted leaves the purer tincture there You have purified your Souls in obeying the truth saith St. Peter 1 Epist 1.22 Every act of Grace or Obedience doth in its measure purifie from Sin The righteous holds on his way and so grows stronger and stronger Job 17.9 The exercise of Grace renders the inner man more strong and
is express in it The righteousness of God is upon them that believe Rom. 3.22 All that believe are justified Act. 13.39 And we have believed that we might be justified Gal. 2.16 And Justification is in order before Sanctification I suppose the Holy Spirit with its Graces will not dwell in an unreconciled Soul Under the Law in cleansing the Leper first the Priest put the blood on him and then the holy oyl upon the place where the blood was Levit. 14.14 17. The Believer first in order hath the atoning Blood put on him and then the holy Unction of the Spirit According to this order Faith is first of all But if Faith and all other Graces are infused at once and together then either they are infused before Justification and so Sanctification is before Justification or else after it and so Justification is before Faith Fifthly This way there will be a congruity between the old Creatiowand the new In the old Light was the first-born of the Creation and then the other parts of the World were made in the new the first thing is the light of Faith and then follow those Graces which make up the New Creature Beholding as in a glass the glory of God we are changed into his image 2 Cor. 3.16 First the eye of Faith is opened and then the Image of God drawn on the Soul this congruity is the rather to be minded because the Apostle speaking of the Creation of Faith doth it with an allusion to the Creation of Light God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledg of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 As if he had said Light in the old Creation and Faith in the new answer one to another Sixthly This way there will be a congruity between Christ formed in the womb and Christ formed in the bea rt The blessed Virgin first believed and then Christ was formed in her Womb Concetio Christi facta fuit simul ac Maria in verba Angeli consentiens dixit Ecce ancilla Domini De Incarnat lib. 2. Quest 7. siat mihi secundum verbum tuum Luk. 1.38 saith Zanchy No sooner did she say an Amen of Faith to the Promise but Christ was conceived in her therefore after her Faith the Angel immediately departed from her as having his errand already dispatched answerably the Christian first believes and then Christ is formed in him in all those sanctifying Graces which make up the holy Image of Christ The Apostles expressing those Graces under the notion of forming Christ in us Gal. 4.19 seems to hint out this Congruity Seventhly This way there will be a Congruity between the being of these Graces and the acting of them whilest both proceed from Faith depending upon Christ the head of Grace The Believers life is in Scripture called a life of Faith not as if there were not Love Meekness Obedience Patience with all the other Graces in him but because Faith is the grand principle which moves every one of them Faith worketh by love saith the Apostle Gal. 5.6 and so it worketh by Meekness Obedience Patience and all other Graces being as it were blood and spirits running in every part of the New Creature All Graces are set a working by Faith and if they also receive their being through it there is a Congruity between their being and working Upon these Congruities I take it that Faith is first in order and then other Graces As to the actual exercise of Graces It is Faith which sets them all a working To this purpose it is observable That all the worthy acts of Grace mentioned in the 11th Chapter to the Hebrews are there ascribed to Faith so is Abels excellent Sacrifice Enochs walking with God Noahs holy fear of the deluge Abrahams obedience in leaving his Country Moses 's self-denial as to the Egyptian Court The valour of some Worthies in subduing Kingdoms and the patience of others in suffering torments for the truth The reason of which is because Faith is the first mover which sets all other Graces a-moving the General under whose conduct all Graces come forth in their courses therfore the honour of all is devolved upon it Now how Faith sets other Graces a-working I shall first shew in a general way common to all of them and then more particularly with respect to some special Graces In general Faith sets other Graces in motion by such ways as these First It looks on the Command which in Scripture calls for these Graces as the very Will of God And so presses for Obedience many ways as first from the Divine Authority of it In the word of a King there is power much more in the word of a God when known to be such In the Council of Triburia a fancy touching an Episile come from Heaven made impression in some of them Had it been really known to be so indeed the impression would have been deeper At the sound of the Command Faith knows that it is the Lord that the voice is from the excellent glory and in that Authority presses to Obedience But this is not all besides Gods Authority it urges from his Love It is saith Faith the voice of thy beloved thy dear Father in Heaven who hath cast his cords and bands of Love round about thee to draw thee to himself and then the Heart must needs feel constraints and holy inflammations to Obedience and be like St. Peter who when he knew it was the Lord girt himself and made towards him Gods Love hath dropt sweetness into the Command and made all easie Moreover to make the stronger impulse on the Believer Faith demonstrates That the Command is just and right and good that holy Love and Patience and other Graces of the first Table are pure rectitudes wherein Man stands in his true posture towards God his Goodness or Providence or some other thing in him And also that Justice and Temperance and Charity are rectitudes wherein he stands in a true posture towards others or himself for Gods sake And a Command so known moves so strongly towards Obedience that a man who would pay his debts to God or his Neighbour or himself cannot must not repugn Secondly Faith looks not only upon the letter of the Command but upon the life of Christ Where all Graces are set forth in lively and orient colours really and practically exemplified to our view Precepts possibly may have more of notion in them but Examples have more of vivacity to attract the heart to imitation above all the Example of Christ must be cogent to Believers he went up and down doing of good every step one odour of Grace or other brake from him Subjection to Parents or Magistrates or Zeal towards God in purging the Temple or Humility in washing his Disciples feet or Meekness under malicious accusations and blasphemies or melting bowels upon all occasions dropping
Cures on the bodies and Heavenly Truths on the Souls of Men or admirable patience under great sorrows and at last upon a tormenting Cross where he drunk the bitter cup of wrath up to the bottom and over and above all the rest sweet Love and Obedience run through them all with a pure intention to his Fathers Will and Glory And Oh! what a Samplar of Grace is here and how strongly can Faith press for an imitation what shall I not tread in such pure steps my Saviour being before Of whom shall I learn if not of my Redeemer Did he sweat and bleed and die on a Cross for me and shall I not follow him Can I rest on his Merits and precious Obedience and wave his holy Pattern Was he to fulfill all Righteousness and I none at all If I abide in him must I not walk as he walked If I know the truth as it is in Jesus must not those very Graces which were true in him be true in me also Why doth the Spirit come and work those Graces in my Heart but that they should be actuated Unto what was I created in Christ if not to good works I find nothing but vanity in my self and my own ways and shall I not walk in Christ and his holy Graces If I follow him fully shall I not see the Heavenly Canaan at last and there receive a Crown of Life Such a Pattern so pressed on a Believer must needs be a strong motive to the exercise of Grace The Apostle would have us run our race looking unto Jesus Heb. 12.1 2. Fancy as Naturalists tell us hath done strange things a Woman much looking on a beautiful Picture brought forth her Child very like it as Galen relates to be sure Faith looking unto Jesus brings forth his Image in the Heart and Life Thirdly Faith holds out the Promises as incentives to the work The Believer is an Isaac a Child of Promise the new Creature with its Graces is born of the Covenant and ever after lives upon it Every Grace hath some Promise or other to feed on Love hath God dwelling with it Fear hath his secret Meekness his Salvation Patience a crop of Comforts and all of them have an entail of Eternal Life And when Graces are acted there is a Promise of encrease To him that hath that is useth Grace more shall be given more of the same Grace his Talent shall be doubled his Path shineth more and more to the perfect day in Heaven and withal more of the Divine Indwelling Secret Salvation and Comfort promised and at last more of Glory Thus St. Peter speaking of divers Graces saith That if they be and abound in us we shall have an abundant entrance into the Kingdom of Christ 2 Pet. 1.8 11. Every Grace hath an entrance into it and abounding Grace an abundant entrance and all these Promises are sure in themselves sealed by Gods Veracity and Christs Blood and sure to the Believer being realized by Faith and therefore must needs be very attractive to Obedience Faith in a meer Command will make a Man follow God though like Abraham he know not whither he go Much more impulsive is Faith in a Promise when he knows in so following he is going into an abundance of Grace and Glory The lying Promises of Sin received into a carnal fancy will draw out Corruption into act as we see in Men who are drawn into Sins carnal and spiritual much as their Father Adam was by some Apple of Sensual happiness or appearance of Self-excellency how much more attractive must the precious true Promises of God be when entertained by Faith at the sight of these the Believer as old Jacob at the sight of the Chariots revives and puts himself forth in the exercise of Grace that he may inherit the Promises and the vast treasures of good in them Fourthly Faith observes Seasons and Providences and stirs up Graces suitable thereunto Insidels smother the greatest Works of God some have said That Sodom happened to sire as standing on a Sulphureous soil Others that Moses did but take the advantage of a low-tide to carry the Israelites over the Washes Nay in the Jewish Church the Pharisees and Sadducees though great Rabbies could not because without Faith discern the Signs of that glorious time wherein the Messiah shewed himself on Earth in such excellent Doctrines and Miracles But Faith where it is understands the language of Providence and calls for suitable Graces under a storm of Judgments it calls for the mourning Graces of Repentance and Humiliation lamenting after the Lord under a Sun of Prosperity it awakens the Psaltery and Harp Praise and holy joy in God the Fountain of all When Iniquity abounds it is for Davids rivers of tears to weep over it When Gods Name or Worship or Truth are at the Stake it blows up the fire of Zeal as we see in Paul's Paroxism at Athens Epiphanius his renting the Veil and Athanasius's ardent adherence to the Truth against an Arrian World As the Poor appear Charity must come forth and scatter Alms. As Injuries and Reproaches fly abroad Meekness must shew it self and rather than revenge turn the other cheek In Asslictions Patience must have her perfect work And in Desertions there must be an humble waiting on him that hides his face As God comes forth in this or that Providence so Faith meets him in this or that Grace Every Grace is one time or other called out by a Providence and every Providence hath some Grace to answer it Fifthly Faith actuates Graces in a way of dependence on the Spirit of Christ This is instar omnium Commands Patterns Promises Providences are ineffectual without it The New Creature moves not but by influence from the Head the holy Spirit must first stir up the nest of gracious Principles and then Love and Joy and all other Graces shew forth themselves As the Humane Nature of Christ never acted in a separate way but did all in Union with the Divine So the Believers Graces do nothing apart but all in Union with Christ Those who think that gracious Powers or Principles may go alone and act themselves know not the life of Faith in which all Graces hang upon Christ as beams upon the Sun The Milevitan Council pronounces an Auathema on those that deny the Adjutorium gratiae which worketh to will and to do And the Arausican speaking of that Adjutorium saith Quoties bona agimus Deus in nobis atque nobiscum ut operemur operatur When we do good God works our works in us and with us What the life of Faith is St. Paul excellently describes I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me saith he Gal. 2.20 And again I labour yet not I but the grace of God with me 1 Cor. 15.10 Faith is ever in dependence leaning on its Beloved and breathing after the holy Spirit that the gales thereof may make the spicy Graces flow out and upon this
upon men the high Thrones with its train made Isaiah cry out as an undone man Isa 6. the voice out of the whirl-wind caused Job to abhor himself in dust and ashes Job 42.6 The bright thining man turned Daniel's comeliness into corruption Dan. 10.8 And what those outward appearances did in a sensible way that Faith which is an inward Vision of God doth in a Spiritual looking on him by Faith a dread falls on us from every Attribute or Work of his His glorious Majesty makes us go and hide our selves in the dust of our own vileness and nothingness His pure Holiness comparatively turns us and all our comely Graces into rottenness His dreadful Justice sounds so loud in the threatning that we cannot but tremble at every word of it Nay his very goodness and tender bowels lying all about us make us afraid to trample thereon by finning even those in Nature do so much more those richer ones in Grace His very rain calls for out fear Jer. 5.24 And what do those dews of the Spirit which are not common as the other His bounding the Sea doth so Jer. 5.22 and what doth his bounding corruption which else would drown Soul and all in perdition Oh how tremendous is our life our Bodies living on the Blood of Creatures and our Souls on the Blood of God our natural being lying in the arms of that Power which bears up the World and our Spiritual in the arms of that Grace which saves it Earth flowing round about us with Blessings and Heaven it self coming down in Promises and carrying back our Hopes thither Who in such Visions of Faith would not fear the Lord and his goodness Who would not tremble at Sins indignity and ingratitude After such mercies as these should we again transgress against him If we wax wanton under Goodness how soon may Soveraignty come down and recover all from us as forfeited Heaven may shut up it self and the dews of the Spirit cease our Graces may all droop and wither and our Hearts grow hard and stony one lust or other may carry us into captivity and our little remnant of Grace and Life may cry out as the Church doth O Lord why hast thou made us to err from thy ways and hardned our hearts from thy fear return for thy servants sake Isa 63.17 After all our wantonness we shall be glad to come to holy Fear again Soveraignty will make us fear him in every thing such a fight of him by Faith as this makes him practically to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fear as he is called Psal 76.11 Moreover Faith moves this Fear into act by shewing the great evil of Sin Sense looks on penal evils which press on the outward man but Faith on Sin as the greatest of evils it being an opposite to God a blot to the Soul a blast to the World a forfeiture of Heaven and fuel for the flames of Hell a thing not to be done Pro quantiscunque bonis lucrandis aut pro quantiscunque malis pracavendis for the gaining never so great a good or for the avoiding never so great an evil as Bradwardine speaks Hence St. Austin said That a man must not tell a lie to save a world And Henry Flander being a Prisoner for the Protestant Religion would not say That his Wife was his Whore no not to save his life offered to him on those terms Now Fear being a kind of flight from evil the greater the evil is the greater is the flight and when an evil is the greatest of evils such as Sin appears to Faith the flight from it is as from Hell it self and more if possible according to the saying of Anselm That if Sin were set before him on the one band and Hell on the other he would rather leap into Hell than fall into Sin Another Grace actuated by Faith is Zeal which is an intense Love or a mixture of Love and Anger or rather the heat and boyling up of all the affections in the concerns of God and his Glory This is a coal from the Altar which warms Hearts and Lives and sparkles out in every Grace and Duty without it all is in spirituali gelicidio cold and frozen as in a Sunless World Indeed without Faith Zeal is blind as in the Jew who in his heat for the Law opposes the Gospel and true Righteousness Or it runs out upon Humane things as in the Papist who crys up Traditions as a second Oracle or it moves upon selfish Principles as in the Pharisees who did all theatrically to be seen of men But when Faith comes Zeal is according to the Word as its Rule and for Divine things as the worthiest Object and out of a pure intention to Gods Glory as the supream end Faith brings us into Communion with God and makes us one spirit with him and hence it comes to pass that those things which are dear to him are so to us and those injuries which move his jealousie above stir up our Zeal here below To Faith Gods name is nomen Majestativum holy reverend fearful glorious precious a name above every name and therefore cannot be profaned but Zeal will break forth the reproaches cast on it fall more heavily on the Believer than those on himself or his near relations Nay they press harder on him than if he should hear one railing at Princes or Angels Maris the blind Bishop of Chalcedon being brought into the presence of the blasphemous Emperour Julian fell severely on him as upon an enemy of God and when Julian told him That he was blind and his Galilean God would not cure him Maris gave thanks to God who had taken away his eyes that he might not look on so wicked a wretch as Julian Such a Zeal doth Faith put forth for Gods name In like manner the Worship of God is to Faith his Homage honour on Earth Crown of glory Sanctuary of Presence a thing too precious and pure to be allayed with Humane mixtures if this be corrupted our Zeal must needs kindle at it and so much the more because his facred jealousie hangs more over his Worship than over any thing else in all the World To the other Commandments we find this annexed I am the Lord Lev. 19 but to the second I am a jealeus God Exod. 20.5 Hence Moses at the light of the Calf forgets his Meekness and in a holy Passion brake the holy Tables In the Constantinopolitan Council held about the year of our Lord 754 how hot were the Bishops against Images as a meer Pagan custom and when they were cast down how triumphant was the Peoples Zeal crying out Hodiè salus mundo now is salvation come to the world In the fifth Council of Carthage they would have the very reliques of Idolatry totally blotted out Nay Leo Bishop of Rome when the Manichees Worshipped the Sun forbade the Christians to worship towards the East that they might have nothing common with them Such
the first place looks up to God as sitting at the stern and ruling all every Affliction is a piece of his Government to murmur against it is rebellion in such a case nothing becomes us so much as with Aaron to hold our peace or if we open our lips to do it with Job Blessing the name of the great Giver and Taker Is he not the Lord and may he not do as he will in his own World and among his own Creatures Should not all flesh be silent before him None but himself may or can be Rector of the World and yet in every act of Impatience we aspire and virtutually would be such our selves and is he not Insinitely wise and just in all that he doth Every Wheel hath an eye in it and every Cross its just proportion and to think that it might have been better is to blaspheme Providence This made that holy Man Mr. Dod in his Sickness after extream sits of pain say to his Servant O think well of God for it for it is most justly and wisely done whatsoever he doth And is he not gracious and mercisul and doth not Mercy rejoyce against Judgment The measire of Grace as the Jewish Rabbins say is ever larger than the measure of Judgment for one Cross we have many Blessings And shall we receive good much good at his hand and not a little evil If we have his Heavenly Graces how much may we bate of Earth and its Comforts If Sin the greatest burden of all be taken off in a Pardon may we not easily bear the lesser ones Thus Mr. Greenham told his Son in Law complaining of his Crosses When Affliction lyeth heavy Sin lyeth light If guilt press not any thing may be born nay is not he gracious and merciful in the very Affliction Doth he not support with one hand whilest he smites with another St. Paul glories in his Infirmites That the power of Christ may rest upon him 2 Cor. 12.9 And the Noble Potamenia being threatned to be cast into a Vessel of burning Pitch begged Spond Annal. Ann. 310. That she might not be cast in all at once but piece-meal that they might see how much Patience the unknown Christ had given unto her and doth he not make all work together for good What are the issues of Affliction to Believers but the purgation of Sins trials of Grace peaceable fruits of Righteousness and inward joys and experiences of Gods Goodness Let Faith but cast up the reckoning and it will appear That he afflict us in Love and Faithfulness and therefore it must needs be well taken the wounds of such a Friend being better than the kisses of the enemy-World Again to advance this Grace Faith makes a right judgment of Afflictions to Sense these are grievous but to Faith fit and congruous The World in which the Believer lives is a stage of Sin and therefore fit to be a place of sorrow how calm soever it was before Sin entred it is now a troubled Sea an Ocean of Evils as Antoninus calls an Empire Storms and tossing waves are proper in it and to be expected by every Passenger as much a Paradise as it was before it is now a Wilderness thorns and thistles of trouble grow naturally in it and give many a scratch and sting to the poor Pilgrim in his way to Heaven The Believer himself as a Man is born to trouble and altogether vanity all-Adam is all-Abel or vanity as it is Psal 39.5 He comes into the World weeping and very fitly because by his Sin he hath set the whole Creation a groaning until now and as a Believer he lives as a lilly among thorns so is his person in the World among wicked ones which are as pricking briars on every side and so is the Grace in his heart among the reliques of Corruption which are as thorns in the flesh And whilest Sin is within it is congrnous that trouble should be without nay more than congrnous it is necessary upon many accounts Affliction is purgative of Sin it may be the Believers Heart may wax proud and the tumor must be lanced or light and the vanity must be fanned away it may be hard and the furnace must melt it or drowsie and the rod must awaken it One ill humour or other is ready to grow upon us and O felices tribulos tribulationum Oh happy thorns of Affliction which let them out It Medicine be necessary so is Affliction which is Spiritual Physick for our peceant Humours Affliction is the way which Christ hath sanctified by going in it himself to the Throne of Glory and Believers must follow him whithersoever he goes Innocency it self suffering lumps of dust and sin cannot but do so He drinking up the full cup of Wrath well may we take a few drops of it especially seeing our sufferings are sweetned by his and his Heaven will be ours at last where the light momentany sufferings shall be remunerated with an eternal weight of hyperbolical Glory Luther saith of himself That looking on the Susserings of Christ he counted his own as nothing And St. Bernard makes Christ Et speculum Patiendi pretium Patientis both a glass of Patience and a reward of the Patient Now we are tossing and toyling at Sea but the port of Bliss is within ken and anon we shall be there In the interim we may tasie Heaven in the Joys of the holy Spirit which sheds abroad the Love of God in our Hearts and so gives us Praemium ante praemium a lesser Heaven before a greater Saint Paul saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I superabound or overflow in joy in all our tribulations 2 Cor. 7.4 Philip Lantgrave of Hesse being asked How he could endure his long tedious Imprisonment under the Emperor Charles the fifth professed Se Divinas Martyrum Consolationes sensisse That be felt the Divine Consolations of Martyrs The gracious Presence of God is able to sweeten Prisons Eghten Chains and make fire and water paffable to Believers Such things as these well digelled by Faith will make us keep a holy silence under all the Will of God Not to name any more Particulars I shall conclude this Point touching the actuating of Graces with one Observation more Faith connects all Graces together as links in a Chain and so by actuating one advances all in some measure The School-men do many of them allow a Connexion of all Moral Virtues in Prudence and yet commonly affirm That Faith may be without Charity As if Spiritual Graces were not so well united as Moral Virtues But the truth is true Faith is never without Charity true Faith makes us sons of God Joh. 1.12 but without Charity we are spurious and Children of the Devil By true Faith Christ dwells in the heart Ephes 3.17 and where he dwells Charity cannot be absent true Faith purisies the heart Act. 15.9 and without Charity there can be no Purity True Faith rests on the meer Grace of
God in Christ and that must needs in flame the Heart towards him Tamum amamus quantum credimus Hence Aquinas himself confesses That though Faith and Hope may be without Charity yet without Charity they are not properly Virtues And Durandus saith Credere in Deum non est praecise actus fidei sid actus fidei charitatis simul To believe in God is not precisely an act of Faith but of Faith and Charity together So Inseparable are these two Graces But leaving the Schoolmen I shall proceed Faith connects all Graces together in a triple way it connects them in the fontal cause the boly Spirit which it receives all Graces are from the Spirit and the Spirit is received by Faith hence rivers of living water flow in the Believers heart Joh. 7.38 that is All Graces flow there as waters from a fountain it connects them in the Rule the Command of God which it universally respects It is observed by Divines That the five last Commands in Deut. 5. run thus Thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not commit Adultery and thou shalt not Steal and thou shalt not bear false Witness and thou shalt not Govet The word And points out to us that all the Commands are coupled together by God like the Curtains of the Tabernacle all are as it were one body and Faith hath a respect to every one of them and in every one owns the same stamp of Divine Authority He that said Love thy God said also Love thy Neighbour He that said Be Zealous said also Be Meek and Patient and Obedient and abundant in all Grace It connects them also in the end the Glory of God which it looks at in all things all Graces tend to that Glory and Faith is the single eye which guides them all thither Bonum opus intentio facit Enarr in Psal 31. in Pras intentionem sides dirigis saith St. Austin Faith knows what that is wherein God would be glorisied All Graces being thus connected in Faith which is a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or firmament as the word is Col. 2.5 to them all it comes to pass that Faith in actuating any one Grace gives a strength and further growth to every other Grace Thus it is in Graces respecting distinct Tables the more we act our Love to God the more will be our Love to our Neighbour this though belonging to the second Table flows ex fonte pietatis out of that fountain of Piety which respects the first Thus it is in those Graces which are seemingly contrary as in Zeal and Meekness the more we act our Zeal for God the more will be our Meekness towards Men. Hence in the Primitive Christians who were so hot for Christianity was found a very meek Spirit and the reason is because a Man cannot truly actuate one Grace but he will have more of that Spirit which is fontally all Grace and graciously multiplies Talents in the use of them Neither can he truly obey one Command but it will render his Heart more Obediential and ready to obey others also as being enjoined by the same Authority nor can he in one thing look at Gods Glory but it will in some measure encline him to seek it in other things also and so the New Creature grows in every part and his Path shines more and more to the perfect day in Heaven CHAP. XI Precious Faith considered in the Crowns and Statures thereof The Divine Experiences of Faith as it Experiments the Divinity of Scripture in the Precepts Promises Threatnings and Supernatural Truths thereof Concerning the Blessed Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Divine Essence Jesus Christ the Mcdiator and the Efficacy of Grace HAVing treated of Justification Adoption and Sanctification which are Fruits of Faith and are more or less in all Believers I now proceed to some other which are The Crowns and Statures of Faith and to be found not in all Believers at least not at first but in such as have made a good progress in Grace Faith have made a good progress in Grace Faith having obtained the Holy Spirit with all its Graces doth now go on like The Baptized Eunuch rejoycing in the ways of God glorying in Free Grace triumphing in Jesus Christ warring against Corruptions actuating Holy Graces bowing down under the Commands of Heaven sucking the Sweet-Breasts of the Promises and waiting for the Heavenly Dews and Distillations of the Spirit and in this holy Progress gathers up many choice Experiments more worth than a World All learned Men are for Experiments and every one would cry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have found it the Sages of the Law are for tried Cases which have been sub judice the Physitian sets a probatum est on approved Medicines the Anatomists hunts after the arcana of Nature by Dissection of Bodies and the Chymist by Dissolution thereof Experience is procreatrix Artium the very Parent of Arts whose universal Precepts are collected by an induction of particulars but there are no Experiments like those of Faith Dr. Dees Spirits made as if they would reveal great Mysteries to him such as they called the Cabbala of Nature the Numbers of the World the linea Spiritus Sancti the Mirabilia Dei and the Nova terra bringing forth without Tillage but all these were but Dreams and Impostures and so I suppose are many things in Chymistry like Helmonts Alkahest wonderful if true But the Experiments of Faith are great Realities and withal Divine as much above those in the Sphear of Nature as Souls are above Bodies and Heaven is above Earth God in the Prophet calls on his People to baing in the Tythes for his House and so by their Obedience to prove him If he would not open the windows of Heaven and pour out a blessing that there should not be room enough to receive it Mal. 3.10 When Faith goes on in a Tract of Obedience proving of God Heaven opens in wonderful Experiences of him the Manna of holy Truth is then tasted the Hony-combs of Free-Grace drop upon the Heart Promises are realized exemplified in Providences Divine Helps and Salvations come down and call for Eben-Ezers to be set up for them and Discoveries of heavenly things in their certainty and excellency are in a manner made as if a Man could look into the Holy of Holies and see God Face to Face Some such Experiences I suppose the learned Rivet had in his last Sickness in which he said of himself In these ten days I have made a greater progress in Divinity than in all my Life but leaving Generals I shall come to Particulars One great Experiment of Faith is touching the Truths of God a Believer in his holy Progress comes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding as the Apostle speaks Cal. 2.2 At the first he hath a Stock of Divine Knowledg but after Experience Riches and all Riches of it at the first
God 1 King 18.39 answerably when the Believer in the doing of Gods Commands feels the illapses of the holy Spirit inflaming and comforting his Heart he sweetly experiences that God is in the Command of a truth Thirdly Faith experiments it in that the hope of Heaven is enlarged and heightned in the doing of Gods will The more a Believer doth it the livelier is his Faith the warmer his love the stronger his other Graces the meeter his Soul for Heaven and the richer his entrance thereunto 2 Pet. 1.11 He shall not go to Heaven poorly or with a seant wind but with full gales and rich Plerophories by successive acts of Obedience his Hope rises higher and higher and so gives an experimental proof That the Command is the very will of God and way to Glory otherwise Hope would not grow and flourish in it but flag and wither as it uses to do in us when we pursue our own ways The Apostle would have men diligent in good works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the full assurance of hope Heb. 6.11 Vt plenissimè in animis vestris spes confirmetur faith Beza Immediately after the giving the Law God adds these words Where ever I record my name there will I come and bless you Exod. 20.24 a blessing attends his Service If God bless Obedience with an assurance of Hope which is a fore-taste of Heaven and presage of Glory it is a full proof that his name is recorded in the Command When a Believer walking therein comes to assurance and so to be within ken of Heaven he is sure that the way is right Another excellent part of Scripture stands in the Promises These are the Pearls of the Gospel breasts of Consolation and wells of Salvation flowing out to Believers in temporal spiritual and eternal good things each of these Faith more or less experiments to be Divine As touching Temporal Promises Faith experiments them in every blessing which the Believer hath Indeed outward things are but the nether-springs and blessings of the left hand dispensed promiscuously as if they were ludibria fortunae the sports of chance Providence is still ringing the changes here an Ishmael may have his portion and full cup even Crowns and Kingdoms which lie at the upper end of the World may come to the basest of men Dan. 4.17 All things come alike to all the Sun of Prosperity shines on the Bramble as well as on the Flower the tempest of Adversity falls on the Garden as well as on the Wilderness Love or Hatred cannot be known by these things not by them as they are in themselves or meerly issuing out of Providence But the Believer hath them by a singular Priviledg and in a way of Promise and by reflection may know that he hath them so When he doth not arrogate ought to himself or like churlish Nabal all in his Possessives say My bread my water and my flesh but really confess God to be supream Lord of all and himself but an accountable Steward of them When he can cast his goods on the waters and as it were send them to Sea in a voyage of Charity expecting no return but in the other World where these Corruptibles so used will rise in the incorruption of eternal glory When he can charge all outward things to stand without in their own station and not approach that heart which is a facred Temple or holy place for God to dwell in When he looks on all the World as forfeited by Sin and new founded by Christ the Mediator and so tasts his precious blood in every good thing and gathers all his comforts from his reconciling Cross When upon a just call to Suffering he is willing to venture all his part in this life upon the meer Promise of a better and had rather cast all his Mundane pearls over board than hazard a wrack of Faith or Conscience When the purest sweetest Comforts here below do not satisfic his Soul as smelling of the cask and chanel of Creature-vanity but in the fullest affluence of them he crys out Dulâ—ius ex ipso fonte a single God is insinitely sweeter than all and none but he can sill up the gaping chinks and chasmes of my Hear Deus meus omnia My God and my all Then undoubtedly he hath outward blessings not upon the common title of Providence only but in a way of Promise and by reflection on such things as these he may know that he hath them so and arrive at a sweet experience of Temporal Promises Such an experience multiplies the Loaves and wonderfully doubles and trebles the sweetness and comfort of every Blessing Some learned Men have observed a difference between Jacobs Blessing and Esaus Jacobs runs thus God give thee of the dew of Heaven and the fatness of the Earth Gen. 27.28 Esaus thus Thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the Earth and of the dew of Heaven from above ver 39. In Jacobs the name of God is mentioned not in Esaus it s true all Blessings are from God but his name is mentioned in the one not in the other The experienced Believer hath more of God and his federal Love in every Blessing than other Men. The Jews by a pious custom used to say over their Bread Blessed be God who brought Bread out of the Earth over their Wine Blessed be God who created the fruit of the Wine over their Fruits Blessed be God who created the Fruit of the Tree nay and over their Flowers Blessed be God who made the sweet smelling Herbs and in general they added this Whosoever takes ought out of this World without a benediction is as it were a robber of God But the experienced Believer as he hath a sweeter title to these things so he may raise up his Praises for them to an higher strain than other Men not only saying Blessed be God and his Providence for such and such things but blessed be God and his Promise also All good things as well those of this life as those of the other issue out of the Covenant of Grace You will say the Believer cannot yet make this experiment for though he have some of the Temporal Blessings mentioned in the Promises yet often and ordinarily he wants other of them To which I answer The Promises of Temporal Blessings are not absolute but carry a tacit limitation of expediency The main design of the Promises is Mans Salvation and to this Temporals are not as Spirituals are simply necessary but only have a remote tendency thereunto and that not of themselves but as they are over-ruled by God who makes omnia cooperari in bonum all things work together for good to them that love him And hence the Believer expects from the Promises no other measure or proportion of outward things than what may conduce to his Salvation and because he knows not what that measure or proportion is he refers himself to the Wisdom and Faithfulness of God to order all
for his good and hence God doth not fulfil Promises of Temporals as he doth those of Spirituals Promises of Spirituals he fulfils in specie because they cannot otherwise be made good a drop of Grace being more worth than a World but those of Temporals he fulfils disjunctively either in the Blessing it self or in that which is equivalent by inward contentation and supportation compensating the absence of the thing it self These things being so the Believer in what he hath may experience the Promise in the true proportion and meaning of it and not withstanding his wants may know That in Christ he is so far heir of all things that if he could want a world he should have it As touching Spiritual Promises these are either Promises of Grace or Promises to Grace As touching Promises of Grace Faith may know these experimentally The Believer reads in his Bible That God hath promised to give an heart of flesh to make a new heart and a new spirit to write his Law in the heart to give an heart to know him to circumcise the heart that it may love him and many more such-like and afterwards reading over his own Heart he may find these precious Graces all there and be able experimentally to say of these Promises as Joshua did of those made to Israel Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord hath spoken all are come to pass Josh 23.14 In every holy melting he finds the heart of flesh in every holy frame the new heart and spirit in every holy inclination the inward engraven Law in every holy beam the Divine Teaching in every holy affection the Spiritual Circumcision all the Promises are scaled and really exemplified in his Heart and what an admirable experiment is this To see a Work within answering to the Promise in the Word is a greater sight than if a Man could have stood by and seen the light start forth into Being upon the Almighty fiat spoken by God in the Creation unto which the Apostle alludeth in setting forth the Divine light shining into the Heart in the face of Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 The Magnalia of Grace are more wonderful than those of nature Hence St. Chrysostom upon those words of the Apostle We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus Ephes 2.10 saith of Regeneration That it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 really a Creation and more noble than the old one as adding a benè vivere to that life which came from the old one The experienced Believer hath cause to say what hath God wrought how fearfully is the New Creature made all its Graces were written in the Promise and now are fashioned in the Heart where before there were none of them How precious are thy thoughts to me O God how great is the sum of them This Experiment was notably typed out in Isaac he was by Promise and as soon as he was born the Promise was experimented notwithstanding the dead body and dead womb The Believer the child of Promise is as Isaac was saith the Apostle Gal. 4.28 All the regenerating Graces are by Promise and when these are brought forth the Promise is made good maugre all the deadness of nature By the Promises we are made partakers of the Divine Nature saith St. Peter 2 Pet. 1.4 that is we have those Divine Graces which as the Creature-module will admit resemble the Holy One and so we have the Promises sealed up to us in Graces As touching Promises made to Grace such as are fulfilled in this life Faith also experiments them to be Divine In the Scripture the Believer meets with Promises of Pardon to such as repent and believe of comfort to the mourner of filling to the hungry and thirsty of the Divine secret to them that fear God of encrease of Grace to the improver and many more of the same nature To experiment these the Believer by perusing the Scripture and his own Heart doth two things first He clears it up to himself that the Graces in his Heart to which such Promises are made are true through the irradiating Spirit vouchsafed to him He may discover them to be such by Scriptural Marks he may find that his Faith purifies and works by Love That his Repentance and Mourning are chiefly for Sin That his Hunger and Thirst are humble and industrious in the use of means That his Fear is of God and his Goodness in a filial way That his improving of Talents is in a way of dependence and holy diligence and so certainly knows that these Graces in his Heart are real things This foundation being first laid then he proceeds to a second review of his Heart and there he may find how Pardons have sensibly broke in upon him in a way of Repenting and Believing or how the Sheaves of Joy and Comfort have followed his Tears or how Satisfactions Manna-like have dropped down on his hungry Soul or how Divine illuminations have come in and Crowned his Holy Fear or how Talents have multiplied in the faithful using and actuating of them And the Experiment thereupon will be compleat every Grace sooner or later being in some good measure answered by the Promises which let out their sweetness to it as God hath ordained them to do Thus the Believer sensibly enters the Land of Promise and eats of the Fruit thereof lifting up his Soul in The high Praises of him who gave the Promises in the Scripture and fulfils them in the Heart As touching Promises of eternal good things in Heaven where there are Plenitudes of Joy and Rivers of Pleasure in the Presence of Him who is All in All the completion of these is in another World nevertheless the Believer hath an experimental taste thereof here Whilest his Hope hangs upon them he finds strength and comfort come into his Heart whilst the weary World is tossing with troubles O what a refreshing is it to look into Eternity Hope Eatring within the vail is an Anchor to the Soul and so stablishes it that it doth not rowl about with the wheelings of this changeable World nor center its happiness in any or all the Creatures Let the World come in all its Fancies and glittering appearances of Good it cannot call off the Believers Heart from Heaven but it will be ready to point that way or let it come with storms of terror and troubles it cannot loosen the Anchor-hold the Believer will rather part with all the World and his Life too then let go his hold of Heaven Ye took with joy the spoiling of your goods knowing in your selves that ye have in Heaven a better and an enduring substance saith the Apostle Hebr. 10.34 Or as the Words are in the Original Knowing that ye have in your selves a better and abiding substance in Heaven He speaks as if they had carried Heaven in and about them and in part they did so for as Beza hath it on this place Fide possidemus quod est in
Holy Ghost and these Three are One 1 Joh. 5.7 This Truth hath had many Opposites as the Arrians Samosatenians Sabellians Photinians and of late the Socinians who have strained their subtile Wits to undermine it if possible tell them That Baptism is in the Name of the Trinity They will reply That The Israelites were Baptized into Moses 1 Cor. 10.2 Tell them That There are Three that bear Record in Heaven 1 Joh. 5.7 They will say These Words are not to be found in the Ancient Greek Copies nor in the Syriac nor in the Ancient Latin Version but these are but Evasions As for the first They were Baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto Moses there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Acts 7.53 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is there put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appears by comparing that place with Gal. 3.19 where Saint Paul of the same thing saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so To be Baptized unto Moses is only to be Baptized by the Ministry of Moses who led them through the Red Sea Hence in the Syriack it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the hand of Moses Again it is one thing to be Baptized unto Moses another to be Baptized in the name of Moses Paul Baptized but none in his own name 1 Cor. 1.13 And again the Israelites were improperly Baptized into Moses they were not aspersed or immerged in water neither was Baptism then an Ordinance of God as now it is As for the second in St. John that place undeniably proves the Trinity The learned Stephens saith That place is wanting in seven Greek Copies but it is found in nine more ancient St. Cyprian de Vnitate Ecclesie alledges this place for the Trinity Athanasius urged this place against Arrius in the Council of Nice and then no exception was made against it Had it not then been in St. John Arrius would have easily rejected it I believe in the times of Constantius and Valens the Arrians blotted out these words as most pregnant against them out of divers Copies St. Jerom asserted the truth of our reading from the Greek Copies which he had publickly contesting That in those Copies where it was wanting it was razed out by the fraud of Hereticks And St. Ambrose saith That the Hereticks did erade that place This Truth stands fast in Scripture for ever and ever and Faith embraces it And which is more and to the Point in hand Faith in its holy progress may as I conceive experience it My reason is the Church in all Ages down from the Apostles have worshipped the Sacred Trinity Their Baptism hath been in its Name their Doxology and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proclaim it their Creeds all publish it their Catechumeni were trained up in the knowledg of it they ever worshipped as Athanasius hath it in his Creed one God in Trinity and Trinity in Vnity and that uno indiviso cultu as Divines speak This in all Ages hath been the Christian Worship and upon this Worship answers and returns have come down from Heaven in abundance of Glorious Spiritual Blessings such as are comprized in that Apostolical Prayer The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all Amen 2 Cor. 13.14 The whole Trinity is adored and the whole Trinity vouchsafes Gracious returns Gratia quae datur in Trinitate datur saith Athanasius Every Believer so worshipping hath returns from Heaven and the Progressive Believer may know that he hath them and in the experience thereof may experience That there is a Sacred Trinity of a truth If the Trinity be a nullity or as Servetus blasphemously said An Idol or three-headed Cerberus Or as Socinus belched out his impiety A ridiculous invention of humane curiosity Then the Christian Worship is no other than strange fire vain ' Will-worship and Idol-worship nay it is no Worship at all none because the Trinity its supposed Object is a nullity none because God looks on it as none As when the Samaritans feared the Lord and served their Idols 2 King 17.33 The Text saith in the very next ver That they feared not the Lord their fear was as none because of the mixture of Idol-worship So when Christians worship one God and a Trinity which is not their Worship is as none at all Upon such a Worship God will not open his eyes unless to punish it nor make any returns but those of Wrath. When the Israelites worshipped the Golden Calf Gods Wrath waxed hot and was ready to consume them much more may it do so if Christians worship a Trinity which is not In that of the Calf as they meant it there was only error in modo for they intended not to terminate their Worship in the Calf but in God as appears by their own words To marrow is a feast to Jehovah Exod. 32.5 But in this of a Supposititious Trinity there is error in objectio ultimo which is more provoking to God If the Trinity be but the Idol of the brain God will no more be enquired of by its Worshippers than he would by those who set up their Idols in their heart Ezek. 14.3 no gracious returns are found in such a salfe way A Believer therefore who in Worshipping one God in Trinity finds returns srequently and successively after Duties from the Mercy-scat carries an inward seal and proof in his bosom that there is a Trinity This experimental proof of a Trinity seems to me evident in many places of Scripture St. John saith Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ 1 Joh. 1.3 He saith not barely Our fellowship is with God but with the Father and the Son neither doth he say it at peradventures but as a sure known thing such as hath the joy of the holy Spirit with it St. Paul would have the Colossians to be knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgment of the Mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ Col. 2.2 Here is a Plerophory of understanding nay riches and all riches of it Here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as one saith Illustrior notitia rei prius cognitae A further knowledg orpractical acknowledgment of a thing before known and these must needs import somewhat of experience Our Saviour saith If a man love me and keep my words my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him Joh. 14.23 In the 21. ver he told them That he would manifest himself to the obedient 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he conspicuum meipsum exhibebo I will exhibit my self though Spiritually yet clearly as it were to eye palam in media luce as Beza hath it Hereupon Judas asks him Lord how is it that thou wilt manifest thy self to us unto which our Saviour answers That the
Barbara St. Dorothy St. Margaret to these came the Foolish for Oyl that is as the Actor interpreted it That they would intercede with God for their admission into Heaven They knocked and wept and instantly prayed but the Wise denied and bid them be gone At this sight the Nobleman was astonished crying out What is the Christian Religion if none of the Saints will hear and intercede for us And soon after he died of an Apoplexy 'T is sad being shut out from the presence of God The Believer is as they say of the Rhodians in sole positus He is nigh unto God and hath his Religion proved to him in that he hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 access or manuduction unto God The way into the Holy of Holies is open through the veil of Christs flesh and the Holy Spirit doth conduct him in thither He may come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with boldness unto the throne of Grace and there utter all his mind as a Child doth to his Father David in the 13th Psalm begins as if God were totally absent How long wilt thou forget me O Lord for ever How long wilt thou hide thy face from me But a little after we have him in the joy and triumph of Faith I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation saith he ver 5. The door of Mercy which for a little time was shut up soon opened again and gave him a free access unto God Thirdly He experiments it in the returns of Prayer the Promises by which God binds his own bowels above are let down here below in the Gospel And as the Believer takes hold of them by Prayer so God is touched with a compassionate feeling thereof Whilst Ephraim was bemoaning himself in his Supplication Gods bowels are troubled and fall a-sounding at it Jer. 31.18 20. Coelum tundimus misericordiam extorquemus saith Tertullian We knock at Heaven and fetch down mercy from God Prayer hath done Wonders in the world At Abrahams Prayer God stoops to such low terms that he would have saved Sodom for ten righteous persons Jacob by Prayer wrestles and becomes a Prince with God which is more than to have all the Monarchies of the World Moses by it binds as it were the Almighty and will not let him alone to consume Israel Joshua stopt the Chariot of the Sun and so made a long day for the improvement of his Victory Elias locked up Heaven and till he turned the Key of Prayer the contrary way there was no rain upon the Earth In the time of Marcus Antoninus the Philosopher the Christian Legion by their Prayers procured Water for the Roman Army and a scattering Tempest against their Enemies and were therefore called Legio fulminatrix The thundring Legion Prayer hath a kind of Omnipotence in it and can do every thing Sometimes the Prayer is returned in Specie in the very thing desired as Hannah's was in a Son whom therefore she called Samuel that is Asked of God In this case the Believer hath a double Blessing in one over and above the common Providence he hath a pregnant proof of his Prayer in it A Blessing which is a meer Providence comes up as the Corn doth with the husk or chaff of one vanity or other as a Memento of that blast which Sin brought upon the World But that which is a Fruit of Prayer is as Manna from Heaven pure and unmixt a Blessing and no sorrow added to it as being the Birth of the Promise and Covenant The Blessings of the former sort are gathered up by Men as Acorns are by Swine without looking up to that Grace which as a Tree of Life bears all the good Fruit But the latter raises up the Heart in the admirations and high-praises of the great Donor as we see in Hannah who returned back her Son assoon as received unto God in Praise and Dedicacation Criticks have observed an elegant Paranomasia in those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore I have lent him to the Lord 1 Sam. 1.28 Samuel was first Shaiil meel Asked of God and then Shaiil leel lent or returned to God Those Blessings which are drawn down by Prayer lie not dead here below but are sent back again in Praise Sometimes the Prayer returns another way though it be not heard ad voluntatem it is ad utilitatem The answer is in some thing that profits us though not to the express desire of our Hearts it may be it is in the sweet composure of the Heart Upon Prayer God comes in and rebukes the Winds and Seas of Passion and there is a calm and Divine serenity in the Soul Hannab before Prayer was a Woman of a sorrowful spirit but her Soul being poured out unto God returned with a Divine sweetness Her countenance was no more sad 1 Sam. 1.18 It may be there is an inward support which is tantamount to the Blessing desired Our Saviours Prayer against the Cup of Wrath was heard in that he was enabled to drink and overcome it And St. Paul's against the Thorn in the Flesh in that he had sufficient Grace to withstand it Preclarè nobiscum agitur dum adest Dei Gratia quae nobis subveniat saith Reverend Calvin In the Supports of Grace there is a signal answer of Prayer it may be over and above the Support the Beams of Gods Love break in upon the heart This is a little Heaven here below and richly transcends all this world Bellarmin tells us a Story of an old Man who used to rise from Duty with these words Claudimini Oculi mei claudimini nihil enim pulchrius jam videbitis Be shut O my Eyes be shut for I shall never behold a fairer Object than Gods Face which I have now beheld The Love of God irradiating a Prayer is a ravishing sight far better than life and all its comforts It may be there is a transmutation of the Blessing into another such as God who improves the stock of Prayer to the best advantage knows to be better for us David prayed earnestly for his sick Child and the return of it was in a Solomon a Jedidiah beloved of God One way or other the Believers Prayer returns into his bosom being answered at least secundum cardinem according to the main hinge and scope of it which is Gods glory and Mans comfort or happiness Thus Moses's Prayer to go into Canaan was answered according to the ground of it Instead of the type God takes him up to Heaven the true Canaan which was most for Mases's comfort And instead of Moses a type of the Law Joshua a type of Christ leads the people into Canaan which was most for Gods Glory Which way soever the Prayer returns to the Believer it seals up the Ordinance for Divine In the last Place I come to the Ordinance of the Lord Supper The outward Elements of this Sacrament our Lord Christ took as Learned Men conceive from a custom observed among the
not of God condemns the Marâ—ionites as much as if they had been named That 1 Tim. 4.3 forbidding to marry condemns the Eustathians as much as if they had been named That Threatning Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things being general speaks Wrath to every Transgressor as soon as he is such And so that Promise Whosoever believeth shall not perish but have eternal life being general speaks Pardon and Salvation to every Believer as soon as he is such All that believe are justified Act. 13.39 No sooner doth this or that man believe but the Promise speaks to him Thy sins are forgiven thee God saith to him I am thy salvation It may be he doth not understand it at first However here is a sure ground-work for him to believe that it is so and so accordingly he doth as soon as Assurance comes in to him Moreover the Romanists urge That the Doctrine of Assurance puffs up Pride and opens a gap to Licentiousness Unto which my answer is a flat Denial If our Saviour had thought that Assurance would make men like Devils in Pride or Beasts in Licentiousness he would never have said as he did to the Paralytick Thy sins be forgiven thee Mat. 9.2 Had they told us That such a Worm as Pride would breed out of the Doctrines of Merit and Supererogatory Works it might easily have been believed but that it should drop from such an Honeycomb of Free-Grace as the Doctrine of Assurance is is not reasonably to be imagined Here 's nothing of Merit nothing of our own all is pure meer Grace the Believers Faith and Repentance is of Grace and the Assurance of Pardon and Salvation is Grace upon Grace Sealing-Grace upon Sanctifying And whatever perverse abuse may be made of these the natural tendency thereof is not to Pride for a man after such Graces to forget the great Fountain and set up an Idol of Self-excellency is extreamly unreasonable Just as if he should say Now I am in the bosom of Grace but I would be cast out and be held afar off Now I have the warm Beams of Gods Favour but I would fain be in the Dark again Who would argue thus Will it not be much more proper in an humble admiration to say as David did Who am I and what is my house that thou hast brought me hitherto 2 Sam. 7.18 Thy Love O God first made me a Vessel of Faith and then filled me with the Oyl of Holy Joy What am I to be such a Receiver All that I am is too small a return nothing of self may remain for an Idol Had they said That Licentiousness might have been fathered on the Sale of Pardons and Indulgences it had been veryright These made Germany and other parts groan with all manner of wickedness But to lay it at the door of Assurance is abominable Machiavel was out in his Politicks when he would have Princes Rule by Fear but he advised so because he knew well enough That following his Rules they could not be Loved and therefore he would perswade them that it was better to be feared The true Obedience for I look not on that which a man is haled unto as such springs out of Love for that fulfils the Law and our Love springs out of Gods for We love him because he first loved us 1 Job 4.19 And the more his Love is revealed the more ours is inflamed towards Obedience In Heaven the blessed Angels who see Gods Face in Glory are most intent upon the doing of his Will on Earth holy men who taste of his favour walk the more accurately for it The joyful sound of Pardon being in the Conscience makes the holy Walk easie and a fair prospect of Heaven sweetens every step Obedience stands no-where so sure as in the Circle of Love which from Gods Love as the first Point is drawn through ours round about into it self Gods Love coming down in Assurance and ours returning in Obedience his being inflammative to ours and ours resignative to him in such circulations of Love their is no room for Licentiousness It 's true Saints after such Pleonasmes of Love may fall foully but do they fall because assured Do they turn Enemies to God because they know themselves Friends Can the Light of Gods Countenance dispose them to Works of Darkness May the choice Influences of Heaven make them earthly and sensual Will the Prodigal once returned run away the sooner from his Fathers House because of the Kiss and Robe and Ring and Fatted Calf freely bestowed upon him Such things as these do involve many Paradoxes and Repugnancies in them and withal cast dirt upon Heaven and blaspheme the Witnessing Spirit and therefore are justly abominable to the Saints who experience the contrary in their own Hearts Having thus far gone through the Enemies Camp I come now to lay down my Thesis to be proved viz. That a Believer may be certainly and infallibly assured of his Pardon and Salvation I say a Believer may be assured an Unbeliever while such is not a subject capable of Assurance he hath Plague-Sores and Tokens of Wrath upon him but as yet never a Beam of Grace or Love the Justice and Holiness of God cannot suffer him to be shined on none of the Promises can speak kindly or comfortably to him his stony Heart cannot receive the Seal and Impress of the Holy Spirit Hence the Apostle saith After ye believed ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of Promise Ephes 1.13 after and not before First there must be a new Creature and then a new Name First Gods Image is printed on the Heart and then his Love I say a Believer may be assured but not that all Believers are so A man may be a Babe in Christ and not know it a Child of Light and yet walking in darkness A Believer may live in crepusculo in the twilight or mixt condition of Hope and Fear and so though sure of Heaven not in his own sense assured of it I mean not that he may be assured by an Angel or Voice from Heaven or extraordinary Revelation This the Adversaries will admit but in an ordinary way in the diligent use of such Helps and Means as are common to all Believers Thus the Apostle speaks in common to them all These things have I written to you that believe that ye may know that ye have eternal Life 1 John 5.13 He doth not say some may know it in an extraordinary way but speaks of it as knowable by Believers in common I mean not that he hath this Assurance always or in every point of time perpetual Serenity is not here below Earth is not as Heaven the Sun may be eclipsed the Seal of the Spirit may be clouded Evidences may be blurred and hardly legible It may be God in Sovereignty withdraws or Satan in envy buffets or the Believer lets down his Spiritual Watch or a due estimate is not set on Heavenly Comforts or there
Eph. 1.3.4 and I have those Blessings in me Effectual Vocation hangs on Predestination as the highest Link in the Chain of Grace Rom. 8.30 and I am so called This made St. Bernard Epst 10.7 speaking of effectual Vocation say Ad ortum solis justitiae Sacramentum absconditum à seculis de praedestinatis beatificandis emergere quodammodo incipit ex abysso aeternitatis When the Sun of Righteousness rises upon the Heart in an effectual Call the secret mystery of Praedestination hid from Ages breaks forth out of the abysse of Eternity Here the Great Counsel of Eternal Love which lay in Gods Bosom shews forth it self to the Believer through the Lattice of his Graces Hence he may conclude on good grounds That his Graces shall never fail so long as the Foundation of God standeth sure in Election Continual supplies of Grace from the Fountain will keep his Lamp from going out It s observable that when God expresses his fresh Mercies to his People he doth it thus I will yet chuse Israel Isa 14.1 Election is from all Eternity but it buds and blossoms in time in fresh supplies of Grace as if he chose them again When the Saints are drooâ—â—â— and as it were dying away Election will give another visit and make them live a second time So unspeakable are the comforts of this Point that as I have read one under the sweet sense of Electing Love was for some days taken off from all the joys of Nature and in an holy extasie cried out Laudetur Dominus Laudetur Dominus as if he had been in Heaven already bearing a part in the Church Triumphant Again The Believer looks not to his Graces only but to the indwelling Spirit Faith and Love and Obedience cannot fail in his Heart whilst the Spirit of Grace is there and there it will always be because it is an abiding Vnction perpetually chearing every grace and a well of water springing up into everlasting life Continua irrigatio coelestem in illis aeternitatem fovet saith a judicious Divine on the place a continual irrigation cherishes an heavenly eternity in them Upon this account the Spirit is called the earnest of our Inheritance not for a time but until the redemption of the Church be compleated Eph. 1.14 that is till the whole Sum be paid in Glory The Earnest going along with the Believer to Heaven his Graces cannot possibly fail by the way Our Saviour told his Disciples and in them all Believers That the Spirit should abide with them for ever Joh. 14.16 And two things will make it good to them I mean their Union with him and his Intercession for them Their Union with him will do it they being mystical parts and pieces of him the Holy Fourt will enliven them and their Graces Because I live ye shall live also saith our Saviour Joh. 14.19 The Members cannot dye as long as there is life in the Head But may not the Union cease No by no means God himself hath established it thus the Apostle Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ and hath anointed us is God who hath also sealed us and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts 2 Cor. 1.21 22. Believers are established in Christ and to assure them of it the holy Spirit is an Unction a Seal and an Earnest in their Hearts This establishment of Believers seems to me exemplified in Christs Humane Nature that once assumed into the Word by an Hypostatical Vnion was never separated from it those once taken into Christ by a Mystical Vnion are never parted from him the Apostle hints both to us The God of Peace who brought again from the dead the Lord Jesus make you perfect Heb. 13.20 21. That God who would lose nothing of Christs Humane Nature no not in the grave will perfect Believers as Mystical parts of him never suffering their Graces to see corruption in an utter decay nor leaving their Souls in the hell of final Apostacy Besides Christs Intercession ratifies it he in his solemn Prayer on Earth which as Arminius himself grants was the Canon and Pattern of his Intercession in Heaven prays to his Father for all Believers That they may be kept from evil Joh. 17.15 If they are not kept Christs Intercession ceases or becomes powerless Neither of which can be Cease it cannot because be ever lives to make Intercession Become powerless it cannot because he is a Priest after the power of an endless life what he interceeds for shall be done I will pray the Father saith our Saviour and what follows The Comforter shall come and abide with you for ever Joh. 14.16 As long as Christ pleads at the right hand of Power it must be so This made St. Paul break out into that gallant Triumph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature No not our own Wills unless more than Creatures shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Rom. 8.38 39. from Gods Love to us or ours to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we over-overcome all things in our way to Heaven our Graces cannot fail below as long as Christ is pleading above on our behalf Moreover the Believer looks not only to his Graces but to the Promises in which God is pleased to bind himself that they shall be kept alive to the end St. Paul praying for the Thessalonians That their whole spirit and soul and body might be perserved blameless unto the coming of Christ immediately adds a sweet Promise Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it 1 Thes 5.23 24. Believers and their Graces are taken into Gods own hand And where can they be safer But may they not be plucked from thence No None shall pluck them out of mine or my Fathers hand saith our Saviour Joh. 10.28 29. But may they not of themselves fall out of it No though they fall out yet they shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholdeth them with his hand Psal 37.24 But will he always do so Yes He will confirm them unto the end 1 Cor. 1.8 And how will he do it He will put his fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from him Jer. 32.40 He will put his Spirit into them and cause them to walk in his statutes Ezek. 36.27 And what though their Fear and other Graces be defective and want filling up yet He which did begin the good work in them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will perform it until the day of Christ Phil. 1.6 And what if temptations and fiery darts fly about on all sides they are in garrison in the power of God 1 Pet. 1.5 and there shall be a way to escape 1 Cor. 10.13 In such Promises as these every way securing the Believers state of Grace the Covenant of Grace lifts up
it self in a transcendent excellency above that of Works which had no Promise of Perseverance annexed to it Shall we now say That all these Promises are Conditional if we will persevere and not otherwise Is not this to turn the Covenant of Grace into that of Works and a sure state in Christ into a lubricous Adamical one Is it not to evacuate all those glorious and magnificent Promises touching Perseverance as if God in them spoke only in such cold Language as this I will preserve you from all evils and dangers only for that greatest of all which is in your own hearts and wills I will not undertake or in such contradictory terms as these if you persevere I will make you persevere as if Perseverance could be the condition of it self After these Promises so interpreted Believers are but where they were before before these Promises it would have been true that if Believers persevere and continue in Grace they do so and after them so interpreted What have they more What do they contribute to Believers when the main stress of Perseverance is laid on Mans Will and not on Gods Grace But this obiter The experienced Believer knows better how to use Promises and from them communes with his own Heart Hath God promised Perseverance and will he not do it is not his Covenant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Everlasting Covenant and are not his Mercies sure Mercies Can his Faithfulness fail or his words of Grace fall to the ground Shall I trust him for Pardon and Salvation and not for Perseverance Will he give me Heaven and shall I faint by the way It cannot be He will guide me with his counsel and then receive me to glory Till I come there I shall be supported by his hand and supplied with his Spirit Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life In such sort may the Believer be assured of his Perseverance in Grace and so of his Salvation Again the Believer may gather his Pardon and Salvation from that peace and joy which he finds in his own heart There is a kind of Peace and Joy springing out of Moral Virtues which because of their Congruity to Reason leave a serenity on the Soul where they are lodged Mens sibi conscia recti is a great matter a good Conscience is murus aheneus a wall of brass to the owner Seneca saith Res severa est verum gaudium True joy is in the severe prosecution of Virtue Hierocles tells us That the pleasure of the Virtuous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imitates the joy of the gods And it was a Point of ancient Philosophy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Virtue is sufficient to Happiness But the Peace and Joy in believing is of an higher nature Those in the Moralist come but from the face of Reason smiling on the Congruity which is in Moral Virtues to it self there is nothing of Grace or Christ in them But these in the Believer come from the reconciled face of God shining upon the Heart in a Mediator Those in the Moralist exceed not their own sphere of Reason but these in the Believer pass all understanding Phil. 4.7 and are full of glory 1 Pet. 1.8 Heaven comes down in them and puts a pure serenity on the Heart The Believer now dwells in Paradise the light of Gods Countenance shining as a clear Sun Christ as a Tree of Life dropping down Pardons and Graces the holy Spirit being as a perpetual spring of Virtues and Comforts the fragrant Promises breathing out the odors of Love and Mercy the sweet voice of Peace and Joy uttered from Heaven ecchoing and making melody in Conscience Nothing here but green pastures and still waters and placid Heavens not a cloud from the Law to darken the light not an ach in Conscience to break the rest not a spot of unremitted sin to stain the serenity Oh what manner of Peace and Joy is here A Stranger a Pagan Philosopher intermeddles not with them These are to be found in the Raptures of a Cyprian or in the Consolations of an Austin or Bernard In such a state as this what should the Believer do May he not break out in the proper Idiom of Faith My Lord and my God May he not sinely conclude My sins are forgiven me Nay Ought he not to do so and with David call upon all that is within him to bless the Lord for it After such hansels of Heaven and Glory should he yet doubt and say I cannot enter when he is there already in the beginnings and first-fruits thereof Nothing is more unreasonable He knows in himself by the Graces and Comforts in his own heart That he hath a part in Heaven and Salvation In the last place The Nature of the Sacraments which are Seals of the Covenant evinces this Truth In the Gospel we have Gods Hand but in the Sacraments his Seal also In the Gospel Pardon and Salvation are set forth in general Promises but in the Sacraments they are Sealed up to this and that man in particular Circumcision is called The Seal of Righteousness Rom. 4.11 and by the Hebrew Doctors The Seal of the holy God And Baptism which succeeds and as Evangelical transcends it must be as much and more So Sealing Pardon and Salvation to Believers that there follows the answer of a good Conscience towards God 1 Pet. 3.21 or such a Conscience as can with an holy considence interrogate God himself in some such terms as these Did not Christ purchase Pardon and Salvation for me Have I not a share and interest in them Yes assuredly there is no doubt of it The Passover figured out Christ the true Lamb who was reasted in the Fire of his Fathers Wrath to take away Sin and the sprinkling of the Blood on the Door-posts pointed out the Application of Christs Blood to the Consciences of Believers in particular The Lords Supper which rose out of the Ashes of the Paschal Supper and took its very Materials from thence doth eminently Seal Christ with all his Benefits unto the Believer Our Saviour delivering it to his Disciples said This is my body which is given for you this is my blood which is shed for you Luk. 22.19 20. Why for you but to signifie the particular Application of his Passion to them By the Elements of Bread and Wine as by turf and twig God gives the Believer livery and seisin of Christ as if he said to him expresly Christ is thing Pardon and Salvation are thine thou hast my Seal for it and mayst be as sure of it as of the Bread and Wine in thine Hand and Mouth Bellarmine himself confesses De effect Sacram. l. 1. c. 8. That Sacraments were instituted Vt nos certos reddant remissionis gratie To make us certain of Pardon and Grace Only he adds 'T is only a moral certainty not an infallible one But how frivolous is this What can make an Infallible certainty if Gods Seal
he had a true Virtue in him or no but seeming afraid of the Judgment-Seat unto some who begged his Prayers when in Heaven he made this Answer The way thither is not so easie I should esteem it a great Blessing from God if I might obtain Purgatory for many years Into such labyrinths do their Principles lead them The Reason whereof is They espouse Hagar the Covenant of Works and that gendreth to bondage and servile fear They corrupt the great Fountain of Peace and Joy I mean free Justification by Christ and Grace and their Comforts cannot run pure They would compound those two incompatibles of Grace and Merit and patch together Christs Righteousness and their own which in the Apostle is to fall from Grace and make Christ of none effect Gal. 5.4 And what Peace can follow Whilst they look at the Law Conscience will be still murmuring Non recte sacrificasti non recte orasti as Luther hath it This and that was omitted or not well done The Levite and the Priest pass by their Wounds the good Samaritan will not come but alone and without a co-partner to make a Cure If therefore thou wouldst have Assurance thou must build on the right Foundation and lie at the true Fountain of Comfort Thy Love and thy Obedience are but Evidences Christ and Grace are the only Foundation Thy Faith is but a receiver an empty vessel Christ and Grace are the Fountain of Comfort Expect no rest but in his bleeding Wounds look for no comfortable words but from the Mercy-Seat Think not that thy Conscience shall be appeased unless by that Blood of Atonement which appeased God himself or that thy heart may be satisfied in a Righteousness less than that perfect one which satisfied Gods Conscience is his Deputy and cannot go off at lower terms than he himself doth Fix thy heart on Christ and Grace lay the whole stress of thy Soul and Salvation there Lean on thy Beloved appropriate his Merits and Righteousness to thy self Thus Luther tells the menacing Law O Lex Immergo Conscientiam meam in Vulnera Sanguinem Mortem Resurrectionem Victoriam Christi praeter hunc nibil plane videre audire volo O Law I drown my Conscience in the Wounds Blood Death Resurrection and Victory of Christ besides him will I see and hear nothing This is the true way of Peace Jahannes a Berg a zealous Papist in his life found it so at last by his own experience When a Protestant-Friend admonished him then lying on his sick-bed That now he would by Faith apprehend the Merit of his Saviour and acquiesce in the full Expiation by him made for sin he immediately swallowed it as the richest Comfort in the World looking on those in Popery but as so many vain Fig-leaves When Assurance which is the top-stone of Faith is laid in our hearts we have reason to cry out Grace Grace Christ Christ These whatever our Duties and Works have been are the Fundamental Reason of all Peace and Comfort Again He who would have Assurance must not grieve or quench the Holy Spirit but cherish and follow it It cannot but be a great and marvelous thing in his eyes that the holy Spirit should make his heart a Temple or Sanctuary for himself To grieve it is unnatural and to grieve it expecting comfort a contradiction If thou wouldst be assured grieve it in nothing indulg not any lust This is filthiness and to be carried out of the Sanctuary this is an Idol and must not stand in the Temple Bury thy excrements thy superfluity of naughtiness that the holy one may walk in the midst of thee Take away the accursed thing lest his Presence depart Away with thy vomits thy sensual sins lest he complain that there is no place for him left in thy heart Pride not thy self in gifts or graces this is as a smoak in his nose to force him away from thee grieve not him whereby thou mayst be sealed to the day of Redemption He comes to seal Pardon and Peace and Heaven it self to thy Soul why shouldst thou grieve him If thou dost so How canst thou expect to be sealed by him Instead of Sealing he will turn to be thine Enemy as he did to those Rebels Isa 63.10 He will meet thee in some straits of Providence and by one threatning or other as by a drawn Sword stop thee in thy perverse way Oh! do not grieve him gather out of thy heart and life every thing that offends and his Kingdom of Righteousness and Peace and Joy shall be in thee When an holy Truth appears to thee smother it not for a World it comes from the pure Spirit to light thee to Heaven Walk in the Light of it Who knows but that whilst thou art in the way the Spirit may drop some heavenly Cordials upon thy Heart Obedience is the true Road to Comfort Excellent is that in the Prophet Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord his going is prepared as the morning and he shall come to us as the rain Hos 6.3 Follow him in his Truths and thou shalt know him in his Comforts Gods Face shall be as an aurora or morning lighter and lighter on thy Soul and his Spirit as the dew or rain distilling Divine Consolations on it Believe it every ray of Truth if followed leads to the Joy unspeakable When an holy Motion comes remember who is the Speaker That Spirit who can seal the Promises and print Gods Love on the Heart now calls thee to one Duty or other Hear and thy Soul shall live open thy Sails and the Gales will blow thee to the fair Haven of rest I may say of the Spirits Motion as he in the Prophet doth of the Wine in the Cluster Destroy it not for a Blessing nay the greatest of Blessings a Paraclete a Divine Comforter is in it Follow on and thou shalt come to the Vintage and Wine-cellar of pure Consolations such as Earth assords not The Holy Spirit can witness to thy Graces and seal up Gods favour to thee and be to thee an earnest of Heaven and eternal Life As thou wouldst be assured welcome every motion close with every dictate cherish every illapse of this blessed Monitor let every inspiration find thee as the Seal doth the Wax and the spark the Tinder let thy Soul follow hard after him pursuing him E vestigio step by step as near and close as thou canst possibly This is the true way to rest Again if thou wouldest have Assurance first make Conscience pure and then walk after it That Pardon and Salvation which is founded in Christs Blood and sealed by his Spirit must be recorded and reported in Conscience or else there can be no Assurance If our heart condemn us not then have we confidence towards God saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 3.21 He allows what his Deputy doth in us I say make thy Conscience pure Two things chiesly impure it Ignorance is as a
cloud upon it and Guilt as a wound in it Make it as lightsome as thou canst from Scripture that as a pure glass it may be fit to reflect the Gospel-Comforts on thy Soul Get a through cure of thy old Wounds or else sooner or later it will cry out against thee Joseph started up in his Brethrens mind a good while after their unnatural sale of him John the Baptist rose again in Herods Conscience upon the fame of Christs Miracles Theodorick having cruelly murdred Boethius and Symmachus was affrighted at the great head of a Fish at his own Table as if it had been one of theirs whom he unjustly put to death Apply therefore Christs Blood by Faith that thy Wounds may be healed David after his great fall prays first to be purged with hysop and then for the joy of Gods salvation Psal 51. The Hysop which was used to sprinkle the Blood under the Law figured out the office of Faith in sprinkling Christs Blood on the Conscience that 's a soveraign Balm to heal thy Wounds and able to make Conscience give thee an answer of Peace I have read a notable story of a sick Man who when Satan appeared and shewed him a long scrole of his Sins in writing saying Behold thy Virtues replied True Satan but thou hast not set down all set down also The Blood of Christ cleanseth us from all Sin Such a purifier is this that a Man may be able as is said of St. Austin to think of his former Evils without fear as having no spot of unpardoned Sin in him Thy Conscience being made pure walk after it A reciá Conscientia ne latum quidem unguem discedendum said the Orator Leave it not lest thou fall and wound thy self afresh When Conscience summons thee to this or that Duty up be doing God calls thee to it by thine own Heart when it tells thee of such a snare in thy way avoid it pass by it as thou wouldst by Hell God warns thee against it by thy self Conscience will measure out Comforts or Terrors to thee according as thou behavest thy self well or ill towards it If like Saul thou force thy self and rebel against light and give stabs to Conscience what hast thou to do with Peace Thy Heart will reproach thee Conscience will strike again and give thee wound for wound thou shalt doom thy self and like the Devils carry thy Chains and Hell about with thee Tiberius professed to the Senate That he suffered death daily he meant in the torments of his accusing Conscience On the other hand if thou turn thine eyes inward and observe Conscience and walk by the line and level of it thy Heart shall be at rest Conscience shall be a thousand witnesses for thee thou shalt be thine own Comforter and like the Angels carry an Heaven and Paradise aboat with thee Pauls joy shall be thine the testimony of Conscience that thy conversation hath been in godly sincerity and what is this but Assurance That Conscience which faith That thou art sincere tells thee also That thy Sins are pardoned These two are inseparable companions and never part the one from the other Again If thou wouldst have Assurance thou must be much in self-examination Commune with thy own Heart dive into the abyss of it reckon with thy self summon thy self to the Tribunal in thy own bosom The Philosophers espied out this Rule Pythagoras would not have us sleep till we had reviewed the day asking our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What have I transgressed what done and what omitted This though done by the candle-light of Nature much promoted Virtue and the comfort of it Qualâ—s ille somnus post recognitionem sui sequitur quam tranquillus altus liber saith Sencea After a review of ones self Oh what manner of sleep is there how still deep and free is it Much more must such a search into ones own Heart conduce to the Christians Graces and Comforts if done by the pure Sun-light of Scripture Self-examination is a root which bears Self-knowledg and at the top of it grows Assurance which is the knowledg of gracious self Awake therefore O Believer down into thy own Heart rifle the labyrinths and break open the false bottoms there see what of Sin is in thee Is there any darling Sin such as cogs with thy complexion or falls in with thy calling or any way steals away thy Heart and Affections from God Be sure that this is an accursed thing a Deliah as the word imports an exhauster of thy peace and joy However fair it may look to sense it is virtually sorrow and wrath See again what of Grace is there in thee do thou repent of Sin and believe on the Lord Jesus and love God and his holy Ways Are thy Graces genuine such as act thee in the power of the Spirit and square thee to the holy Canon of the Word and level thy Thoughts and Intentions at the Glory of God If thou thus search into thy Heart and do it in truth and faithfulness to the holy Light I dare say thou art ready for the sealing of the Spirit and the very frame of thy Heart is a real prayer for it O how soon may the Spirit come and by a Divine irradiation on thy Soul tell thee That thy Repentance is a Repentance unto Life and thy Faith precious Faith and thy Love Love in Sincerity How soon may it apply and seal the Promises to thy Heart as if it should say to thee Thou repentest indeed and the Mercy in the Promise is thine Thou believest indeed and the Salvation in the Promise is thine Thou lovest indeed and thine are the supersensual superintellectual good things prepared for the lovers of God And now thou maist say much better than Seneca Qualis somnus O how sweet is the rest and repose which the self-searching Soul finds in the bosom of Christ and Grace He that comes to that sealing Ordinance of the Lords Supper must prepare himself for the Sâ—ul by Self-examination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let a man examine himself faith the Apostle 1 Cor. 11.28 Examine as a man would do Gold or Silver by the fire or by the Touchstone in like manner must he do so that he may fit himself for the Seal of Assurance of which the Sacramental Elements are Symbols Again If thou wouldst be assured exercise thy Graces and grow therein It much conduces to Assurance to render thy Graces as visible as thou canst Grace however it always carry a Divine lustre in it is not so visible when dormant in an habit or principle as when it is put forth into act and exercise neither is it so visible in its Initials in the smoking flax or bruised reed as in its Progresses and statures in Christ In point of Comfort talents not used are as none Comforts lie dead in Believers as their Graces do the holy sire raked up affords no light to them Awake therefore O Believer to
that it were no sin spare it not but cause it to dye as a sure Pledg that all other sins shall do so Believe it This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the path of life or of those two lines of Holiness and Comfort If ye mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live saith the Apostle Rom. 8.13 an eternal life in Heaven and a comfortable one in the way thither Who knows but that whilst thou art mortifying thy sin God may come and speak to thee much as he did to Abraham when he was offering up his Isaac Now I know that thou repentest indeed and believest indeed seeing thou hast not withheld thy Sin thy Darling Sin from the work of Mortification Surely blessing I will bless thee and multiplying I will multiply thee Thy Comforts shall be as the Stars and as the Sand. When thou hast been a-slaying thy Lusts Jesus Christ will meet thee as Melchizedek did Abraham when he came from the slaughter of the Kings Bringing forth Bread and Wine Supportations and Divine Consolations to thy Soul Melchizedek's Bread and Wine were to Abraham Pawns of Canaan the Land of Promise and Christs Supports and Comforts shall be to thee Earnests of Heaven See what pure strains of Grace flow in the precious Promises made to the Overcomer To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden Manna and will give him a white stone and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth saving he which receiveth it Rev. 2.17 O what things are here Comforts fall about the Overcomer and are preserved in his heart as the Manna fell about the Camp and was preserved in the Golden Pot. Pardon is the white stone and Adoption the new name and all these though secret to others are well known to himself But you 'l say These are promised to the Overcomer and who can say that he is such Is not the Canaanite still in the land Are there not reliques of Corruption in the best Doth not the flesh still lust against the spirit and the body of Death send out its stench and rottenness And who may call himself an Overcomer I answer The Canaanite is in the land but subdued Reliques of Sin are in thee but they do gravitare press and lye heavy as a thing out of its proper place and force thee to groan and cry out O wretched man The flesh lusts against the spirit but thou opposest might and main and if it be ready to prevail thou criest out as the forced Damosel under the Law for help against it as being too strong for thee If there be in thee a nolle peccatum a bent of heart against Sin and thou doest in purpose and endeavour fight against it and thou wouldst pursue it to death and if possible here to utter extirpation then assure thy self not withstanding the indwelling sin That thou art an Overcomer in Gods account who accepts the Will for the Deed and in the Gospels all whose Promises are made not to sinless perfection but sincerity To this purpose the Original in that famous place is remarkable It is not to him that overcometh but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to him that is overcoming to him that is praying striving wrestling fighting against Sin to him that is in an overcoming posture though the enemy be not quite out of the field to him shall those great Comforts in the Promise be given This made St. Paul maugre all the reliques of Corruption sound a Triumph to Free-Grace I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 7.25 as being sure of compleat Victory at last Again If thou wouldst have Assurance Be much in the holy use of Ordinances These are vehicula Spiritus the Chariots in which the Holy Spirit rides Circuit to do good to Souls These are canales Gratie the Conduit-pipes whereby Graces and Comforts are derived to us There God records his Name and commands the Blessing even Life for ever-more There he meets those that work righteousness and remember him in his ways David was so sensible of this that it was his one only desire to dwell in Gods house and behold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beauties or sweet Amenities of the Lord Psal 27.4 If ever thou meetest with the Suavities and ravishing Beauties of Free-Grace it must be in the Sanctuary of Ordinances Christ when here on Earth was very ready to give a comfortable Testimony to those that came to him and brought their Graces with them Seeing upright Nathanael he said Behold an Israelite indeed Joh. 1.47 Seing their Faith he said to the poor Paralytick Son thy sins be forgiven thee Mat. 9.2 Neither now though in Heaven is he wanting therein he hath a secret way of testifying by his Spirit unto those who in an holy manner approach to him in Ordinances Seeing thy holy fear at an Ordinance he can tell thee That thy Soul thall dwell at ease in the bosom of Mercy Seeing thy Faith there he can tell thee That as a true Believer thou hast everlasting life Whatever Grace thou bringest into his presence he can make one Promise or other drop sweetness upon it Wait on him in his own ways that he may speak Peace to thee more particularly Converse much with the sacred Word In the Gospel great things are set before us there 's a Glass of Gods Glory The more thou lookest into it the more thou wilt be transformed into the Divine Likeness there 's a Mass a Treasury of rich Grace the more thou searchest into it the more thou wilt taste how gracious the Lord is till thou come to the highest gust of it in Assurance there are the Breasts of Consolation suck on and thou shalt be satisfied as with marrow and fatness there thou hast the demonstration and ministration of the Spirit get as much as thou canst of it that thou mayst be sealed by it There the Righteousness of God is revealed from Faith to Faith from a Faith of Adherence to a Faith of Assurance There is the savour of Life unto Life of a gracious Life unto a comfortable and glorious One. Be much in reading and hearing the Word but do it in an holy manner do it attentively take heed to it till the day dawn and the day-star arise in thy heart do it desiring the Word as the Babe doth the Breast that thou mayst grow into all the measures and statures of Christ do it in faith that the Word may profit and effectually work unto all Graces and Comforts do it in love to Truth and Righteousness that the oyl of gladness which is upon Christ thy Head may run down upon thee do it obedientially hearken to the Commands that thy Peace may be as a River flowing in the joys of Faith If thus thou wilt hear and open to Christ who stands and knocks at the door of thy heart He will come in to thee and sup with thee and thou with him Revel 3.20 He will come in to
thee in intimate Communion and sup with thee in the acceptance of thy Graces and thou shalt sup with him at a Banquet of Love Thou mayst experimentally say That the Gospel is come to thee in power and in the holy Ghost and in much Assurance as the Apostle speaks 1 Thess 1.5 In Power in the first work of Conversion in the holy Ghost in the gracious indwelling of it after Faith and in much Assurance in the Sealins of Truth and Love upon the heart Next to that of the Word I recommend Prayer to thee This is an excellent Ordinance it wrestles with God and like a Prince prevails with him It unlocks the Treasury of Grace and fetches down all Blessings it hath a king of Omnipotency in it and if with reverence I may so allude As God brought forth all things by the breath of his mouth so the Believer produces all Blessings by the breath of Prayer Apollonius as Sozomen relates never asked any thing of God but he obtained it And of Luther it was said Iste vir potuit apud Deum quod voluit This man could do what he would with God Ask and thou shalt have Ask the sealing Spirit and thou shalt have it ask in the Name of Jesus Christ His Merits are as pure Incense able to perfume thy Prayers and as a powerful Orator to perswade the Comforter to come down to thee Ask in the holy Spirit in the Grace and sweet Gales of it That the Spirit may be an answer to it self the Spirit as sealing Gods Love an answer to it self as inspiring thy Prayers Ask in Faith Hath not God told thee of a witnessing Spirit Hath he not said That he will speak peace to his Saints Are not his Promises as so many Bonds upon his Truth to make the things promised good Prove him by Prayer if he will be as good as his Word see if he will not own his own hand in the Promise wrestle with him till the day break in the light of his Countenance lifted up upon thy heart Ask in fervency that whilst thy heart is burning with Love towards God his Love which is the Fountain of thine may reveal it self to thee The old Token of acceptance was firing the Sacrifice and it is still a pledg of success when there is warmth in Prayer Ask in sincerity in a pure intention not for self-ease not that thou mayst fare deliciously upon the Love of God but that thy Spirit may be the freer to his service that thy Zeal may be more inflamed towards his Glory The prayer of the upright is his delight in so praying thou shalt meet the favour of God It is very remarkable what posture Paul was in when Ananias was sent to comfort him Behold he prayeth saith God go let him be filled with the Holy Ghost In the beginning of Psal 13. Davids Faith run very low How long wilt thou forget me O Lord for ever how long wilt thou hide thy face from me ver 1. A while after it lifts up it self a little Consider and hear me O Lord my God lighten mine eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death ver 3. but praying on it is in the altitudes I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoice in thy Salvation ver 5. Prayer is one of Gods sealing times in it thou approachest and drawest nigh to him who is the fountain of Life and Joy Whilest thou art opening and pouring out thy Heart to him Who knows but he may open his Heart and incomparable Love to thee the holy Spirit may come and tell thee as the Angel Gabriel did Daniel in the same posture That thou art greatly beloved a man of desires with God In the last place make use of the Lords Supper There God makes a Royal feast a feast of fat things full of marrow of wines on the lees well resined he sets forth Christ crucified whose flesh is meat indeed whose blood is drink indeed Come eat his flesh and drink his blood that you may live for ever Eat and let thy Soul delight it self in fatness drink yea drink abundantly O beloved Soul or as the Original Text may be read Be drunk or happily inebriated with the sweet Love of Christ the same crucified Christ which in the Sacrifice on the Cross satisfied Gods heart at this Sacrament can satisfie thine Never any Feast like this which chears the Heart of God and Man How will God manifest his Love here in Salutations Kisses and Unctions The Jews at their Feasts used many demonstrations of Love such as Salutations faying to their Guests Peace be unto thee Kisses from whence afterwards Christians derived their Kiss of Charity or as Tertullian calls it Oscuculum Pacis A Kifs of Peace and Oyl poured out upon the Head called therefore Oleum laetitiae The Oyl of gladness And cannot God do much more at his Table Cannot he salute thee and say Peace Peace to thee because thou trustest in him Cannot he kiss thee with the kisses of his mouth and cause one Promise or other to drop sweetness into thy heart Cannot he give thee the rich anointings of the holy Spirit and sill thee with all joy and peace in believing Let thy Spikenard thy Faith and Love and other Graces send forth their smell that he may break a Box of Spikenard in thy heart and fill and perfume it with the sweet odours of his Love Wait upon him in this Ordinance there he doth by outward and visible Elements seal Pardon and Salvation to thee and believe it he that puts one Seal to thy Sense can put another to thy Heart unto the Seal of Elements he can add the Seal of the Holy Spirit with the outward Bread and Wine thou mayst have the hidden Manna and heavenly refreshments from Christ Whilst thou art renewing thy Covenant and avouching the Lord to be thy God he can own thee and avouch thee to be one of his Children and this will be more to thee than a World Again If thou wouldst be assured walk in Vprightness this is Gospel-perfection the Believers Beauty the soundness of all his Graces the desire and delight of God himself as being a Beam from his own Truth and Simplicity In Scripture he seldom mentions an upright man without setting some mark of Honour upon him Enoch walked with God as one familiar with him Gen. 5.22 and as the Septuagint and after them the Apostle Heb. 11 hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he pleased God and how great a Character is this Caleb followed God fully and he is stiled a man of another Spirit such as is above the rate of common Souls Job was a perfect and upright man and God calls him a none such in the Earth The Jews say That the Seventy Souls that went with Jacob into Egypt were worth as much as all the Seventy Nations in the World I am sure the upright the Israelites indeed are the Pearls and Excellent ones in the Earth Now
here I recommend three things to thee To walk as in Gods presence To have an universal respect to his Commands and To carry a pure intention towards his Glory All these have a great tendency to Assurance Walk as in Gods Presence Remember that he is every-where Thou needest not a Vision or Jacobs Ladder where-ever thou art thy Faith can tell thee that God is in the place and it is too dreadful to sin in His Presence besets thee behind and before and thou canst not break away from it thy ways are all before him nay thy very heart He knows the make of it and stands by the inward Frame and secret Springs thereof seeing what is a forming there upon the Wheel and what thoughts are taking their flight from thence All is naked and open as in an Anatomy before his Face He is intimior intimo tuo nearer to thee than thou art to thy self Walk as in his Presence Live as under his all-seeing Eye Seneca would have us set a Cato or a Laelius before our eyes and to compose our Lives as in their Presence Magna pars peccatorum tollitur si peccaturis testis assistat saith he A present witness would prevent a great deal of sin Think thus with thy self Cave Spectat Deus Take heed God seeth Keep fresh apprehensions of him in thy thoughts Think purpose speak act do every thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worthy of and in an holy congruity to his Presence Walk with him that thou mayst be translated though not as Enoch corporally into Heaven yet as a sincere Believer mentally into the Suburbs of it in the Manifestations of Gods Favour Look stedfastly constantly unto him that thou mayst have sweet Aspects and Love-glances from him Thou mayst have his Favourable Presence whilst thou livest under his Awful one The upright shall dwell in thy presence Psal 140 that is in thy gracious Presence They set him before them and he causes his Grace and Love to pass before them In the next place Have an universal respect to his Commands It is a vulgar Rule among the Jewish Doctors That men should single out some one Command out of the Law and exercise themselves therein that God may be their Frsend and bear with them other things But this is to Indent and Article with God upon our own Terms The Hypocrite as one elegantly expresses it like a globous body touches the Law in some one point in some particular Command but the Upright at least in desire and endeavour lies close and level to all the Will of God The Pharisees seemed to be very much for the First Table but after all their Fasting and Prayer they could swallow down Widows Houses and so give the lye to all their Devotions The Moralist seems to be as much for the Second Table but as fair as his Life is towards Man he is very unjust to God stealing away that heart which is infinitely more due to him than the justest of Debts can be to our Neighbour If thou wouldst be assured thou must have an universal respect to his Command do not pick and chuse among them but as David be for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the Wills of God as Zachary and Elizabeth walk in all his Commandments Wherever the Divine stamp is there let thy Obedience be that thou mayst have a great Reward Light is sown for the Righteous and gladness for the upright in heart Psal 97.11 Upon sincere Obedience a crop of Comfort comes up and because by Promise much surer than that of the Husbandman which is under Providence only The righteous Lord loveth righteousness his countenance doth behold the upright Psal 11.7 In the Original it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their faces behold the upright the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Three Persons in the Sacred Trinity do all look with a loving Aspect upon such an one Our Saviour hath told us as much If a man sincerely keep the holy Words The Father and the Son will come to him and make their abode with him John 14.23 And a little after follows a Promise of the Holy Spirit as a Comforter verse 26. Walk uprightly and thou art in a posture to receive sweet manifestations of Love from the whole Sacred Trinity In the last place carry a pure Intention towards Gods Glory This is the single eye in the Body of Duties all our good Works lie in the dark without it the want of this was as a black line drawn over Amaziah's vertue He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord but not with a perfect heart 2 Chron. 25.2 Jehu was anointed and appointed by God to destroy Ahabs House and yet for want of a pure Intention was reckoned as a Murderer for doing so Hos 1.4 That which is true Prayer when it comes from Zeal may be but howling when it comes from Lust Hos 7.14 Those Moral Vertues which are very glossie in the Matter may in the End be no better than splendid sins The End is the purest off-spring of a rational Spirit and a cardinal circumstance in every Action The Soul conceives all its Thoughts before the End as Labans Ewes did their young before the Rods. As the End is earthly or heavenly so is the Man and his Acting Remember O Believer that thou wast not made a Man or a Saint Thy Lamp of Reason was not set up at first or new-lighted afterwards by Grace that thou shouldst center on any thing less than God himself or take thy aim lower than his Glory Set thy heart on that great End look right on it with a single eye whether thou eatest or drinkest or prayest or hearest or whatever good work thou art about carry on the great Design That God in all may be glorified How taking this is with Christ He himself hath told us Thou hast ravished my heart my Sister my Spouse thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes with one chain of thy neck faith he to his Church Cant. 4.9 A pure Intention is that single eye and Obedience that chain of the neck which in Believers doth excordiate and ravish the heart of Christ himself And what sweet returns will he make upon such taking Graces Their Graces ravish his Heart and his Comforts will ravish theirs Their thoughts are upon Gods Glory and Gods are upon their Peace With the upright he will shew himself upright with the pure he will shew himself pure They are upright in Duties and he will be upright in Promises They give him pure Intention and he will give them pure Mercy such as is the sealing of his Love upon their Hearts The pure in heart shall see him not in the bliss-making Vision only but before in those Love-glances which are the First-fruits of Heaven here below Again If thou wouldst be assured be much in charity and doing good As the Elect of God put on bowels of Mercy Open thy heart to the poor in Pity and thy hand
391 Conflict the Natural Spiritual differenced Pag. 261 262 263. Conscience its testimony of great repute among Pagans 405. Witnesseth integrity 406. Believers converse with Scripture Conscience Pag. 407 Conviction of Sin manifold 70 71 72. Several things ensue thereupon to Pag. 75 Creation the Philosophers misguess about it 17 18. New Creation in the Heart Pag. 383 384. Credere Deo in Deum Pag. 131 132 Cruciger his Death-bed Prayer and Faith Pag. 138 Covenant of Grace and Works difference of Men under them Pag. 278 D Dr. Dees impostures by Spirits Pag. 326 Delilah the import of the word in Hebr. Pag. 150 Dragon poysonous shut up by Sylvester the Bishops Prayers Pag. 266 E Election though from eternity yet buds in time Pag. 413 Evagrius his gift to the poor to be paid in another world Pag. 113 Evidences confirm Assurance Pag. 394 Experiments all learned men are for them 326 Experiments of Faith of Scripture-truth 325 to 370. Where of Scripture Ordinances and great Works to Pag. 386 Examination of our selves espied by the Philosophers Pag. 433 434 Faith the several acceptions of the word in Scripture 1 2. Considered in its measures and in its lowest measure described ibid. Wherein it exceeds Moral Virtues 8 9. The difference between that and Reason alone 12 19. And Reason with Scripture 19 30. Faith explicite required in Fundamentals 41 46. It disciples the Soul to Christ 86 87. Yields to be ruled by Christ in all actings 109. Aspires after Heaven and looks for pay there 113. Where the seat of Faith is disputed between Protestants and Papists 126. Though seems dead yet may be alive 129 130. More than a waked assent 131 to 136. Less than Assurance to 149. Why former Divines desine it by a full perswasion 136. Difference between Assurance and Faith justifying us 140. Hangs on God in all its actings 191. Fruits of Faith and several Conceptions of these 270 271. It is before all other Graces 283 to 288. Sets them all on work 289. It s foundation and infusion 328. It wars against all enticement to Sin 276. Steps by which Faith goes in mortifying it Pag. 280 Fall of man total Pag. 7 Father its efficacy in Prayer Pag. 245 Fear of God to be in all actions 303. Servile and Filial shewed Pag. 304 Mr. Fox never denied any that asked for Jesus sake Pag. 301 Free-Grace its presumption in unholy persons to expect it 119 120. Free-Will hath no Harmony with it 190. Abused by Pelagians Pag. 366 G God most glorious in his Word 12. Confest by all Nations 13. Cardinal Perron one day proved a God the next would have proved the contrary 171. Discovery of God in Grace and in the Creatures how differs Pag. 175 Good 288. Sets about the chief good Pag. 4 Graces spiritual are Creations 8. All act in union with Christ 295. All rooted in Christs Mines Pag. 380 H Happiness all desire it few hit it 3 4. What Aristotle makes it to be Pag. 253 Heart it includes Vnderstanding and Will Pag. 126 127 Hungarians Tradition Pag. 92 I Jews though they reject the Sacrifice of the Messiah yet offer a real one and why 97. Their answer to the Question where believe to be saved by Christs Righteousness with their pious saying over Bread Wine Herbs 344. Their saying of the seventy Souls that went down into Egypt 449. A vulgar rule among them 450. A custom of others about Alms. Pag. 454 455 Illumination Supernatural described 11. Wherein it excels Natural Reason 12 19. It 's requisite to Faith Pag. 30 31 32. Images how at first crept in 16. When cast out the people triumphed 309. Their return again Pag. 331 332 Ingrossers of Corn sore Judgments on them Pag. 184 Instruction the true false way of finding it Pag. 118 Intercession of Christ powerful Pag. 415 Johannes Seneca his Death-bed moan Pag. 210 Israelites the Men go not into Canaan but the little ones its misery Pag. 128 129 Justification three acts required to it 94 98. Bellarmines Conclusion about it 102. How the ungodly may and may not be justified 165. It s great importance 201. It 's not from eternity 202 206. It is double 207. How by Faith 213 to 219. Not compleat till the day of Judgment Pag. 227 to 231 K Kingdom the Primitive Christians talk so much of it that the Pagan Emperours were jealous of them though without cause Pag. 176 Kohathites the derivation of the word Pag. 5 L Law of God demands of us two things 209. Enough in Christ to answer both 210. It s writing in the heart by Nature and Grace differ 338. Impossible to be fulfilled but by the fiu't of man Pag. 401 Legio fulminatrix Pag. 373 Our life how tremendous every way Pag. 305 Light natural improved to the utmost engaged not God to give Grace Pag. 14 Love to God and our Neighbour hath but one root Pag. 301 Luthers Method in Reformation 274. An example of Faith in Mortification his saying of Free-Will 368 369. His answer to the menacing Law Pag. 428 M Mahalath a title of some Psalms interpreted Pag. 194 Mahomets Heart una child cut open Pag. 193 Meris Bishop of Chalcedons Discourse with Julian Pag. 308 Martyrs refusing Pardon Pag. 276 Meekness Natural Moral Spiritual 311. Examples ib. Pag. 312 Mortification a Believer yields to Christ for it in a threefold respect 103. Resemblance between it and Christs death 104. False ways of seeking it and the true pointed at 117 118. The fruit of Faith 250. Degrees of Mortification of Original Sin 260 267. And of actual ibid. Motions holy precious to a Believer Pag. 88 Musculus's Distich in straits Pag. 248 N Nazianzens saying about the difference between begotten and proceeding Pag. 352 O Obedience actuated by Faith 314 315 316. Obedience of the Law fulfilled in Christ and of the Gospel by the Spirit in a Believer Pag. 212 Ordination used by the Jews Pag. 377 Origens saying of some Scriptures that did affect him Pag. 144 P Papists and Hypocrites how they agree 122. All points in Popery additions to the Word 123. It s sandy foundation drawn from Bellarmine himself 147. Natural Popery in every mans heart Pag. 158 Paracelsus his proud boast of himself Pag. 192 Patience its excellency acted by Faith Pag. 318 Pelagians put Free-Will for Grace 6. Place Infants in the same state as Adam Pag. 257 Perfection sinless not attainable in this life Pag. 125 126 Perseverance no condition of it self Pag. 417 Philip Lantgrave's comfort in Imprisonment Pag. 321 322 Plague-sores lookt upon by Munster as Love-tokens Pag. 193 Plerophory of three things in Scripture Pag. 400 Pollio's dying-saying Pag. 115 Polemenia her wish to be cast into a Vessel of burning-Pitch Pag. 319 Providence Reasons mistake about it Pag. 18 19 Popes blasphemous speech about the loss of a Peacock Pag. 310 Promises of Grace and to Grace Pag. 346 Prayer its continuance 383. Its returns 372. How heard and not heard Pag. 374
the Old though not as named Apostolical Constitutions the manner was first one Presbyter preached then another and last of all the Bishop At this time there was good store of Preaching Damasus the First Bishop of Rome in his Epistle de Chorepiscopis shews how unlike Christ they are who preach not Ipse enim docuit ipse ovem perditam quaesivit ipse propriis humeris reportavit Christ did all himself St. Austin and St. Chrysostom preached every day ye heard yesterday ye shall hear to morrow is common in their Homilies Many of the Writings of Ambrose Nazianzen Basil and Cyril were only their Sermons to the People and therefore in Concilio Vasensi held about the Year of our Lord 440 it was ordered That if the Presbyter were sick and unable to Preach Sanctorum Patrum Homiliae à Diaconis recitentur The Deacons should read the Homilies of the holy Fathers Gregory the Great in his Pastoral saith Qui verbum praedicationis subtrabunt animabus morientibus vitae remedia abscondunt The unpreaching Minister hides the Bread of Life from dying souls The fourth Toletan Council which was a little after Gregory saith Omne opus Sacerdotum in praedicatione consistit Preaching is a Ministers All. In the Council of Mentz under Charles the Great It was Ordered Can. 25. Nunquam desit diebus Dominicis qui Verbum Dei Praedicet On Sabbath days a Preacher must not be wanting No though the Bisliop be sick it must not as that Can. saith In the Oxford Constitutions made by Archbishop Stephen Preaching is enjoined ne canes muti merito judicentur Nay the very Council of Trent saith that Preaching is praecipuum munus Episcopi the chief work of a Bishop Such an Ordinance is this and so highly esteemed in all Ages no wonder if Bishop Morton said The custom of not-Preaching is but a Babe in Christianity and the defence thereof a new point of Learning in Christs School But to return to the Point in hand after this long digression the Believer may experience this Ordinance to be of God That it is so is in part expermented before Conversion Whilest St. Paul but a Prisoner preached of Righteousness Temperance and Judgment to come Felix though a Judg trembled feeling moral bonds cast on his Conscience by the Power of that Word which is never bound It is yet more fully experimented in Conversion in which there is a wonderful change wrought the dead being raised new Creatures formed Lyons turned into Lambs and hearts of Stone into Flesh all proclaiming that the Finger of God is in it of a Truth Johannes Speicerus as Scultetus relates Preached so powerfully That the very Strumpets leaving their lewdness returned home unto God After Conversion the Experiment is yet more compleat the Word works effectually in them that believe 1 Thess 2.13 The glory of the Divine Attributes break forth in this Ordinance out of the seeming weakness a Majesty appears in some sort much as Christs Deity sparkled out of his Humane Flesh It is not the meer Voice of Man but of God coming with an Authority more than Humane and setting the heart made like Josiah's tender by Faith into an holy trembling at it as a signal proof that the Lord is the Speaker One who hath the Keys of Heaven and Hell in his own hand and upon Obedience or Rebellion is able to save or destroy The Believer by the command and reverential awe put upon his Conscience finds That there is a Divine Presence and Grandeur in it which to oppose is to strive and make War with God himself Again out of the seeming foolishness wisdom discovers it self Whilest but a man is teaching outwardly to the ear there is an inward Teacher in the heart The Spirit of Revelation uncovers the holy things and brings forth this or that sacred Mystery to the View Intus datur intus coruscat intus revelatur as St. Austin expresses it The Father of Lights shews himself there in sacred Revelations Christ seals up the Ordinance by the dropping of the holy Unction A Believer meets with such illuminations as are far more precious than all the Lights in Nature Hence St. Chrysostom's Auditors when he was like to be silenced cried out Satius est ut Sol non luceat quam ut Chrysostomus non doceat It were better to lose the Sun than such a burning shining light as he was The entrance or opening of thy words giveth Light saith the Psalmist Psal 119.130 When the Word preached is admitted into the heart by Faith and there opened by the Holy Spirit a celestial Light rises up and bears Witness to the Ordinance Again in the midst of plainness Divine Omniscience shews forth it self the Minister stands without but the Word enters in and anatomizes the heart Elisha proved himself a Prophet in telling what the King of Syria spake in his Bed-chamber Our Saviour manifested his Deity in answering to the thoughts of Men. When the Word preached penetrates into the retiring-rooms and inmost chambers of the heart and there rifles the very thoughts and unriddles the purposes and inclinations It is an infallible Sign that the Great Searcher of hearts hath sent a Beam of Omniscience along with it The Believer who above all other men studies himself most desires much to know two things viz. What of secret sin there is in him and what of truth of Grace And under this searching Ordinance he comes to see many a mote or black spot in his heart such as he never dream't of and withal some marks and characters which to his comfort shew him his uprightness and in such Discoveries he sees the Great Revealer of Secrets co-operating with the Word Moreover whilest the Minister is unfolding the Gospel such are the ravishing savours of Christ and Grace as if a box of Heavenly Spikenard were broken in the Believers Heart Pardon and Peace smell out of the odours of Christs Merits and Heaven it self out of his pure Righteousness Through this lattice how contemptible soever it be to carnal Men Christ shews his all-desirable self and full treasures Free-Grace communicates pardons and love-tokens the Divine Spirit breaths life and power into Believers quickning and awakening to answer the pure Commands with Obedience and this and that Promise le ts out its sweetness and flows as a Conduit of Coelestial Wine with admirable Suavities and Consolations In such things as these Faith hath sweet Communion with God and a sure seal set to this Ordinance In the Preaching of the Gospel the Kingdom of Heaven comes nigh even to rejecters Luk. 10.11 Much more doth it do so unto Believers who take the holy Mysteries and Promises into the bosom and complex of Faith and thereby inflame their Hearts with the Love of Christ and Grace as a sure witness that this Ordinance which carries so much of Heaven in it is from thence Next to the Preaching of the Word I shall set the Ordinance of Prayer This is the ascent of