be not conformed to this World but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God Col. 1. 10. That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitful in every good work And also to glorify him is their end and use Phil. 1. 21. 1 Cor. 10. 31. This is the Dedication by which a Christian becomes a spiritual and an holy Sacrifice unto God Now we must be sincere and real in this partly 1. Because the Truth of our dedication will be known by our use many give up themselves to God but in the use of themselves there is no such matter they carry it as though their Tongues were their own and had no Lord over them Psal. 12. 4. They speak what they please they use their Hearts as their own to think and covet what they please their Hands as their own to do what they please their Bodies as their own to prostitute them to all excess and filthiness and their Wealth and Strength and Time as their own either to spare it or lavish it according as their lusts guide and incline them No no a sincere Christian makes Conscience of his dedication to God the reality and sincerity of it is seen in the use of themselves and if he be tempted to do any thing contrary to this vow and dedication his Heart riseth against the Temptation 1 Cor. 6. 15. Shall I take the Members of Christ and make them the Members of an Harlot God forbid In point of fidelity to God as we are in Covenant with him we must be careful that we employ and use what is God's for the Glory of God we must make conscience of alienating that that is sacred that that is the Lord's your thoughts your affections your time your strength do all belong to him 2. Because God will one day call us to an account Luk. 19. 23. He will demand his own with Usury We shall be called to a reckoning what we have done for God what part and portion he hath had in our time our strength our parts our interest therefore every prudent and wise Christian should himself keep a faithful and constant reckoning how he lays out himself for God for he must have a share in all things that we have or do 3. We must be very sincere in this because we are under the Eye and inspection of God who considers whose business we do his or our own Luk. 1. 75. That we should serve him in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our Life We are ever before him and though he doth not presently call us to an account yet many times now he punisheth us for our neglect and mindlessness of his Interest Ezek. 16. 8. Ye entred into a Covenant with me and became mine That was the reason of his Judgments against them When those that are his do not carry themselves as his when that that is Sacred is profaned by a common use then a Judgment is coming upon a Nation if dedicated to God and it warps from him or upon a Person if his ways be not upright with him II. The next thing I am to do is to prove that the grace of Mortification is the true Salt wherewith this Offering and Sacrifice should be seasoned There is some dispute what is meant by the Salt which Christ recommends to his Disciples and what was figured by the Salt in the Sacrifice whether Wisdom or Zeal in general it is the grace of the Holy Spirit by which Sin is subdued and prevented and the meaning suits exactly with the Emblem and representation For 1. Salt preserves Flesh from putrefaction by consuming that superfluous and excrementitious moisture which otherwise would soon corrupt and so the Salt of the Covenant doth prevent and subdue those Lusts which would cause us to deal unfaithfully with God Alas Meat is not so apt to be tainted as we are to be corrupted and weakned in our resolutions to God without the mortifying grace of the Spirit That which is lame is soon turned out of the way unless it be healed Heb. 10. 13. And nothing is so unstable and mutable as an unmortified Soul therefore we can never behave our selves as a Sacrifice and an offering to God unless we mortify our Members which are upon Earth inordinate Affections Covetousness and the like Col. 3. 5. In short the Flesh is that which is apt to be corrupted and therefore the grace that doth preserve us must be something that doth wean us from the interests of the Flesh and what is that but the mortifying Grace of the Holy Spirit The Apostle saith Eph. 6. 24. Grace be with all them that love the Lord Iesus in Sincerity or in Incorruption There are many crooked Lusts which are apt to corrupt us and withdraw our love to other things but when these are mortified and subdued that we may have a greater amplitude of affection towards God and Christ then we are said to love him in sincerity and in incorruption 2. Salt hath an acrimony and doth macerate things and pierce into them and so the grace of Mortification is painful and troublefome to the carnal nature how healthful and useful soever it be to the Soul no Question it is distasteful to curbe our Affections and govern our Hearts in the fear of God and to row against the stream of Flesh and Blood but yet it is wholesome it is a crucifying of the Flesh to handle it as Christ suffered on the Cross to give it Vinegar and Gall but yet this is necessary this is the thing which our Lord intends here in the Context that the Sacrifice must be consumed or macerated we either must suffer the pains of Hell or the pains of Mortification we must be salted with Fire or salted with Salt 'T is better to pass to Heaven with difficulty and austerity than to avoid these difficulties and run into Sin and so be in danger of eternal Fire The strictness of Christianity is nothing so grievous as the punishment of Sin The Philosophers when they speak of the nature of Man observe that in the concupiscible part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something like moisture inclines to pleasure in the irrascible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something like Cold inclines to fear this Salt is to fetch out both by checking our sensual inclination and also our worldly fears We must crucify the Flesh with the Fassions and Lusts thereof they that are Christ's have done so We should rather displease our selves and displease all the World than displease God or be unfaithful in our duty to Christ. No profit no pleasure or secular concernment is so necessary so comfortable so useful to us as Salvation 3. Salt makes things savoury so Grace makes us Savoury which may be interpreted with respect either to God or Man 1. Acceptable to God when seasoned with this Salt for God would accept of
The Scripture declares both the first This is love to keep his Commandments and his Commandments are not grievous The second Psal. 97 10. Ye that love the Lord hate evil When we are fearful of committing or omitting any thing may be a violation of his Law a grief to his Spirit or a dishonour to his Name then we are said to love God What ever lofty and luscious strains of devotion we may otherwise please our selves with here will our Trial rest He doth not love God that can most accurately discourse of his Attributes or soar aloft in the nice speculations of contemplative Divinity or pretences of Secrecy with God but he that is most awful serious and consciencious in his Duty 2. It is a Transcendental Love we owe to God we must love him above all other things For he must be loved as our Felicity and End He must have the chiefest place in our Hearts and our principal design must be to please serve and glorify him If we seek God in order to other things we do not love him but our own Lusts nay if all other things be not sought after in order to God we do not set him up as our chief good or last end He that loves Father and Mother more than me is not worthy of me Luke 14. 26. If any Man come to me and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters yea and his own Life also he cannot be my Disciple Many have a partial half-love to God but a greater love to other things then God's interest will be least minded For there is something nearer and dearer to us than God which will be soon preferred before the Conscience of our Duty to him No all must be subordinated to our supream Happiness and last end or else God is not loved as God But now the second thing propounded is the nature of that influence upon Love which is exprest here by the Apostle in the word direct The Lord direct your Hearts in the Love of God What doth this Imply 1. It implies that God works upon us as Rational Creatures He changeth the Heart indeed but he doth it by Direction he draws us to himself but it is with the Cords of a Man he teacheth while he draws Joh. 6. 44 45. None can come unto me but those whom the Father draws and he proves it by this because they shall be all taught of God God's drawing is teaching it is both by the attractive force of the Object and the internal Efficacy of his Grace the Spirits conduct is sweet yet powerfull accomplisheth the Effect but without offering violence to the liberty of Man We are not forced but directed There is not a violent compulsion but an inclination sweetly raised in us by victorious Grace or the overpouring sweetness of his Love For we love him because he loved us first 1 Joh. 4. 19. And this love is shed abroad in our Hearts by the Holy Ghost who by giving us an esteem and serious remembrance of his Benefits blows up this holy flame in our Hearts We do not love God we know not why or wherefore An account can be given of all the Spirits operations Look as in an impression there must be a Seal and Wax to the Seal and the hand that stamps it so all concurr here The Word doth its part that is the Seal and the Heart of Man receives the Impression but to make it effectual and durable the hand of God concurs or the power of his Spirit The Object is the Gospel wherein God commends his Love to us by the Incarnation Death and Intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ as also by the new Covenant because he will work upon Man after the nature of Man by Love he will work upon Love Beside all this there is an internal powerful Agent the holy Spirit The external objective means cannot do it without the inward cause Though God's Love doth so gloriously and resplendently shine forth in the Gospel yet the Heart of Man is not affected with it till it be shed abroad by the illuminating sanctifying Spirit The Heart of Man is dark and dead to these things till changed by Grace and when that is once done that Impression is according to the Stamp 2. The Inclination to God as our Felicity and End which is the Fruit of this Grace is the inclination of a reasonable Creature so the Inclination is necessary but the Acts are voluntary therefore you must keep them up still There is an Inclination put by God into inanimate things as in light and airy Bodies to move upwards and in heavy Bodies to move downwards as a Stone falls to the Earth but Fire and Smoak ascend they cannot do otherwise because they have no choice But now in Man there is an Inclination to God and Heaven which is the Fruit of Grace The Inclination is necessary why because all those whom the Spirit sanctifies he sanctifies them not in vain he certainly begets this Tendency in them towards God therefore so often they are said in Scripture to be converted or turned to God Their Hearts were averse before but then they tend and bend towards him but the Acts are voluntary There is a Duty lying upon us to stir up the Gift of Grace that is in us the Word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 1. 6. When this holy Fire is kindled in our Bosoms we must blow it up and keep it burning We must not be negligent and secure for we cannot reasonably imagine the idle and diligent should fare alike that the Holy Ghost will direct our Hearts into the Love of God whether we will or not therefore not only as we are rational Agents but as we are new Creatures we are obliged to use the Means and then expect his Help and Blessing What is a Prayer in the Text the Lord direct your Hearts into the Love of God to the patient waiting for Christ is an Exhortation Iud. 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God looking for the Mercy of our Lord Iesus Christ unto everlasting life There is both again you must look to your Love that your Hearts be kept streight and bent towards God and not distracted with worldly Vanities The Blessing is from God but you must use the Means this Direction is not to encourage Slothfulness but Industry We must charge it upon our selves as our main Work and Duty the Spirit stirs and quickens we must rouse up our selves 3. It implies there are many things would writhe and crook and turn our Hearts another way the Devil the World and the Flesh. The Devil seeks to draw us off from God to abate the Fervor of our Love towards him therefore we are bidden to flee youthful Lusts 2 Tim. 2. 22. that we may not be taken captive by him at his will and pleasure Some tamely yeeld to his Temptations and he doth unto them as he listeth but there is more tugging
our carnal Love 2. If Love be not acted and kept at work carnal Love will prevail The Soul of Man cannot lye idle especially our Affections cannot either they are carried out to God or they will leak out to Worldly things When our Love ceaseth yet concupiscence ceaseth not and the Love of the World will soon grow Superiour in the Soul for the neglected Principle languisheth whilst the other Principle gets strength and secures its Interest to God The 3d. Is The Benefit we have by keeping Love in Act. This makes us more sincere and to act purely for God 2 Cor. 5. 14. The love of Christ constrains us for we thus judg that they that live should no more live to themselves but to him that died for them and rose again The constraining Influence of Love is that that keeps us from living to our selves And this makes us more diligent Labour and Love are often coupled in the Scripture Knowing your labour of love the work of Faith and Patience of Hope And God is not unrightoeus to forget your labour of Love The Church of Ephesus lost her first Love she left her first work Rev. 2. 4 5. Use. Oh then let us seek this Benefit from God that our Hearts may be directed into his Love 1. The sanctifying Spirit is given us for this end to stir up love to God Joh. 41. 4. The Water I will give him shall be a Well of Water always springing up unto eternal Life 'T is not in the Heart a dead Pool but a living Spring And the same is intimated Joh. 7. 38. He that believes in me out of his Belly shall flow Rivers of living Water this he spake of the Spirit 2. The Ordinances were appointed for this End The Word to represent God amiable to us both for the goodness in him and the goodness proceeding from him especially in our Redemption by Christ and also for those rich preparations of Grace he hath made for us in another World to blow up this holy Fire And this is the end of the Sacrament All the Dainties that are set before us in the Lord's Supper do all taste and savour of Love Our Meat is seasoned with Love and our Drink flows into our Cup out of the Wine-press of Love Why do we eat of the Crucified Body of Christ but that we may remember Iesus who loved us and gave himself for us Gal. 2. 20. And also the Drink that is provided for us at this Feast is the Blood of Christ. Rev. 1. 5. Who loved us and washed us from our Sins in his own Blood 3. All the Providences of God tend to this End that we may love God All God's Mercies are as new Fewel to keep in this Fire I will love the Lord because he has heard the Voice of my Supplication Psal. 116. 1. And thou shalt love the Lord who is the strength of thy Life and the length of thy Days Deut. 30. 20. All the Mercy we have from God is to refresh and revive our Love that it may not languish and die nay all the sharp corrections God sends are to recover our Love to God Isa. 26. 9. My Soul hath desired thee in the Night saith the Prophet and early have I sought thee and when was that when thy Iudgments were abroad in the World when great and sharp afflictions were upon them SERMON VII 2 THESS 3. 5. And into the patient waiting for Christ. THe Words are a Prayer and the Apostle prays here for those things which are most necessary to Christians Love to God and patient waiting for Christ. I come now to handle the second Branch The Point is this Doct. That when the Heart is bent by love to God we need also the direction of his Grace to keep it intent upon the coming of Christ. Four things I must speak to I. What this patient waiting for Christ is II. The Connection between it and the Love of God III. That it hath a great influence upon the spiritual Life or keeps Religion alive in the Soul IV. The Necessity of God's concurrence hereto the Lord direct your Hearts into the patient waiting for Christ. I. What is this patient waiting for Christ I answer it is the Grace of Hope fortifying our resolutions for God and the World to come that we may continue in our Duty till our work be finished and our warfare ended The Act of Hope is three ways exprest Sometimes by Looking which notes a certain expectation Tit. 2. 13. Looking for the blessed Hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Sometimes by Loving or Longing which notes a desirous and earnest expectation 2 Tim. 4. 8. Not to me only but to all that love his appearing Sometimes by Waiting which notes a patient Expectation 1 Thess. 10. He makes it there the Fruit of our Conversion He saith we are turned to God that we may wait for his Son from Heaven This last Notion is expresly mentioned in the Text the other are implied as looking there can be no waiting for that we do not look for and longing for delay is only troublesome to them that earnestly desire his coming and build their Hopes upon it Faith adds certainty and Love earnestness and both give strength to Patience Let us open all these things As 1. Looking for the coming of Christ. Phil. 3. 20. Our Conversation is in Heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour the Lord Iesus Christ. It is not a matter of conjecture but of Faith Reason saith he may come but Faith saith he will come Nature will teach us it is very likely for a guilty Conscience fears the Judg and the course of things is so disordered in the World that there needs a review But Scripture tells us it is very certain that he that shall come will come and will not tarry Heb. 10. 37. Therefore in the Eye of Faith it is sure and near As Rebecca spied Isaac at a distance so Faith looks upon Christ as if he had begun his Journey and were now upon the way and makes the Believer stand ready to meet him and welcome him Though it come not to pass presently the thing is promised and the time certainly determined in God's external purpose which is enough for Faith 2. There is a Longing or a desirous Expectation 2 Pet. 3. 12. Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God It is good to observe how differently this Coming of Christ is entertain'd in the World It is questioned by the Atheist it is dreaded by the Wicked and Impenitent but it is longingly expected by the Godly 1. For the first sort 2 Pet. 3. 3 4. There shall come in the last days Scoffers walking after their own Lusts and saying Where is the promise of his coming They would eternally enjoy the Pleasures of the present World and therefore labour to dash all thoughts of this great Day out of their Hearts and take up all obvious
bless themselves and the carnal World applauds them in a sensual Course and Way of Living They measure all Happiness by their outward Condition in the World and please themselves with golden Dreams of Contentment and this being seconded with the flattery and applauses of the deceived World they are fast asleep in the midst of the greatest Soul-Dangers and so go down into Hell before they think of it 2. Come we now to the Regenerate Such the Apostle looks upon the Thessalonians to be They need to have their Hearts directed to the patient waiting for Christ for these Reasons 1. Because we have too dim and doubtful a foresight of these things How dark a Prospect have even the best of God's Children of the World to come We may speak of others as Unbelievers but God knows how doubtful our own Thoughts are about Eternity and Christ's Coming how little we can shut the Eye of Sense and open that of Faith and say truly with the Apostle 2 Cor. 4. 18. We look not at the Things that are seen that are temporal but to the Things unseen that are Eternal Alas we have no through Sight into another World The best Christians have need to have their Eyes anointed with spiritual Eye-salve that their Sight may be more sharp and piercing to beg the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation to open the Eyes of their Mind that they may see what is the Hope of Christ's calling Eph. 1. 17 18. There are too many intervening Clouds between us and Eternity that darken our Sight and obscure our Faith 2. Our Thoughts of these things are strange and dull and too rare and unfrequent How seldom have we any serious thoughts of his Coming and how unwelcom are they to our Hearts It was a Complaint against Israel that they did put far away the evil Day but the Complaint against us may be taken up thus that we put far away the good Day when all our Desires and Hopes shall be accomplished and satisfied The Atheistical World deny it and we forget it Solomon saith to the sensual young Man Remember that for all these things God shall bring thee to Iudgment Young Men forget or put off these Thoughts lest like cold Water cast into a boiling Pot they should check the Fervor of their Lusts. But alas grave Men good Men forget these things When Christ had spoken of his Coming to Judgment he saith Mark 13. last v. What I say unto you I say unto all Watch. Watching is keeping up this Attentiveness to his second Coming with all Christian Vigilance and Endeavour But few regard the Charge therefore the Lord direct your Hearts c. 3. Because our Affections are so cold and we are no more affected with it but as if we were senseless of the weight of these things Some dead and drousy Desires we have but not that lively Motion which will become Hope and Love If Nature say Come not to torment us before the time Grace should say Come Lord Jesus O come quickly We are not only to look for his Appearing but to love his Appearing Where are these Desires that Christ would either come down to us or take us up to himself that we may live with him for ever 4. This Prayer need to be made for the Renewed too because Christians think of it with too much perplexity and fear Is the Sight of a Saviour unwelcom to you Or should the drawing nigh of your Redemption be a Comfort or a Terror Why do you then believe in Christ and choose his Favour for your Happiness We thought that this had been all your Hope and your Desire and your great Comfort and shall your Hope be your Torment and beget Horror rather than Joy O beg the Lord to direct your Hearts that you may hope to the end for the Grace that shall be brought unto you at the Revelation of the Lord Iesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. 13. We do not only wait for Glory but for Grace and shall not this be a Comfort to you 5. We need to pray this Prayer because our Preparations are too slender for so great a Day Serious Preparation is necessary 'T is described 1 Pet. 3. 14. Wherefore Beloved seeing that ye look for such things be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless that is In a State of Reconciliation with God But we live too securely and quietly in an unprepared State If we have the habitual Preparation we do not keep up the actual Preparation by clarifying and refining our Souls from the Dregs of Sense by honouring God in the World with greater earnestness that when our Lord comes he may find us so doing We do not stand with our Loins girt and our Lamps burning that when the Lord knocks we may open to him immediately We do not keep up the Heavenly Desire the actual Readiness The Return of a Husband after long Absence is more welcom to the Wife than to a Harlot but she would have all things ready for his Reception and Entertainment 6. Because our Motions are too inconstant We interrupt the Course of our Obedience frequently faint in our Afflictions do not keep up the Fervor of our Affections and follow after Salvation with that industrious diligence We need often the Christian Watchword The Lord is at hand We lose much of our first Love intermit of our first Works Therefore the Lord direct your Hearts to the patient waiting for Christ. The Exhortation is To quicken you to take care of this Grace that you may be constantly exercised in it While we are upon Earth we should continually be expecting Christ's Coming from Heaven The Motives may be these 1. Before Christ's Coming in the Flesh the Saints waited for him I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord saith Iacob Gen. 49. 18. And Simeon for Christ the Saviour of the World for so it is explained Mine Eyes have seen thy Salvation And our Lord tells us Abraham rejoyced to see my Day Joh. 8. 56. And it is said of Anna and others That they waited for the Consolation of Israel Luk. 2. 25 38. And after Christ was come the Disciples were commanded to wait for the Promise of the Spirit Acts 1. 4. So by parity of Reason we must wait for the Coming of Christ for that is the next great Promife to be accomplish'd and the great Thing to put Life into our Religion 2. The People of God are described by this 1 Thess. 1. 10. Who wait for his Son from Heaven whom he raised from the Dead even Iesus which delivered us from the Wrath to come A Man would have thought in those early Days they should have heen described by their respect to what was past rather than to what was to come which was at so great a distance they should have been described by believing Christ was already come in the Flesh rather than waiting for his Coming in Glory No this is proposed as an
necessary Business for their welfare Sion said the Lord hath forsaken me my God hath forgotten me Isa. 49. 14 15. In the misgivings of our Hearts God seems to have cast off all Care and Thoughts of us God's affectionate Answer sheweth that all this was but a fond Surmise Can a Woman forget her sucking Child that she should not have Compassion on the Son of her Womb Yea they may forget yet will I not forget thee So we think that we are cut off when God is about to help and deliver us Psal. 31. 22. Many times we think he has quite cast us off when we are never more in his Heart Surely when our Affections towards God are seen by mourning for his Absence he is not wholly gone his Room is kept warm for him till he come again We mistake God's Dispensations when we judge that a forsaking which is but an emptying us of all carnal Dependance Psal. 49. 18 19. When I said my Foot slipped thy Mercy O Lord held me up In the multitude of my Thoughts within me thy Comforts delight my Soul He is near many times when we think him afar off as Christ was to his Disciples when their Eyes were with-held that they knew him not but thought him yet lying in the Grave Luk. 24. 16. But this cannot be imagined of Christ who could not be mistaken If he complained of a Desertion surely he felt it It was a real Desertion he could not mis-interpret the Dispensation of God he was now under for such Misapprehensions are below the Perfection of his Nature 2. Though it were real the Desertion must be understood so as may stand with the dignity of his Person and Offices Therefore 1. There was no Separation of the Father from the Son this would make a Change in the Unity of the Divine Essence Ioh. 10. 30. I and my Father are one Joh. 12. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Eternal Union of the Person of the Father with the Person of the Son always remained for the Divine Nature though it may be distinguished into Father Son and Holy-Ghost yet it cannot be divided 2. There was no Dissolution of the Union of the two Natures in the Person of Christ for the Humane Nature which was once assumed was never after dismissed or laid aside 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ ever remained Immanuel God with us or God in our Nature He was the Lord of Glory even then when he was crucified 1 Cor. 2. 8. It was the Son of God that was delivered up for us all Not a meer Man suffered for our Redemption but Acts 20. 28. God purchased the Church with his Blood Death that dissolved the Bond and Tie between Soul and Body did not dissolve the Union of the two Natures They resemble it by a Man drawing a Sword and holding the Sword in one Hand and the Scabbard in another the same Person holds both though separated the one from the other 3. The Love of God to him ceased not We read The Father loved the Son and put all things into his hand Joh. 3. 35. Now he was his dear Son or the Son of his Love Col. 1. 13. In whom his Soul delighted Isa. 42. 1. Eph. 1. 6. He hath made us accepted in the Beloved Primum amabile He was the Brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person Heb. 1. 3. Therefore he could not but love him in every State Yea he never more loved him as Mediator than when on the Cross that being the most eminent Act of his Self-denial and Obedience Phil. 2. 7. and so a new Ground of Love Ioh. 10. 17. Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my Life to take it up again The Father was well pleased with the Reconciliation of lost Sinners he loveth Christ for undertaking and performing it therefore it is unreasonable to imagine that now he was about the highest Act of Obedience there was any Decrease of his Love to him No his Dispensation might be changed but not his Love As the Sun shining through a clear Glass or through a red Glass casts a different Reflection a bloody or a bright but the Light is the same 4. His personal Holiness was not abated or lessened The Lord Jesus was full of Grace and Truth Joh. 1. 14. He had the Spirit not by measure Joh. 3. 34. He had in perfection all Divine Gifts and Graces to accomplish him for this Office Col. 1. 19. Ioh. 1. 16. He was anointed by the Holy-Ghost and the Oil that was poured on him never failed Therefore he was always most holy and pure one that never knew nor did Sin Neither his Nature nor his Office could permit an Abatement of Holiness Heb. 7. 26. Such an High-Priest became us as was holy harmless undefiled separate from Sinners The Son of God might fall into Misery which is a natural Evil and so become the Object of Pity not of Blame but not into Sin which is a moral Evil a Blot and a Blemish When he died He died the Iust for the Unjust 1 Pet. 3. 18. The Death of Christ had profited us nothing if he had been a Sinner for a moment Therefore this Desertion was not a Diminishing of his Holiness but a Suspension of his Comfort 5. God's Assistance and sustaining Grace was not wholly withdrawn for the Lord saith of him Isa. 42. 1. This is my elect Servant whom I uphold And every where the Lord is said to be with him in this work Psal. 101. 5. The Lord is at thy right hand And Psal. 16. 8. I have set the Lord always before me he is at my right hand I shall not be moved Which Passage is by Peter applied to Christ Acts 2. 25. For David speaketh concerning him I foresaw the Lord always before my Face for he is on my right hand that I should not be moved The Power Presence and Providence of God was ever with him to sustain him in his difficult Enterprize When his Agonies began he told his Disciples Ioh 18. 32. Ye shall leave me alone yet I am not alone but the Father is with me The Father was with him when his Disciples forsook him and fled every one to his own to carry him through and that his Arm might work Salvation for him and that he might not sink under the Burden Secondly Positively 1. God's desertion of us or any Creature may be understood with a respect to his communicating Himself to us We have a twofold Apprehension of God as an Holy and Happy Being And when he doth communicate Himself to any reasonable Creature it is either in a way of Holiness or in a way of Happiness He doth now in the Kingdom of Grace communicate Himself more in a way of Holiness but in the Kingdom of Glory fully in a way of Happiness both as to the Body and the Soul These two have such a respect to one another that he never gives Felicity and Glory
Love to Mankind God so loved the World 2. The way which God took to recover our lapsed condition or the Effect and Fruit which flows from this Fountain that he gave his only begotten Son 3. The end of it that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life Where take notice of 1. The Qualification or the free and easy condition put upon Men in the Gospel that whosoever believeth in him 2. The benefit that resulteth to us expressed Negatively and Affirmatively should not perish but have everlasting Life First The rise and beginning of all is God's unconceivable Love God so loved the World Where observe 1. The Object the World 2. The Act Loved 3. The Degree So loved 1. The word by which the Object is expressed is the World which noteth Mankind in its corrupt and miserable State 1 Ioh. 5. 19. The whole World lies in Sin The World is an Heap of Men who had broken God's Law forfeited his Love and Favour they neither loved nor feared God but were unthankful and unholy yet this World God loved 2. The Act He loved The Love of God is twofold the Love of Benevolence and the Love of Complacence 1. The Love of Benevolence is the Pity and Compassion of God towards Man lying in Sin and Misery This is understood in this place as also in Tit. 3. 4. The Kindness and Love of God our Saviour towards Man appeared 2. The Love of Complacence 〈◊〉 he loveth us when he hath made us lovely In which Sence it is said Psal. 11. 7. The Righteous God loveth Righteousness Joh. 16. 27. The Father himself loved you because ye loved me This belongeth not to this place 3. The Degree So loved He doth not tell you how much but leaveth it to your most solemn raised Thoughts It is rather to be conceived than spoken of and admired rather than conceived Observe from the Words That the Beginning and first Cause of our Salvation is the meer Love of God The outward Occasion was our Misery the inward moving Cause was God's Love 1. Love is at the Bottom of all We may give a Reason of other Things but we cannot give a Reason of his Love God shewed his Wisdom Power Justice and Holiness in our Redemption by Christ. If you ask why he made so much ado about a worthless Creature raised out of the Dust of the Ground at first and had now disorder'd himself and could be of no use to him We have an Answer at hand Because he loved us If you continue to ask But why did he love us We have no other Answer but because he loved us for beyond the first Rise of things we cannot go And the same Reason is given by Moses Deut. 7. 8. The Lord did not set his Love upon you nor chuse you because you were more in number than any People for ye were the fewest of all People but because the Lord loved you that is in short He loved you because he loved you The same Reason is given by our Lord Jesus Christ Mat. 11. 26. Even so Father for so it seemed good in thy Sight All came from his free and undeserved Mercy higher we cannot go in seeking after the Causes of what is done for our Salvation 2. The most remarkable Thing that is visible in the Progress and Perfection of our Salvation by Christ is Love And it is meet that the Beginning Middle and End should suit Nay if Love be so conspicuous in the whole Design and Carrying on of this blessed Work it is much more in the Rise and Fountain God's great End in our Redemption was the Demonstration of his Love and Mercy to Mankind yea not only the Demonstration but the Commendation of it That is the Apostle's word Rom. 5. 8. God commendeth his Love to us in that while we were yet Sinners Christ died for us A thing may be demonstrated as real that is not commended or set forth as great God's Design was that we should not only believe the Reality but admire the Greatness of his Love Now from first to last Love is so conspicuous that we cannot overlook it Light is not more conspicuous in the Sun than the Love of God in our Redemption by Christ. 3. If there were any other Cause it must be either the Merit of Christ or some Worthiness on our part 1. The Merit of Christ was not the first Cause of God's Love but the Manifestation Fruit and Effect of it The Text telleth he first loved the World and then gave his only begotten Son It is said 1 Ioh. 3. 16. Hereby perceive we the Love of God because he laid down his Life for us Look as we perceive and find out Causes by their proper Effects so we perceive the Love of God by the Death of Christ. Christ is the principal Means whereby God carrieth on the Purposes of his Grace and therefore is represented in Scripture as the Servant of his Decrees 2. No Worthiness in us For when his Love moved him to give Christ for us he had all Mankind in his prospect and view as lying in the polluted Mass or in a State of Sin and Misery and then provided a Redeemer for them God at first made a perfect Law which forbad all Sin upon pain of Death Man did break this Law and still we break it day by day in every Sin Now when Men lived and went on in Sin and Hostility against God he was pleased then to send his Son to assume our Nature and die for our Transgressions Therefore the giving of a Redeemer was the Work of his free Mercy Man loved not God yea was an Enemy to God when Christ came to make the Atonement 1 Ioh. 4. 10. Herein is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins Col. 1. 21. And you that were sometimes alienated and Enemies in your Minds by wicked Works yet now hath he reconciled We were sensless of our Misery careless of our Remedy so far from deserving that we desired no such matter God's Love was at the beginning not ours USE 1. Is to confute all Misapprehensions of God It is the grand Design of Satan to lessen our Opinion of God's Goodness So he assaulted our first Parents as if God notwithstanding all his Goodness in their Creation was envious of Mans Felicity and Happiness And he hath not left off his old wont He seeketh to hide God's Goodness and to represent him as a God that delighteth in our Destruction and Damnation rather than in our Salvation as if he were inexorable and hardly entreated to do us good And why That we may stand aloof from God and apprehend him as unlovely Or if he cannot prevail so far he tempteth us to poor unworthy mean thoughts of his Goodness and Mercy Now we can notobviate the Temptation better than by due reflections on his Love in giving his Son for the World
the Death incurred by Sin And how by him by his being a Propitiation that he speaks of there vers 10. We were in a State of Death when the Doors of Mercy were first opened to us under the Guilt and Power of Sin for while the Guilt and Tyranny of Sin remaineth we are said to be dead and strangers to the Life of God and we begin to live when first regenerated by the Spirit of Christ. Now this we have not without Christ being a Propitiation for our Sins that is without doing something whereby God without any impeachment of his Honour might shew himself placable and propitious to Mankind his Justice Holiness and Hatred of Sin being sufficiently demonstrated in the Sufferings of Christ. Now the Honour of his governing Justice being kept up his pardoning Mercy is the more freely exercised God may be propitious to Mankind and yet still be acknowledged as a sin-hating God 2. In regard of Efficacy Christ is a quickening Head or a life-making Spirit 1 Cor. 15. 45. Whatever Grace we have comes from God through Christ as Mediator and from him we have it by virtue of our Union with him 2 Cor. 5. 17. If any Man be in Christ he is a new Creature As soon as joyned to him as our Head this Grace is applied to us by his Spirit It is first applied by converting Grace and then continually supplied by the confirming Grace of the Spirit and so we are fitted to every good Work Christ first applieth it in Conversion when he giveth us Repentance and a new Nature Acts 5. 31. And supplieth it by continual Influence Iohn 15. 5. We live on him as the Branch doth on the Root Now from hence we learn what a great Benefit renewing Grace is it is a Fruit of reconciling Grace 2 Cor. 5. 18. All things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Christ. God giveth Grace only as the God of Peace that is as pacified by Christ's Death The holy Spirit is the Gift of his Love and the Fruit of this Peace and Reconciliation which Christ made for us First our Lord Jesus Christ merited this Grace by the value of his Sacrifice and bloody Sufferings and then doth apply it by the Almighty Power of his Spirit and Christ is first our Ransom and then the Fountain of Life unto our Souls and so the Honour of our whole and entire Recovery is to be ascribed to our Redeemer When he satisfied God's Justice for our Sins he purchased a Power to change the Heart of Man and he purchased this Power into his own Hands not into anothers and therefore doth accomplish it by his Spirit 2 Cor. 3. 18. We should often think what a Foundation God hath laid for the Dispensation of his Grace and how he would demonstrate his infinite Love in giving his Son to be a Propitiation for us When he would shew forth his infinite Power in determining and changing the Heart of Man all the Persons concurred the Father purposing the Son by way of Redemption and Purchase the Holy Ghost by effective Power and all to bring back our Souls to God and to make us capable of serving and pleasing him it is surely a Workmanship of much cost Two Reasons why they are as it were created anew 1. Because of the Badness of our former Estate Ruinous and decayed Buildings are only to be thrown down to make way for a new Structure and House to stand in the same place Man naturally is a Creature in a State of Apostacy and Defection under a loss of Original Righteousness averse from God yea an Enemy to him prone to all Evil weak yea dead to all Spiritual Good And what must be done with such a Creature to bring him out of his Misery but wholly to new-mould him and make him that he may have a new Being and Life The Scripture represents Man as blind in his Mind 2 Pet. 1. 9. Perverse in his Will Zech. 7. 12. Rebellious in his Affections Eph. 2. 3. fulfilling the Desires of the Flesh and of the Mind What sound Part is there left in us to mend the rest If we will be brought home to God we must of sinful and polluted become clean and holy and Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one Job 14. 4. We must of carnal become spiritual and therefore we must be new-born new-made Ioh. 3. 6. That instead of minding the things of the Flesh we may mind the things of the Spirit we must of Wordly become Heavenly Now he that formeth us for this very thing is God 2 Cor. 5. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that frameth and createth us for this Heavenly State is God He that is the Framer and Maker of all things of infinite Wisdom Power and Love he createth us anew in Christ that we may look after Eternal Life The Heavenly Disposition wrought in us is a Pledge of it 2. From the Nature of God's Work which is not meerly by helping the Will but by giving us the Will it self or the Act of Volition of it not by curing the Weakness of it but by sanctifying it and taking away the Sinfulness of it and inclining it to himself If the Will were only in a Swoon and Languishment a little moral Perswasion and Excitation outward or inward by the Word and Spirit would serve the turn but we cannot say of it as Christ of the Damsel She is not dead but sleepeth No the Scripture saith We are dead in Trespasses and Sins Eph. 2. 1. God's Grace is not only necessary for facilitation that we may more easily pursue and chuse that which is good as a Horse is necessary that a Man may pass on his Journey more easily which otherwise he might perform on foot with Difficulties No 't is impossible as well as difficult to escape the Carnal Life without God Mat. 19. 26. He doth work such a Change on a carnal Man's Heart that he contemns the World and seeks after Heavenly Things Nay he doth not only give us a remote Power to will if we please or a remote Power to do if we please but he giveth to will and to do Phil. 2. 13. the Will it self and the Deed it self Thus is God's Operation set forth he reneweth the Faculties and exciteth the Act of willing and doing by his powerful and victorious Influence Ezek. 36. 26 27. Otherwise if Grace did only give us an Indifferency so that a Man may or may not then Man would be the principal Cause of his own Conversion and God lose the Glory of his Grace and the Honour of it be ascribed to the Liberty of Man 's own Will God doth not give a power to repent and believe and leave it to the Determination of Man's Will to make it effectual but he giveth Faith it self and Repentance it self Faith is his Gift Eph. 2. 8. To you it is given to believe Phil. 1. 29. The Redeemer was raised to give Repentance
left such an Instinct and Inclination upon her which doth sufficiently excite her to do it 2. The near Preparation is called Promptitude and Readiness for every good Work or a ready Obedience to every good Work Tit. 3. 1. So 1 Tim. 6. 18. Ready to distribute Heb. 13. 16. Ready to communicate So Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 21. 13. This is beyond Inclination The Fire hath an Inclination to ascend upwards yet something may violently keep it down so a Christian may have a Will to Good a strong not a remiss Will but yet there are some Impediments Rom. 7. 18. Inclination implieth a remote Power but Readiness the next and immediate Power therefore a Christian ought to keep himself in a readiness or fitness of Disposition for his Duty whether it concerneth God our selves or others This is seen in Zeal that beareth down all Impediments All Graces are operative and Zeal is that earnest Impulsion and Activity of every Grace where it is in strength and vigour Faith worketh Gal. 5. 6. Love constraineth 2 Cor. 5. 14. Hope quickneth 1 Pet. 1. 3. A lively Hope This proceedeth from the new Nature when it is in right Frame and Strength We need not only make Conscience of our Duty or have some mind to it but our Hearts will not let us have any Quiet and Rest without it 2 Pet. 1. 8. They make you that you shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the Knowledg of our Lord Iesus Christ. Christians must be zealous of good Works Tit. 2. 14. Paul was pressed in Spirit Acts 17. 10. Acts 18. 5. The Benefits that come by it are 1. We do good Works more easily as being inclined thereunto Exod. 35. 29. The Children of Israel brought a willing Offering unto the Lord. Psal. 110. 3. Thy People shall be willing in the Day of thy Power There is a great deal of Difference between doing things by Compulsion and doing things from an Inclination between Israel's making Brick in Egypt and building the Wall in Nehemiah's Time Neh. 4. 6. 2. With more Delight and Alacrity 1 Iohn 5. 3. His Commandments are not grievous Psal. 112. 1. Blessed is the Man that feareth the Lord that delighteth greatly in his Commandments It is a Pleasure to them to do a good Work to others a Toil. 3. With Constancy That which is forced lasts not long Upon the first occasion we break out cast off the Burden which pincheth and galleth us A Man is never constant to his Duty till he be held to it by his Heart and the Byass of the Heart is not Fear but Love You cannot easily perswade him against his Love and Inclination though you may overcome his Fears Cant. 8. 6 7. Set me as a Seal upon thine Arm for Love is strong as Death Iealousy is cruel as the Grave Many Waters cannot quench Love neither can the Floods drown it If a Man would give all the Substance of his House for Love it would utterly be contemned The Uses are 1. For Reproof of many professing Christians who are not more prepared for the Lord and made ready for every good Work Alas some are to every good Work reprobate Tit. 1. 16. unfit for any Christian Practice In others all their Holiness standeth in being less vitious or wicked than others If they avoid the greater Crimes though they freely practise the less they are accounted good Men. Some talk but do nothing like Cypress-Trees tall and beautiful but unfruitful or the Carbuncle afar off seeming all on fire but the Touch discovers it to be key-cold their Zeal is more in their Tongues than their Actions Others are very unready arguing for a Mediocrity disputing every inch with God beating down the price of Religion as low as they can as little Worship and Charity as may be and will do no more than needeth and it is well if they do that True Goodness like live-Honey droppeth of its own accord 2 Cor. 8. 2. and is always desirous to do more for God Psal. 71. 14. I will praise thee more and more Phil. 1. 9. I pray that your Love may abound yet more and more in Knowledg and in all Iudgment 1 Thess. 4. 1. Furthermore we exhort you Brethren That as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God so ye would abound more and more But little of this Temper is to be found 2d Use of Information First Observe the Deduction of good Works from their proper Causes viz. The Will of God requiring our Regeneration fitting the one determineth our Duty the other maketh us ready to perform it While carnal that which we do is but the Image of a good Work not really and spiritually good 2dly The Necessity of good Works 1. Necessitate Consequentis as the Fruit and End of Regeneration All things are valued by their use What doth the new Creature serve for but that we may walk in newness of Life otherwise it is but a Notion It is not given us to lie hid in the Heart as a sluggish idle quality but that we may act by it and improve it for God The Lord made no Creature in vain Inded all that we have from God both in Nature and Grace was that we might be fruitful in Holiness In Nature we have Life Health and Parts for nothing else but that by our present Duty we may prepare our selves for everlasting Joys All God's Mercies bind us to Diligence all his Ordinances are Means to help us all his Graces are Power to enable us and there is over and above the holy Spirit to excite and quicken that Power Ioh. 4. 10. Ezek. 36. 27. 2. Necessitate Praecepti God hath required them at our hands Now we must make Conscience of what God hath required especially when all his Commandments are holy just and good If some greater thing were required ought we not to have done it 2 Kin. 5. 13. But when he hath required such noble Work shall we refuse There is nothing in his Law but what becometh his Nature preserveth and makes happy ours 3. Necessitate Medii as the Way to Heaven Good Works are indispensibly required of grown Persons if they mean to be saved Heb. 12. 14. Follow Peace with all Men and Holiness without which no Man shall see God A Christian shall be judged at the last day by what he hath done Rev. 20. 12. I saw the Dead small and great stand before God and the Books were opened and another Book was opened which was the Book of Life and the Dead were judged out of those things that were written in the Books according to their Works 1 Pet. 1. 17. If ye call on the Father who without respect of Persons judgeth every Man according to his Work Profession will not carry it but our Works come into the Judgment So Rev. 14. 13. Their Works follow them that is They have the Fruit and Comfort of them in another World and without them we cannot be
saved 4. Necessitate Signi as Evidences of our Right to Salvation both to others and our selves Works or external Acts are more sensible and visible and also liable to the notice of our own Consciences and it is more hard to judg of the internal Grace than the external Fruits 1. As to others God seeth what is in our Hearts but Men see it not till the Effects manifest it When Iohn suspected the Pharisees he said to them Mat. 3. 8. Bring ye forth therefore Fruits meet for Repentance The Fear of God is more known by the external Act than by the internal Habit therefore that Description is given Prov. 8. 13. The Fear of the Lord is to hate Evil Pride and Arrogancy and the evil Way and the froward Mouth do I hate And Iob 28. 28. The Fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from Evil is Understanding The Current of a Mans Life and Actions doth best expound and interpret his Heart Thus the Psalmist discovered the wicked Psal. 36. 1. The Transgression of the Wicked saith within my Heart that there is no Fear of God before his Eyes 2. To our selves holy Conversation and Godliness is the surest note of our Regeneration We judg others by external Works alone For the Tree is known by its Fruit Mat. 7. 16. Charity forbids us to pry any further but we judg our selves by internal and external Works together If within we have Faith in Christ a love to God and hatred of Evil a delight in Holiness a deep sense of the World to come all which Graces make up the new Nature then these things issue out into an holy Conversation this breedeth Joy and Peace of Conscience 2 Cor. 1. 12. This is our rejoycing the Testimony of our Conscience that in Simplicity and godly Sincerity not with fleshly Wisdom but by the Grace of God we have had our Conversation in the World 1 John 3. 18 19. Let us not love in Word neither in Tongue but in Deed and in Truth and hereby we know that we are of the Truth and shall assure our Hearts before him 3. That good Works must not be opposed to God's Mercy and free Grace or Christ's Satisfaction Merit and Righteousness either in the matter of Justification or Salvation but kept in a due subordination to God's Grace and Christ's Merits This is the business of this Context to reconcile the Grace of God with the necessity of good Works è contrà and very well it may be for they are part of the Grace obtained He is most beholden to God and indebted to Grace who is enabled to do most good for all is from him Phil. 2. 13. He worketh in us both to will and to do of his own good Pleasure So that our very doing is receiving But because there are a sort of Men that may be called Justiciaries who trust and teach others to trust to their own Vertues and Works without a Saviour or ascribe the part of a Saviour to them and on the other side the Libertines who teach Men not to look at any thing in themselves at all not as an Evidence Condition or Means but to trust to Christ's Blood to be instead of Faith Repentance and Obedience which is their Duty to be performed by them therefore it will be necessary to be well acquainted with what is truly the Part and Office of Christ what is truly the Office of Faith and Repentance what of Works that you may be sure to give every thing its due and may wholly trust Christ for his part and not joyn Faith or any of your Works and Duties in the least degree of that Trust and Honour which belongeth to our Saviour but regard them according to that use for which they are commanded in the Gospel 1. Our Works whatever they are either Duties to God or Man are not the first moving cause or inducement to incline God to shew us Favour or to bring about our Salvation No this Honour must be reserved for the Grace of God which moveth and stirreth all in the business of our Salvation It was his Grace to provide us a Saviour John 3. 16. God so loveth the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life And the giving of Faith or converting Grace to some before others is the meer Effect of his Mercy and good Pleasure Eph. 2. 4 5. God who is rich in Mercy for his great Love wherewith he hath loved us when we were dead in Trespasses and Sins hath quickned us together with Christ by Grace ye are saved Then the Benefits consequent upon Conversion are from God's Love and Mercy As Justification Rom. 3. 24. Iustified freely by his Grace Not only by his Grace but freely that is not excited by our Works but acting freely of its own accord Then for Eternal Life we have it from the Grace of God and the Mercy of our Redeemer Jude 21. Looking for the Mercy of our Lord Iesus Christ unto Eternal Life So that Grace is the first Mover and Principle in the whole Business of our Salvation it is originally from Grace and all along by Grace 2. Our Works before or after Conversion are not that Righteousness not any part of that meritorious Righteousness by virtue of which Sins are expiated the Wrath of God appeased all Blessings of Heaven purchased and we reconciled to God For this is only to be ascribed to the Merit and Satisfaction of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we were Enemies we were reconciled by his Death and are saved by his Life Rom. 5. 10. He is our Propitiation we live by him 1 John 4. 9 10. In this was manifested the Love of God towards us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the World that we might live through him Herein is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins It is Christ's Office and Honour to be a Sacrifice for Sin and a Propitiation for us and a perfect Saviour and Intercessor to obtain the Spirit to fit us for our present Duty and future Happiness We are his Workmanship in Christ. 3. Our Works or Duties which we perform in Obedience to God are not the first means to apply the Grace of the Redeemer or the Condition of our first entrance into the Evangelical Estate No that is proper to Repentance and Faith Rom. 3. 22. The Righteousness of God is by Faith unto all and upon all them that believe And Repentance is frequently required also to receive Pardon and the Gift of the Holy Ghost Acts 2. 38. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Iesus Christ for the remission of Sins and ye shall receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost Acts 3. 19. Repent ye therefore and be Converted that your Sins may be blotted out It is the penitent believing Sinner that is
these things cannot be Graces but in a Concomitancy Repentance without Faith what would it be When we see our Sins and bewail them Despair would make us sit down and dy If there were not a Saviour to heal our Natures and convert our Souls Neither can Faith be without Repentance for unless there be a Confession of past Sins with a resolution of future Obedience we continue in our Obstinacy and Stubbornness and so we are uncapable of Mercy our Case is not compassionable In short Repentance without Faith would degenerate into the horrour of the Damned and our Sorrow for Sin would be tormenting rather than curing to us And then Faith would be a licentious and presumptuous Confidence without Repentance unless it be accompanied with this hearty Consent of living in the Love Obedience and Service of God with a detestation of our Former ways it would be a turning the Grace of God into wantonness Therefore these two always go together Which is the first I will not enter upon but the one cannot be without the other 2. Let me shew you wherein they differ The one respects God the other Christ. 1. Repentance towards God While we live in Sin we are not only out of our Way but out of our Wits We were sometimes foolish and disobedient serving divers Lusts and Pleasures Tit. 3. 3. We live in Rebellion against him against whom we cannot make our party good and withal contenting our selves with a false transitory Happiness instead of a solid and eternal one we never come to our Wits again till we think of returning to God As the Prodigal when he came to himself he thought of returning to his Father And Psal. 22. 28. They shall remember and turn to the Lord. So long as we lie in our Sins we are like Men in a dream we consider not from whence we are nor whither we are going nor what shall become of us to all Eternity but go on against all Reason and Conscience provoking God and destroying our own Souls Man is never in his true posture again till he returns to God as his Sovereign Lord and chief Happiness as our Sovereign Lord that we may perform our duty to him and our Felicity and chief Good that we may seek all our Happiness in him And none do repent but those that give up themselves to obey God and to do his Will as he is the Sovereign Lord 1 Pet. 4. 2. That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the Flesh to the Lusts of Men but to the Will of God and look upon him as their chief Happiness and prefer his Favour above all the sensual Pleasures of the World that they may be able in truth to say Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth I desire besides thee Psal. 73. 25. This is Repentance towards God 2. There is Faith in our Lord Iesus Christ. This Grace is necessary that we may own our Redeemer and be thankful to him as the Author of our Deliverance Rom. 7. 25. O wretched Man that I am But thanks be to God through Iesus Christ our Lord. And also Faith is necessary that we may trust our selves in his hands We are to take Christ as our Prophet Priest and King to hear him as our Prophet Mat. 17. 5. This is my beloved Son hear him We are to receive him as our Lord and King Col. 2. 6. As ye have received Christ Iesus the Lord so walk ye in him We are to consider him as the great High-Priest of our Confession Heb. 3. 1. Let us consider the Lord Iesus the great Apostle and High-Priest of our Confession Hear him we must as a Prophet that we may form our Hopes by his Covenant and frame our Lives by his holy and pure Doctrine Receive him we must as a King that we may obey him in all things Consider him as a Priest that we may depend upon the Merit and Value of his Sacrifice and Intercession and may the more confidently plead his Covenant and Promises to God Now without this there can be no Commerce between us and Christ. Who will learn of him as a Prophet whom he takes to be a Deceiver obey him as a King who doth not believe his Power or depend upon him with any confidence or hopes of Mercy if he doth not believe the value of his Merit and Sacrifice Herein these things differ Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ the one respects the End God the other the Means Christ. Repentance more especially respects our Duty Faith our Comfort Repentance newness of Life for the future and returning to the Primitive Duty the Love of God and obeying his Will Faith Pardon of what is past and Hope of Mercy to come In short to God we give up our selves as our Supreme Lord to Christ as Mediatour who alone can bring us to God To God as taking his Will for the Rule of our Lives and Actions and preferring his Love above all that is dear in the World To Christ as our Lord and Saviour who makes our Peace with God and gives the Holy Spirit to change our Hearts that we may for ever live upon him as our Life Hope and Strength Thus I have briefly shewed you how Repentance respects God and Faith our Lord Jesus Christ. 3. That these Graces having their peculiar Reference are required in order to Pardon for distinct Reasons and Ends. First Repentance is required for these Reasons 1. Because otherwise God cannot have his End in Pardon which is to recover the lost Creation that we may again live in his Love and Obedience Surely Christ came to seek and save that which was lost Now to be lost in the first and primitive Sence was to be lost to God Take the lost Sheep or Groat it was lost to the Owner the Son to the Father and so if Christ came to save that which was lost he came to recover us to God therefore said to redeem us to God 2. Neither can the Redeemer do his Work for which God hath appointed him 1 Pet. 3. 18. He dyed the Iust for the Unjust that he might bring us to God We accept him in all his Offices for this end I am the Way Truth and Life no Man comes to the Father but by me Therefore whole Christianity from the beginning to the end a short Description of it is this A Coming to God by Christ. Heb. 7. 25. He is able to save to the uttermost whom all those that come to God by him 3. Without it we should not have our Happiness It is our Happiness to please and enjoy God we are not in a capacity to please and enjoy God till we are returned to him They that are in the Flesh cannot please the Lord. Nor to enjoy him here for here we see his Face in Righteousness Nor hereafter for without Holiness no Man shall see God Secondly But why is Faith in our Lord
Love is our Breast-plate that guards the vitals of Christianity and Hope is our Helmet that covers our Head that we may hold up our Head in the midst of all the troubles and sorrows of the present Life 1 Thess. 5. 8. Both Graces are necessary therefore it will not be unprofitable to insist upon them I begin now with the former The Lord direct your Hearts to the love of God Where note 1. The Grace prayed for the Love of God 2. The Efficiency which is necessary to produce it the Lord direct your Hearts The word direct notes sometimes conduct and guidance and sometimes bending or setting streight the thing that is crooked Conduct and Guidance as we guide Men that they may not go wrong Psal. 119. 5. Oh that my ways were directed to keep thy Statutes Ships that are best rigged need a Pilot and they that love God most need to have their love ordered and directed to the best advantage of his Glory and Service This for the first signification guidance and direction But at other times it signifies the bending inclining or making streight what is crooked and what bends and tends another way in this Sence I take it here Our Hearts are distorted and writhed and averse from God and all good naturally yea and after Grace received are apt to wander and return to their old bent and byas again therefore the Apostle prays that God would form and set their Hearts streight that they may be more indeclinably fixt towards God And this Prayer he makes for the Thessalonions whose work of Faith and labour of Love and patience of Hope he had so much commended before and of whose sincerity he had such great confidence for those he prays that their Love might be directed and their Hearts more fixedly set towards God The Note then will be plain and easy Doct. That we cannot have or keep up any true Love to God unless the Lord set our Hearts streight and keep them bent towards himself I shall inquire here 1. What is Love to God Love is the complacency of the Soul in what is good Love to God is the complacency and well-pleasedness of the Soul in God as our all-sufficient Portion To open it to you I shall describe it I. By its Radical and Internal Acts. II. By its External Effects III. A little touch upon the Properties of it and then you will see what the Love of God is 1. The Radical and Internal Acts are two Desire and Delight Desire after him and Delight in him 1. Desire after him Love affects union with the thing Beloved and so love to God implies an earnest seeking after him in the highest way of enjoyment that we are capable of in this World This appears partly by the kind of Mercies that we affect and partly by the fervency of our endeavours after him 1. By the kind of Mercies that we affect There are some Mercies vouchsafed to the Creature that lie nearer to God than others do and do least detain us from him as his Image and Favour or his renewing and reconciling Grace When we love God these are sought in the first place As you shall see how the temper of the Saints is described and distinguished from the temper of the brutish Multitude Psal. 4. 6 7. The Many say Who will shew us any good but Lord lift thou up the light of thy Countenance upon us and this will put gladness into our Hearts The Many the brutish Multitude seek an uncertain good and they seek it from an uncertain Author Who will shew us They do not acknowledg God in these common Mercies but the Children of God must have his Favour Lord lift thou up the light of thy Countenance upon us As the Beams of the Sun do chear and refresh the Earth this is that that doth revive their Souls So Mat. 5. 6. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after Righteousness Well then they that desire to be like God in Purity and Holiness and to recover his Favour lost by Sin do certainly more love him than those that only seek temporal Mercies from him God's sanctifying Spirit witnessing his love to us is the greatest gift can be bestowed in this Life and will more witness his love than any thing else can be given us This the Saints seek after that they may be like God that they may be accepted and well-pleasing unto God this is all their Ambition 2 Cor. 5. 9. Wherefore we labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of the Lord. Other things may please the Flesh but that is not their design those things that bring them nearer to God take up their Mind and Heart Now as it appears by the Mercies we affect so it appears 2. By the fervency of our endeavours after these things For if the Image of God and Favour of God be sought superficially or as things that we may be well without and the Wealth Honours and Pleasures of the World be most earnestly sought after surely we do not love God Psal. 63. 8. My Soul followeth hard after thee The whole Spiritual Life is but a pursuit of the Soul towards God and the more constantly and earnestly we seek him to enjoy more of his saving Graces and Benefits the more we have of the love of God in us Therefore David expresseth this desire as exceeding all other desires Psal. 27. 4. One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I might dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my Life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his Temple He sought not the glory of the Kingdom Success in battel Victory over his Enemies in the first place or not so much as Converse with God and Attendance on his Worship in the Tabernacle all was nothing to this that he might have Communion with God Therefore this is the radical Act of Love this fervent burning desire that carries the Soul thorow all Duties Ordinances Services they are still making their way to a nearer access to God and larger participation of his Grace till they come eternally to enjoy him in Glory 2. There is another Internal Radical Act of Love that is a Delight in him Our full joy is reserved for the other World but delighting our selves in God is a great Duty now for Love being the complacence of the Soul in God as a apprehended to be good or a delightful adhesion to God as our all-sufficient Portion and Happiness it cannot be imagined Love can be without any delight in God even now Now in this Valley of Tears the hope of enjoying him hereafter is our Comfort and Solace in the midst of our Weaknesses and Afflictions that there is a time coming when we shall more perfectly see kim as he is and be like him 1 Ioh. 3. 2. the Apostle tells us We rejoyce now in the hope of the Glory of God that we have this in
and drawing to get a serious Christian into his Snare Therefore we are bidden to be sober and watchful for your Adversary the Devil like a roaring Lion goes about seeking whom he may devour Sobriety is a sparing Use of worldly Delights and Vigilance is a serious Diligence in the use of all those holy Means whereby Temptations may be vanquished And as the Devil so the Flesh Iam. 1. 14. A Man is tempted when he is drawn away by his Lusts being enticed that is by seeking to please his fleshly Mind and Appetite And then the World would pervert us and offers many Baits to that End and Purpose 1 Joh. 2. 15 16. Love not the World nor the things of the World for if any Man love the World the Love of the Father is not in him For whatsoever is in the World is either the Lust of the Eyes the Lust of the Flesh or the Pride of Life that is Pleasures Riches and Honours These seem sweet Baits but there is a dangerous Hook in them and your Love to God may soon be lessened Well then this Directing is opposed to Wavering by reason of any of these Temptations on the one or the other side that the Holiest may keep in us that ardent Love of God which of duty we owe to him 4. Directing notes the Orderliness of the new Creature There is not a more beautiful thing in the World when the Motions thereof are directed by the Spirit for then we are in a due posture both to God our Neighbour and our selves To God for then the Creature is kept in a due subjection to Him and all our Motions and Actions are subordinated to his Glory When we sin we are in rebellion against God and set up the Creature against Him as if it were more amiable and fitter to content and delight the Soul than God and so disturb the Order and Harmony of the World abusing both our selves and all things within our grasp to a wrong End Look as in the Motions of a Watch there is such a Proportion in every part that if one Wheel be wrong the whole is put out of Frame So the World that was made for us and we for God is all disordered when we use the World for our selves and not for God So as to our Neighbour Self-lovers and Self-pleasers will never heartily do good to others The most sincere Commerce in the World is among those that love God So for our selves Till the Love of God rule in our Hearts all is out of order Look as in the Body if the Feet were there where the Head should be the Disorder and Deformity would be great so it is in the Soul when the Beast rides the Man and Conscience and Reason are made Slaves to Lust and Appetite But when once a Man is gained to love God every thing is in frame again Self-government is restored due Obedience to God is well provided for 3. To give you some Reasons to shew you the Necessity of this both as to Persons Regenerate and Unregenerate 1. The Necessity of God's Direction to Persons unregenerate They cannot love God till the Lord direct and set their Hearts streight It is a hard thing to say but we must not mince the matter that in the carnal State we were all Haters of God Rom. 1. 13. And it were well if this Enmity and Hatred were throughly got out of our Hearts How can this be Nature tells us that he from whom we have received Being and Life and all Things deserves our Love I answer Though Men may see some Reason of Love to God as he is our Creator and Preserver but as he is a Law-giver and a Judge so we all hate him Three Reasons there are of that natural Enmity that is in the Hearts of Men against God I would have you consider them seriously that we may feelingly bewail our own Aversion from God 1. Our Inclination to carnal things which prepossesseth our Hearts and then there is no Room for any Inclination to God Naturally Men are addicted to vain and sensual Delights for that which is born of the Flesh is Flesh 2 Joh. 16. Having no Principle to incline them to God they wholly seek to please the Flesh. When Men once lost Original Righteousness they took up with what came next to hand and so became Lovers of Pleasures more than Lovers of God 2 Tim. 3. 4. And this Inclination we cannot devest our selves of till it be cured by Grace Therefore the Lord promiseth this Cure Deut. 30. 6. The Lord thy God will circumcise thine Heart and the Heart of thy Seed to love the Lord thy God with all thine Heart and with all thy Soul The Heart must be circumcised before it can love God Till God pare away the Foreskin and till this carnal Love be mortified there is no place for Divine Love to be raised and quickned in our Hearts We are intangled in the Love of worldly things and shall so remain till God bend the crooked Stick the other way and God set our Hearts right to himself 2. The second Reason is Carnal Liberty and so we hate God as a Law-giver who would bridle our Lusts. There is in the Law the Precept and the Sanction The Precept is to our purpose the Sanction will come to be considered in the next Because of God's Restraint we cannot enjoy our Lusts with that freedom and security we desire his Law is in the way therefore the Heart riseth up against God because he hath made a Law to forbid those things that we affect Rom. 8. 7. The natural Mind is Enmity to God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither can be Col. 1. 21. Enemies in your Mind by evil Works We love Sin therefore we hate God who forbids it and makes it so penal and damnable to us 3. Slavish Fear is the Cause of this Enmity This relates to the Sanction and Penalty of the Law Thus we hate God because we fear he will call us to account for our Sins and punish us For a condemning God barely apprehended under that Notion can never be loved by a guilty Creature Thus Adam when he had sinned ran away from God and hid himself in the Bushes Now it is in vain to come and tell them of the Goodness of God and his Perfections till he change their Hearts As you do in vain induce a guilty Prisoner to love his Judge to tell him he is a discreet Person a Man of solid Judgment one well skill'd and verst in the Law this sticks he is one that will condemn him Therefore the Gospel as a Means to induce us to love God sets him forth as a Sin-pardoning God There is Forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared 2. Come we to the Regenerate The Thessalonians did excell in all Graces and yet the Apostle prays that the Lord would direct their Hearts to the Love of God Why 1. Because there are many
Defects of Love in the best To give some Instances First Love signifies a strong Inclination or an earnest Bent of Heart towards God as our chief Good and last End Well then our End is our Measure by which we judge of all Means of the Aptness and Fitness of what is to be avoided and imbraced The Seasonableness of all Means must be determined by the End that all Means that are inconsistent with and impertinent to our great End may be cut off Now all Sins are inconsistent with making God our great End and all vain and foolish Actions are impertinent thereunto Judge you by this if we have such a perfect Love to God if this be love as questionless it is But now with how many impertinent and extravagant Actions do we fill up our Lives How many Purposes Desires Words and Actions have we that have no respect to our great End at all How much do we live to our selves and how little to God How great a Passion have we for earthly things so that they can occupy and intercept the far greatest part of our Lives and then judg whether we had not need have the bent kept up and the tendency towards God as our End and Happiness Psal. 86. 11. Unite my Heart to the fear of thy Name It is the natural disease of Man's Heart to be loosed from God and to be distracted in variety of worldly Objects which obtrude themselves upon our Sences offer themselves to us daily therefore it is not enough for a Man once to resign over his Heart to God as we do in Conversion when this Love was first wrought in us but we need often to beg that God would reclaim us from this ranging after carnal Vanities that he would direct and keep us streight and true to our end that we may love him more and at a better rate So if you consider the nature of Love the thing is obvious and plain unless the Lord maintain this Love in us and keep it up what will become of us The 2d Evidence is those slavish fears which do oppress us and hinder our delight in God and comfortable Communion with him in the means of Grace Certainly the more we are under slavish fear the less love we have to God and thankfulness for his Grace The Apostle tells you 1 Joh. 4. 18. There is no fear in Love but perfect Love casteth out fear because fear hath Torment he that feareth is not made perfect in Love Surely we should seek after such a Spirit of Love that all we do for God may be done with great delight that we may not serve him by compulsion but by inclination not as injoined only but as inclined not as putting a force upon our selves but as delighting in our work And then 3dly Another Instance is our frequent preferring the Profits and Pleasures of the World before the Service of God and if it doth not go so far as to forfeit our right yet how often do we expose and put our spiritual Comforts to hazard for every trifle As Esau that sold his Birthright for a Morsel of Meat Heb. 12. 15 16. The best of us shew too much lothness to cut off the right Hand and to pluck out the right Eye or to do that which is signified by it This shews a weakness of Love for where Love is strong there is a thorow inclination to God we dare Love nothing above him or against him or without him 4thly Our backwardness to Obedience and the tediousness we find in it shews a great Imperfection in our Love All goes on easily sweetly acceptably where Love is at the bottom Gen. 29. 20. Seven years to Iacob seemed as a few days for the Love that he had to Rachel and so Love sweetens our Obedience His Commandments are not grievous But when we are wedded to worldly things and will not be reclaimed from them then every heavenly business is an interruption to what we would be at what we delight in 5thly The many conflicts we have with Carnal self-Self-Love or our own foolish and hurtful Lusts shew our Love is not perfect as the weakness of Faith is seen and felt by the remainders of unbelief and our frequent conflicts with doubts and fears Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief Mark 9. 24. So the weakness of our Love is known by the opposition of carnal and inordinate Self-love The Flesh will say sometimes Favour thy self or what a weariness is it Mal. 1. 13. and grudg every thing that is done for God It doth excuse us in our straglings and deviations from our great End and applaud us in our negligent course of living as the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven Men that can render a reason Prov. 26. 16. Nay sometimes it will urge us to please our selves to the grief of the Spirit and to take our fill of carnal delights All this belongs to the first Reason 2. There needs much to be done about our Love after it is planted in the Soul we need to get it rooted to get it increased to get it continually excited and kept in act and exercise 1. We need to get it rooted Our first Affection to God and Heavenly things may hastily put forth it self as the early Blossoms of the Spring do but they are soon nipt and those high Tides of Affections which we find in our first acquaintance with Religion afterwards sink low enough Love is more passionately exprest at first partly by reason of the novelty of the things represented to us and partly because of our great necessity as Men that are in a violent thirst take large draughts with pleasure and because our Love is not as yet dispersed into the several Channels of Obedience but wholly taken up with admirations of Grace but yet this may vanish and decay Our business is to be rooted and grounded in Love as the Apostle saith Eph. 3. 7. to get a more solid durable affection to God 2. After it is Planted it needs to be more Increased Phil. 1. 9. I pray God your Love may abound yet more and more At first Love is but weak there is Fire but it is not blown up into a Flame afterwards God gets a greater interest in our Hearts and then the constitutions of our Souls become more Holy and Heavenly Love being the Heart of the new Creature he that hath most Love hath most Grace and is the best and strongest Christian. 3. After it is planted in the Soul it needs to be excited and kept in Act and Exercise This is mainly intended here For 1. All Religion is in Effect but Love Faith is a thankful acceptance of Christ and thankfulness is an expression of Love Repentance is but Mourning Love as she wept much to whom much was forgiven Luke 7. 47. Diligence in the Holy Life is but seeking Love Obedience is pleasing Love Self-denial is the Mortification of inordinate Self-Love Sobriety is a retrenching of
right that he should enter into Judgment with God No he goeth on just and sure Grounds though we do not always discern them 2. God doth it too with great Faithfulness they look on all Afflictions as federal Dispensations as Appendages of the Covenant of Grace Psal. 119. 57. In very Faithfulness thou hast afflicted me Mark he doth not say notwithstanding thy Faithfulness but in Faithfulness he performs his Covenant When he thresheth us it is to make our Husksfly off that he may quicken us to a serious Remembrance of himself and of the Duties we owe to him 3. It is ordered with great Wisdom For God is a God of Iudgment Isa. 30. 18. He knows what is best for his People We think this and that best but God is wiser than we when many Providences fall out we think it would be better for the Church if it were otherwise But this is to tax God's Wisdom and charge him with want of Love and Tenderness towards his People they are dearer to him than they are to you Chrysostom shews how we take upon us to order Affairs he brings in an Instance of a Man that is very kind to the Poor if he dies they are undone Have you more care of them than God their Maker Iob did not eat his Morsels alone but the Poor did eat his Bread and were cloathed with his Fleece therefore the sides of the Poor are said to bless him Cannot God provide for the Poor without Iob So in like cases for the Churches sake This Providence seems to tend altogether to evince but God knows how by these and these means to provide for his People and you must not prescribe to him It was Blasphemy in Alphonsus to say Si Deo à consiliis adfuisset se consultius multa ordinaturum That if he had been by when God made the World he would have ordered some things with greater advice and better care He would not have placed the Horns of the Beasts above their Eyes but under their Eyes Such Blasphemy do we secretly lisp out in our murmurings and discourses about Providence when we are questioning how this that and the other thing can be for his Glory The Lord knows how to guide all things to his Glory and we must absolutely yield to it 4. With much Love For he that hath the Wisdom of a Father hath also the Bowels of a Mother A Mother may sooner forget a poor shiftless Child than God will forget his People Isa. 49. 15 c. There 's a great deal of Love shewed in our Afflictions Sometimes in mitigating them 1 Cor. 10. 13. God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able to bear And as Iacob drove on as the little ones were able to bear so the Lord suits his Conduct and lays on the Affliction as his People are able to bear Castles are Victuall'd before they are Besieged After great Comforts then comes Affliction Heb. 10. 32. After you were enlightned ye endured a great fight of Affliction Then again in refreshing their Troubles with many gracious Experiences The Lord doth things which seem very bitter to the carnal Sense and Gust but when he hath defecated and refined our Taste then he sheds abroad his Love into our Hearts by the Holy Ghost Rom. 5. 3 5. Their Adoption is cleared up and the loss of outward Comfort is accompanied with a greater increase of Spiritual Comfort Again he shews his Love in ordering all things for their Good Rom. 8. 28. Out of what Corner soever the Wind blows it blows good to the Saints Arise O North Wind and blow thou South c. North and South contrary Points Cant. 4. 16. yet the Spices of his Garden flow out That which is against our Will is not against our Profit God is still pursuing what is for his own Glory and Good of the Elect. So all that falleth out is either Good or will tend to Good USE This teacheth us upon what Grounds there should be such a submission to all Personal and Domestical Calamities which may befal any of us and to all that befal the Church It is the Will of God and that 's the great Ground of composing the Heart whatever falleth out When-ever you hear of the increase of Violence or any Resolution against the People of God this should calm us The Will of the Lord be done God knows what is best for his People This is an everlasting Ground of Comfort that we are still in God's Hand 's and whatever befals us it comes by his special Providence even by his that numbers the Hairs of our Heads and who carves out every condition to us Deut. 33. 3. Surely he loved his People all the Saints are in his Hands When the Disciples were sore troubled and affrighted Joh. 6. 20. Iesus comes to them and said Be not afraid 't is I that order this There are many remarkable Passages in that Story The Disciples were in the dark of the night overtaken with a mighty Storm and for a long time did not know what would become of them the Text saith they had rowed about twenty five or thirty Furlongs before Christ appears Christ seeth it not fit to appear at first but lets the Trial go on until it be a Trial indeed Now about the fourth Watch of the Night Jesus passed by Mark 6. 48. that's the Morning Watch and then Jesus appears to them We are very tender of our selves and soon think we are low and tried enough therefore would fain be delivered but our wise Lord seeth we need more When Christ came then their fears are increased Christ came walking upon the Water and they thought it was a Spectre Spirits broken with troubles are very apt to take in afflicting impressions from every thing they see and hear The very way of our Mercies may be matter of terror to us At length he discovereth himself 't is I be not afraid I walk upon that Water which seems to be ready to swallow you up I that raised the Waves know how to still them Here 's that which may allay all our disquiets and fears Remember it is not the Instrument but Christ and God must be eyed and the Will of the Lord be done In our darkest Condition God seeth us when we do not see him Psal. 73. 22 23. and Job 23. 9 10. I looked on the left hand where he doth work but I cannot behold him he hideth himself on the right hand that I cannot see him But he knoweth the way that I take when he hath tried me I shall come forth as Gold SERMON XVI JOHN 3. 16. God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life IN these words you have the Sum and Substance of the Gospel In them observe 1. The Fountain and Original of all that Grace and Salvation which is brought unto us God's unspeakable
SERMONS PREACHED BY The Late Reverend and Learned Divine THOMAS MANTON D. D. LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Sign of the three Pigeons over-against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1678. The PREFACE IT may seem a just discouragement from publishing more Sermons at this time when there are such numbers abroad in the hands of all for the abundance of things useful is fatal to their value and the rareness exceedingly inhances their price If Men were truly wise Spiritual Treasures should be excepted from this Common Law yet plenty even of them causeth satiety But the following Sermons have that peculiar Excellence that will make them very valuable to all that have discerning Minds and such a tincture of Religion as makes them capable of tasting the goodness of Divine things I shall say nothing particularly here of the intellectual Endowments of the Author in which he appeared Eminent among the first nor of his Graces to adorn his Memory for a Saint that is ascended into Heaven and crown'd with Eternal Glory by the righteous Iudge needs not the weak fading testimony of Praise from Men. Besides that universal esteem he had from those who knew his Ability Diligence and Fidelity in the Work of God makes it unnecessary for them who were his Admirers and Friends And for those who are unacquainted with his Worth if they take a view of his Works formerly printed or the present Sermons that deserve equal approbation they will have the same opinion with others I will give some account of the Sermons themselves The main design of them is to represent the inseparable connexion between Christian Duties and Priviledges wherein the Essence of our Religion consists The Gospel is not a naked unconditionate offer of Pardon and Eternal Life in favour of Sinners but upon most convenient terms for the Glory of God and the good of Men and enforc'd by the strongest obligations upon them to receive humbly and thankfully those Benefits The Promises are attended with Commands to Repent Believe and persevere in the uniform practice of Obedience The Son of God came into the World not to make God less holy but to make us holy that we might please and enjoy him not to vacate our Duty and free us from the Law as the Rule of Obedience for that is both impossible and would be most infamous and reproachful to our Saviour To challenge such an exemption in point of right is to make our selves Gods to usurp it in point of fact is to make our selves Devils But his end was to enable and induce us to return to God as our rightful Lord and proper Felicity from whom we rebelliously and miserably fell by our disobedience in seeking for Happiness out of him Accordingly the Gospel is called the Law of Faith as it commands those Duties upon the Motives of eternal Hopes and Fears and as it will justifie or condemn Men with respect to their Obedience or Disobedience which is the proper Character of a Law These things are managed in the following Sermons in that convincing perswasive manner as makes them very necessary for these times when some that aspired to an extraordinary height in Religion and esteemed themselves the Favourites of Heaven yet wofully neglected the duties of the lower Hemisphere as Righteousness Truth and Honesty and when carnal Christians are so numerous that despise serious Godliness as solemn Hypocrisy and live in an open violation of Christ's Precepts yet presume to be saved by him Though no Age has been more enlightned with the knowledge of holy Truths yet none was ever more averse from obeying them I shall only add further that they commend to our ardent Affections and Endeavours true Holiness as distinguish'd from the most refin'd unregenerate Morality The Doctor saw the absolute necessity of this and speaks with great jealousy of those who seem in their discourses to make it their highest aim to improve and cultivate some moral Vertues as Iustice Temperance Benignity c. by Philosophick helps representing them as becomming the dignity of the Humane Nature as agreeable to Reason as beneficial to Societies and but transiently speak of the Supernatural Operation of the Holy Spirit that is as requisite to free the Soul from the Chains of Sin as to release the Body at the last Day from the Bands of Death that seldom preach of Evangelical Graces Faith in the Redeemer Love to God for his admirable Mercy in our Salvation Zeal for his Glory Humility in ascribing all that we can return in grateful Obedience to the most free and powerful Grace of God in Christ which are the vital principles of good Works and derive the noblest forms to all Vertues Indeed Men may be compos'd and considerate in their Words and Actions may abstain from gross Enormities and do many praise-worthy Actions by the rules of moral Prudence yet without the infusion of divine Grace to cleanse their stained Natures to renew them according to the Image of God shining in the Gospel to act them from Motives superiour to all that Moral Wisdom propounds all their Vertues of what elevation soever though in an heroick degree cannot make them real Saints As the Plant Animal has a faint resemblance of the sensitive Life but remains in the lower rank of Vegitables so these have a shadow an appearance of the Life of God but continue in the corrupt state of Nature And the difference is greater between sanctifying saving Graces wrought by the special Power of the Spirit with the holy Operations flowing from them and the vertuous Habits and Actions that are the effects of Moral Counsel and Constancy then between true Pearls produced by the Celestial Beams of the Sun and counterfeit ones formed by the smoaky heat of the Fire In short the Lord Iesus our Saviour and Iudge who purchas'd the Heavenly Glory and has sole power to give the actual possession of it assures us that unless a Man be born of the Spirit he can never enter into the kingdom of God The Supernatural Birth entitles to the Supernatural Inheritance Without this how fair and specious soever the Conversation of Men appears they must expect no other priviledge at last but a cooler place in Hell and the coolest there is intolerable W. BATES The Contents Sermon 1 and 2d Pag. 1. ON Psal. 32. 1 2. Blessed is he whose Transgression is forgiven whose Sin is covered Blessed is the Man unto whom the Lord imputeth not Iniquity and in whose Spirit there is no Guile Sermon 3. Pag. 44. On Acts 3. 26. Unto you first God having raised up his Son Iesus sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from his Iniquities Serm. 4th Pag. 66. On 2 Pet. 1. 4. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious Promises that by these you might be Partakers of the Divine Nature having escaped the Corruption that is in the World through Lust. Serm. 5. pag. 81. On Mark 9. 49. For every one shall
Jesus Christ required and so much spoken of in Scripture I will content my self but with two Reasons at this time 1. Faith in Christ is most fitted for the acceptance of God's free Gift Faith and Grace do always go together and are put as opposite to Law and Works Rom. 4. 16. It is of Faith that it may be of Grace Eph. 2. 8. For by Grace ye are saved through Faith and not of your selves it is the Gift of God not of Works left any Man should boast Faith establishes and keeps up the Interest and Honour of Grace for it is the free Grace and Favour of God to condescend to the Rebel World so far as he hath done in the new Covenant We present our selves before him as those that stand wholly to his Mercy have nothing to plead for our selves but the Righteousness and Merit of our Redeemer by virtue of which we humbly beg Pardon and Life to be begun in us by his Spirit and perfected in Glory 2. Why Faith in Christ Because the way of our Recovery is so strange and wonderful It can only be received by Faith Sense cannot convey it to us Reason will not and nothing is reserved for the entertainment of this glorious Mystery Pardon and Salvation by our Redeemer but Faith alone If I should deduce this Argument at large I would shew you nothing but Faith or the Belief of God's Testimony concerning his Son can support us in these Transactions with God The Comfort of the Promise is so rich and glorious Sense and Reason cannot inform us of it Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor can it enter into the Heart of Man to conceive 1 Cor. 2. 9. the things God hath prepared for them that love him It is not meant only of Heaven but of the whole Preparations and rich Provisions God hath made for us in the Gospel It is not a thing can come to us by Eye or Ear or the conceiving of Man's heart we only believe and entertain it by Faith And then the Persons upon whom it is bestowed are so unworthy that certainly it cannot enter into the Heart of Man that God will be so good and do so much good to such Adam when he had sinned grew shy of God and ran away from him Besides the way God hath taken for our deliverance is so supernatural God so loved the World that he sent his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting Life That God should become Man that he should submit to such an accursed Death for our Sakes is so high and glorious it can only be entertain'd by Faith Besides our chief Blessedness lies in another World He that lacketh Faith is blind and cannot see afar off Here in this lower World where our God is unseen and our great Hopes are to come where the Flesh is so importunate to be pleased where our Temptations and Trials are so many and Difficulties so great we are apt to question all and we can never keep waiting upon God were it not for Faith and a steady Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. For these Reasons if you look into the Scriptures it is why Faith is so much insisted upon that we may keep up the honour of God's Grace and because this Grace of the Redeemer is so mysterious and wonderful 4. The Use of these two Graces discover their Nature What is Faith and Repeatance Repentance towards God is a Turning from Sin to God The Terminus à quo of Repentance is our begun Recovery from Sin and therefore called Repentance from dead Works Heb. 6. 1. The Terminus ad quem to which we return is God and our being devoted to God in Obedience and Love God never hath our Hearts till he hath our Love and Delight till we return to a Love of his blessed Majesty and delight in his Ways This is called in Scripture sometimes a turning to God in many other places a seeking after God a giving up our selves to God 2 Cor. 8. 5. They gave up themselves to the Lord. This is the Repentance by which we enter into the Gospel-State Now what is Faith Besides an Assent to the Gospel which is at the bottom of it It is a serious thankful broken-hearted Acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ that he may be to every one of us what God hath appointed him to be and do forevery one of us what God hath appointed him to do for poor Sinners It is serious and broken-hearted done by a Creature in misery and thankful for such a wonderful Benefit a trusting to this Redeemer that he may do the Work of a Redeemer in our Hearts to save us from the evil of and after Sin And thus I have briefly opened this necessary Doctrine as clearly laid down in the Scripture And this is your Entrance in the Evangelick State II. For our Continuance therein For we must not only mind our Entrance but our Continuance Our Lord Jesus tells us of a Gate and a Way the Gate signifies the Entrance and the Way our Continuance And we read of making and keeping Covenant with God we read of Union with Christ that is our first Entrance for this Faith is the closing Act and exprest sometimes by a being married to Christ. But there is not only an Union with Christ but an Abiding in him Abide in me and I will abide in you Now as for our Continuance I would shew you that the first Works are gone over and over again Faith and Repentance are still necessary For the Righteousness of God is revealed frm Faith to Faith And Repentance is still necessary But I shall only press two things First New Obedience Secondly Daily Prayer 1. New Obedience is required 1 Ioh. 1. 7. If we walk in the Light as he is in the Light we have fellowship one with another and the Blood of Iesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all Sin Holy Walking is necessary to the continuance of our being cleansed from Sin and therefore Mercy is promised to the forsaking of our Sins Prov. 18. 13. He that confesseth and forsaketh his Sins shall find Mercy Isa. 55. 7. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous Man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have Mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Our Hearts were not sound with God in the first Covenanting if we undo what was done If we build again the things we have destroyed then we are found Transgressours Gal. 1. 18. Well then a Man that seeks after Pardon seeks after it with the ruine and destruction of Sin Sin was the greatest Burden that lay upon his Conscience the Greivance from whence he sought ease the Wound pain'd him at Heart the Disease his Soul was sick of And was all this Anguish real and shall a Man come to delight in his Sores again and take up the Burden he groaned under and tear open
of our Desires And partly through Slavish Fear We hate those whom we fear A condemning God can never be loved by a guilty Creature We look upon him as one that will call us to an account for our Sins Now all these Reasons concur to shew us that till Sin be taken away we cannot love nor delight in God neither can God love us and delight in us God will not have Communion with us while we are in our Sins Christ when he came to bring us to God he came not to make any Change in God to make God less holy but to make us holy and amiable in his sight The reasonable Nature cannot digest this Conceit that the holy God should take Sinners into his Bosom without any change Would it become the Governour of the World to be indifferent to good and bad the holy God to be a Friend to Sinners The new Nature in us sheweth the contrary for that causes an abomination and abhorrence both of Impurity and the Impure As Lot's righteous Soul was vexed with the Sodomites And we are told Prov. 29. 27. An unjust Man is an Abomination to the Iust and he that is upright in the Way is Abomination to the Wicked If a Man be sanctified but in part he cannot delight in the wicked freely to converse with them He hath a Hatred not of Enimity so as to seek their Destruction not a Hatred opposite to good Will that is contrary to the Nature of Grace which is made up of Love but an Hatred of Abomination which is contrary to the Love of Complacency he cannot take any delight in him Now then without a manifest reproach to the Holy God we cannot imagine he should admit Sinners into an intimate Communion with him Thou hatest all the Workers of Iniquity Psal. 5. 5. God said to the Prophet Ier. 15. 19. Let them return unto thee but return not thou to them God will not return to us in our Sins but we must come off from our Sins to him 2. We are freed from the great Blemish of our Natures Sin defaced the Image of God in us Rom. 3. 23. All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God We lost not only the Favour of God but the Image of God the great Excellency of our Nature was eclipsed and defaced Now the Plaister will not be as broad as the Sore nor our Reparation by Christ correspondent to our Loss by Adam if our Nature be not healed and the Image of God restored in us If Adam had only left us guilty the Pardon of Sin had been enough but he conveyed an evil Nature and therefore we must be turned from our Sins as well as pardoned otherwise Christ would not restore all that Adam took away Psal. 69. 4. Is he a good Physician that takes away the Pain and leaves the great Disease uncured But Christ has procured the Favour of God for us and repaired the Image of God in us and therefore certainly put us into a way of Blessedness again Holiness was our Primitive Excellency and Amiableness 3. We are freed from that that is the great Burden of the Creature as well as his Blemish Whatever it be to the common Sinner that is no matter he hath no right thoughts of things and is besotted with his carnal choice for Sin is an Evil whether it be felt or no but the awakened Sinner is sensible not only of the Guilt of Sin but it is his greatest Burden that he should have a Nature inclines him to grieve and dishonour God Pharaoh could say Take away this Plague But a penitent broken-hearted Sinner cries Take away all Iniquity They desire a Change of this State by Regeneration Therefore the Promises of the Gospel considering a penitent Soul under such a Distress are suted to the Case 1 Iohn 1. 9. If we confess our Sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our Sins and cleanse us from all Unrighteousness If you know what Sin is and penitently bemoan your selves to God you will be troubled with the Power and Pollution of it as well as the Guilt Mic. 7. 18 19. Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth Iniquity and passeth by the Transgression of the Remnant of his Heritage He will turn again he will have compassion hewill subdue our Iniquities A Heart truly affected doth not only desire Pardon and Ease but Power against Sin A Man that hath his Leg broken would not only desire Ease of his pain but to have his Leg set right again A Leprous Condemned Malefactor desires not only to be freed from the Sentence of Condemnation but to be cured or his Pardon will do him no good Now surely it is a great Blessing to be turned from our Sins to be freed from that a penitent Soul finds to be so great a Burden and the Mediatour gives us a notable proof of his Love in it 4. Being turned from our Sins we are freed from the great bane of our Persons and all our happiness Sin is a Cursed Inmate it fires the Lodging where it is entertain'd and harboured unless speedily cast out of doors it involves us in the curse of the Law The wages of Sin is Death therefore Christ that he might free us from Misery doth first free us from Sin If pardon of Sin be a blessing certainly to be turned from Sin is a blessing for the one cannot be had without the other till you are turned from Sin you cannot be pardoned not justified till you are sanctified Psal. 32. 1 2. Blessed is the Man whose Sin is forgiven and whose Iniquity is covered and unto whom the Lord will not impute his Sin in whose spirit there is no guile When God hath given us an holy sincere heart and turned us from our Sins then we have the Blessedness of Pardon There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Rom. 8. 1. who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit We are freed from the condemning power of the Law when freed from Sin and all that Woe and Wrath that belongs to every Soul that doth evil By all these Considerations it appears how great a Blessing the turning us from Sin is in the privative notion that is the removal of so great an evil 2. Take Blessedness in the Positive Notion that is to enjoy a great Good and it will appear it is a blessed thing to be turned from our Sins 1. Because this is the matter of our Serenity Comfort and Peace here and the pledg and beginning of our eternal Felicity hereafter The Soul can never be setled in an holy Peace till it be turned from its Sins we can never find rest till we get out of Satan's yoke and get into Christ's blessed Liberty The fruit of Righteousness is Peace Isa. 32. 17. We are freed from those unquiet and troublesom thoughts wherewith others are haunted A wicked Man's Soul is in a mutiny one Affection wars against another and all against
the Heart is an Introduction into our glorious State and the more sanctified the more meet to be Partakers thereof Col. 1. 12. Now that which doth positively make us capable of Glory and Happiness is a greater Priviledge than that which only removes the Impediment 4. That is the greatest Benefit which makes us more amiable in the Sight of God and is the Object of his Delight now he delights in us as sanctified rather than pardoned We love him indeed for pardoning and forgiving so great a Debt she loved much because much was forgiven her But God delighteth in Holiness and the Reflection and Impress of his own Image upon us Prov. 11. 20. The Upright in the Way are his Delight When the Spirit hath renewed us according to the Image and Nature of God that makes us amiable in his Sight and an Object of Divine Complacency Therefore surely this is the great Priviledge and Blessing we have by the Mediator here in this World I come to the fourth Thing IV. In what way doth Christ turn us from our Iniquities 1. He doth purchase this Grace for us And 2. He works it in us 1. He purchaseth this Grace for us that we may be turned 1 Pet. 1. 24. He bore our Sins in his own Body upon the Tree that we being dead unto Sin should live unto Righteousness That was his end not only to lay the Obligation upon us but to procure the Grace whereby we may be enabled to do so This Sacrifice was a truly propitiatory Sacrifice whereby God was appeased and forfeited Blessings restored The Loss of God's Image was a great part of our Punishment and it is a part of our Deliverance that Christ hath purchased this Grace as well as Pardon He hath given himself for us that he might cleanse us and sanctify us and make us a pure and holy People unto God Eph. 5. 25 26. 2. As he hath purchased it for us so he works it in us partly by the power of his Internal Grace and partly by blessing and sanctifying External Means and Helps for such an End and Purpose First I say by the Power of his Internal Grace changing our Hearts and Minds Tit. 3. 9. He saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy-Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Iesus Christ our Saviour And he acteth in us as Christ's Spirit and as we are Members of Christ. It is the Spirit enlightens the Mind so that we begin to see the Evil that is in Sin the Necessity to get rid of it After I was instructed I smote upon the Thigh and also to overcome the obstinate Heart of Man and turn it to God and to fix the Inclination of the Soul against Sin In short by his preventing Grace he doth convert us by his exciting Grace sanctify us by his assisting Grace he makes us persevere in turning us more and more from Sin to Holiness Secondly He sanctifies and blesses External Helps and Means I shall instance in two Ordinances and Providences 1. Ordinances such as the Word and Sacraments Ioh. 17. 19. I sanctified my self that they might be sanctified by the Truth that is the preaching of the Word He gave himself for his Church that he might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of Water through the Word Mark these and other places of Scripture and you will find the Merit of Christ doth reach the Ordinances that by them Grace may be conveyed and Sin might be mortified and subdued in us The Word calls us to excite our Resolutions against Sin and strengthen them to avoid Occasions to cut off the Provisions of the Flesh to make it our daily Task to war and strive against it And none conscienciously wait upon the Word but something by every attendance is given out for the weakning of Sin and setting them afresh against it And then the Sacrament that represents the Death of Christ as the Price of our dying to Sin and it represents him as the Pattern according to which we must be conformed that we may know that our old Man is crucified and that we may renew our Covenant with God and our Resolutions and bind our selves to more serious Endeavours against Sin The Lord Jesus after he had procured the Spirit and this wonderful Grace to turn us from our Sins hath appointed congruous and and fit Ordinances whereby he may dispense this Grace to us more and more And as he sanctifies Ordinances so 2. Providences for we are thresh'd that our Husks may fly off Wherefore doth he chasten us sometimes and very sorely but to make us out of love with Sin The Fruit of all shall be to take away Sin Isa. 27. 9. And he chastens us verily for our Profit that we may be made Partakers of his Holiness Heb. 12. 10. By all these means we are sanctified by Ordinances and Providences and by the all-powerful Grace of his holy Spirit Thus I have opened the fourth Thing how the Lord Jesus doth turn us from our Sins The Uses we may make of this Point are 1. Of Information It informs us 1. Of the vain Hopes of the Carnal and such as yet live in their Sins for at present they have no Interest in him and so living and dying will find him rather a Judge than a Saviour for the greatest part of their Work is undone We must be saved from the Guilt and Power of Sin and the latter is the proper Sign of our Recovery We are justified in the Name of the Lord Iesus and sanctified also in the Spirit of our God Christ did not purchase our Salvation by piece-meal nor can we receive it by piece-meal a whole Saviour we must have or no Saviour She was the true Mother that pleaded against the dividing of the Infant They are true Christians I am sure who would have Christ undivided who would have him Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption for if you take him in one respect and neglect him in another especially the chief thing you should make use of him for you do not take him at all Therefore the Carnal that live in their Sins are at present excluded from all Claim to Christ. 2. It shews us what we should mainly seek in our Prayers Leave not the Redeemer till he hath blessed you with his principal Blessing Our Prayers for temporal Happiness are not so welcom to Christ as our Prayers for sanctifying Grace and Power against Sin Natural Sense will put us upon asking Corn and Wine and Oil but the new Creature saith Lord take away Iniquity Every Man hath a sence of outward Evils and would fain be at ease but every Man hath not a sence of Sin and an hunger and thirst after Righteousness Self-love will prompt us to beg exemption from Trouble but Sin is the worst Burden to a tender Heart When your Children ask you for Apples and Plums and such things as are pleasing to their childish Appetite they do
are Strangers to the Promises of the Gospel It is a Thought that possesseth many when they are pressed to Christian Duties they will say We are not Saints or Angels and therefore cannot abstain from such Sins or attain unto an heavenly Life But do you mark what is said here Christians must be Partakers of a Divine Nature And not only they are cut off from any Priviledge by Christ who corrupt themselves as brute Beasts made to be taken and destroyed Jud. 10. that is against the Light of Nature ingulf themselves in all manner of Dissoluteness and Sensuality But also they that walk as Men only according to the Rule of Men who mind nothing beyond the present World 1 Cor. 3. 3. Are not ye Carnal and walk as Men That is they are not raised above the Pitch of meer Men and have nothing of the Spirit of God in them 3. This Divine Nature may be considered three ways Either 1. As begun When we are first renewed in the Spirit of our Minds and regenerated according to the Image of God Ephes. 4. 23 24. There is a wonderful Change wrought in Sinners by reason of the Divine Qualities impressed on them So that the Creature beginneth to look like GOD Himself their Nature is altered their Course of Life is altered and their Designs and Actions have something Divine in them 2. As increased when more like God in a conspicuous degree At first the impression is but weak and this Glory is darkned by remaining Imperfections and we shew forth much of Adam upon all occasions as well as somewhat of Christ. But where any are sincere and diligent the old Nature is more suppressed and curbed and the Divine Nature doth more eminently appear 2 Cor. 3. 18. We are changed from Glory to Glory It is a work capable of Spiritual progress We should grow more like God and come nearer to the Nature of God every day And it is a shame we are not having been so long acquainted with the Word 3. As it is perfected in Heaven for there we have the nearest communion with God and so the highest conformity to him that we are capable of 1 John 3. 2. We shall see God as he is and be like him Perfectly like him for the being of Sin is then utterly abolished there is not the least stain or blemish upon a glorified Soul Besides then we are like him not only in point of Holiness but in point of Happiness and Felicity For God is an holy and happy Being Here we resemble God more in Holiness and Purity for many times the most eminent and exemplary Holiness may be accompanied with remarkable Afflictions at least sanctifying Grace doth not exempt us from them But there as our Holiness is exact our Felicity is compleat also First we are made Holy and then Immortal and in both like God Well then this is the effect Partakers of a Divine Nature So that when you come among the People of God and you be asked What kind of Men do you find them to be as Gideon in another case asked Zeba and Zalmunnah concerning his Brethren who answered Each one resembled the Children of a King Iudg. 8. 18. They were Godly and Majestical Persons So it will be said concerning the Saints who are really and eminently partakers of the Grace of the Gospel they are all Children of the most high God as like God as mortal men can be bear his Image and express Resemblance of the Grace of the Gospel II. Let us now see the Means by which God doth accomplish this effect To us are given great and precious Promises 1. It is an instance of God's Love that he will deal with us in the way of Promises The World is depraved by Sin and sunk into fears and despair of any Good from God whom we have so highly provoked Therefore God invites and allures us to himself by Promises For Promises and Declarations of God's Will in the Gospel whereby he signifies what Good he will freely bestow upon us if we will look after it These Advantages we have by them 1. A Promise is more than a Purpose for the Purpose and intention of a Man is secret and hidden in his own bosom but a Promise is open and manifest Thereby we get the knowledg of the Good intended to us If God had only purposed to bestow all this Grace upon us we could not have known his Intention and Purpose till it were manifested in the effect it would have been as an hidden Treasure or sealed Fountain of no Comfort and encouragement to us till we had found it But now the Word is gone out of his Lips we may know how we shall speed if we will hearken to his Counsel God's Promises are on his part the eruption or overflow of his Love his Heart is so big with thoughts of Good to us that his Love cannot stay till the accomplishment of things but he must tell us aforehand Isa. 42. 9. Before they spring forth I tell you of them He might have done us Good and given us no notice but that would not satisfy him It is an obligation God takes upon himself Promittendo se Debitorem fecit God's Purposes are unchangeable but Promises are a Security put into our hands not only give us notice but Assurance that thus it shall be We have the greater hold-fast upon him and may put his Bond in suit Psal. 119. 49. Remember the Word unto thy Servant upon which thou hast caused me to hope 2. It is more than a Doctrinal Declaration It is one thing to reveal a Doctrine another to promise a Benefit that maketh a thing known this maketh a thing sure and upon certain terms That gives us notice but this gives us interest If Life and Immortality had been only brought to light in the Gospel 2 Tim. 1. 10. which was only obscurely known to the Heathens it were a great mercy that we were not left to blind Guesses and dark Conjectures That Eternal Life is set before us a thing real and excellent is a great matter But God hath put it into a Covenant-form and Promise 1 Ioh. 2. 25. that we may make our Title and Claim Surely that is matter of great Comfort to us Psal. 119. 111. Thy Testimonies have I taken as an Heritage for ever for they are the rejoycing of my heart 3. It is more than a Prophecy or simple Prediction Scripture-Prophecies will be fulfilled because of God's Veracity but Scripture-Promises will be fulfilled not only because of God's Veracity but also his Fidelity and Justice For by God's Promise Man cometh to have a right to the thing promised it was his Mercy and Goodness to make the Promise but his Justice and Fidelity bindeth him to make it good 1 Ioh. 1. 9. If we confess our Sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our Sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness 2 Tim. 4. 8. Divines say Of all Lies a Promissory Lie
the Propitiation for Sin and the Obedience of the Sacrificer as devoted to God Now the first Signification took place and had its effect upon them if they neglected the other two Meanings of the Sacrifices and therefore they were to be looked on as salted with Fire whereas the other who were accepted were salted with Salt The 3d Observation for the opening of this is the two References of these Saltings or the distinct and proper Application of them 1. To the wicked For every one shall be salted with Fire that is every one of them spoken of before who indulged their corrupt Affections who did not entirely and heartily keep the Covenant of God and renounce their beloved Lusts. 2. Here is the Application to the Godly Every Sacrifice shall be salted with Salt that is Every one that is not a Sacrifice by constraint but voluntarily surrenders and gives up himself to God to be ordered and disposed of according to his Will he is salted not with Fire but with Salt which every one that is devoted to God is bound to have within himself So while some are destinated to the Wrath of God and salted with Fire to be consumed and destroyed others are salted with Salt preserved and kept savoury in the Profession and Practice of Godliness The Doctrine is this Doct. The Grace of Mortification is very necessary for all those who are devoted to God I shall prove three things I. That the true Notion of a Christian is that he is a Sacrifice or a Thank-offering to God II. That the Grace of Mortification is the true Salt whereby this Offering and Sacrifice should be seasoned III. I shall shew you the Necessity of this Salt that we may keep right with God in the Duties of the Covenant I. The true Notion of a Christian is that he is a Sacrifice to God This is evident by Rom. 12. 1. I beseech you Brethren by the Mercies of God that you present your Bodies a living Sacrifice acceptable unto God which is your reasonable Service that is the reasonable part which was figured by the Sacrifices and Oblations of the Law And so Isa. 66. 20. They shall bring your Brethren for an offering unto the Lord. Under the Law Beasts were offered to God but in the Gospel Men are offered to him not as Beasts were to be destroyed slain and burnt in the Fire but to be preserved for God's use and service In offering any thing to God two things were of consideration there was a Separation from a common and a Dedication to an holy use and they both take place in the present matter 1. There is a separation of our selves from a common use The Beast was separated from the Flock or Herd for this special purpose to be given to God Thus we are separated and set apart from the rest of the World that we may be a People to God We are no more our own 1 Cor. 6. 19. And we are no more to live to our selves but to him that dyed for us 2 Cor. 5. 15. We are not to live to the World to the Flesh or to such things as the natural Heart craves we have no right in our selves to dispose of our selves of our time of our interest of our strength but must wholly give up our selves to God to be disposed ordered governed by him at his own will and pleasure 2. There is a dedication of our selves to God to serve please honour and glorify him 1. The manner of dedicating our selves to God is to be considered 'T is usually done with grief shame and indignation at our selves that God hath been so long kept out of his right with a full purpose to restore it to him with advantage 1 Pet. 4. 3. The time past may suffice to have wrought the will of the flesh and of Man it is high time to give up our selves to the Will of God we have been long enough too long dishonouring God destroying our Souls pleasing the Flesh living according to the Flesh and the course of the World therefore they desire to make restitution Rom. 6. 19. For as ye have yeelded your Members Servants to Uncleanness and to Iniquity unto iniquity even so now yeeld your Members Servants to Righteousness unto Holiness Their forepast neglects of God and duty to him fill their Hearts with shame therefore they resolve to double their diligence and to be as eminent in Holiness as before they were in Vanity and Sin 2. It is with a deep sence of the Lord's love in Christ for we give up our selves to God not as a Sin-offering but as a Thank-offering Rom. 12. 1. I beseech you by the mercies of the Lord. And 2 Cor. 5. 14. For the love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all then were all dead and that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him that died for them and rose again they are ravished with an admiration of God's goodness in Christ and so give up themselves to him 3. They do intirely give up themselves to God not to be his in a few things but in all to serve him with all their faculties You are not your own but are bought with a price 1 Cor. 6. 20. Therefore glorify God both with your Bodies and Souls which are Gods And to serve him in all conditions Rom. 14. 8. Whether we live we live unto God or whether we die we die unto God for living or dying we are the Lord 's They are willing to be used for his Glory not only as active Instruments but as passive Objects they give up themselves to obey his governing will and to submit to his disposing will to be what he would have them to be as well as to do what he would have them to do Phil. 1. 20. According to my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed but that with all boldness as always so now also Christ shall be magnified in my Body whether it be by Life or by Death Thus with all their faculties in every condition of Life are they to be devoted to God in all actions It is said Zach. 14. 20 21. That Holiness to the Lord shall be written not only upon the Bowls of the Altar and the Pots of the Lord's House butalso upon all the Pots of Jerusalem not only upon the Vessels of the Temple but upon common utensils that is translate it into a Gospel Phrase that not only in our sacred but even in our common and civil actions c. we should live as a people that are offered up to God 4. The end why we give up our selves to God is to serve please and glorify him Act. 27. 23. His I am and him I serve to please him by the obedience of his will Rom. 12. 1 2. Ye present your Bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable Service And
The Back-slider in Heart shall be filled with his own Ways and a good Man shall be satisfied from himself There are two different Persons commencing and setting forth in the pursuit of Happiness the Backslider in Heart and the good-Man The Backslider in Heart is one that continues in the Apostacy and Defection of Mankind that indulgeth his Lusts and vain Pleasures and for a seeming Good leaves God who is the chief Good But the good Men are those who make it their business to keep their Hearts chast and loyal to God They both desire to be filled and to be satisfied the one takes his own Way and the other God's Counsel and in the event both are filled The Backslider in Heart hath enough of his own Ways when they have brought him to Hell and the good Man hath enough when he comes to the Enjoyment of the Blessed God And there is one Truth more there they are both filled from themselves their own Ways The Backslider shall have the Fruit of his own Choice and a good Man is satisfied with that Course of Godliness that he hath chosen Prov. 1. 31. Those that turn away from God it is said They shall eat of their own Ways and be filled with the Fruit of their own Devices And Isa. 3. 10. Say unto the Righteous It shall be well with him for he shall eat of the Fruit of his own Doings 2. Consider the doleful Condition of those that indulge their carnal Affections and that either threatned by God or executed upon the wicked 1. Consider it as it is threatned by God If God threaten so great a Misery it is for our Profit that we may take heed and escape it There is Mercy in the severest Threatnings that we may avoid the Bait when we see the Hook that we may digest the Strictness of an holy Life rather than venture upon such dreadful Evils Why did our Lord repeat it three times Where the Worm never dies and the Fire is never quench'd but that we may have it often in our Thoughts that we may not buy the Pleasures of Sin at so dear a rate so hard a Price as the Loss of our precious Souls 2. Consider the Punishment as executed upon the Wicked How many are now burning in Hell for those Sins which you are ready to commit The serious Consideration of it will check the Fervour of your Lusts that you may not easily venture upon an everlasting Hell 3. Consider which Trouble is most intolerable to be salted with Salt or to be salted with Fire with unpleasing Mortification or the Pains of Hell the Trouble of Physick or the Danger of a mortal Disease Surely to preserve the Life of the Body Men will endure the bitterest Pill take the most loathsom Potion why their Lives ly on it And shall we be unwilling to such a necessary Strictness to these wholsom Severities which conduce to save you with an everlasting Salvation There is no Remedy Trouble must be undergone Surely a strict Diet is better than a speedy Death and the pricking of a Vein by a Chirurgion is not so bad as a Stab at the Heart by an Enemy Better be macerated by Repentance than broken in Hell by Torments Which is worse Discipline or Execution Here the Question is put you must be troubled first or last Would you have a Sorrow mixed with Love and Hope or else mixed with Desperation Would you have a Drop or an Ocean Would you have your Souls cured or tormented Would you have Trouble in the short Moment of this Life or have it Eternal in the World to come 4. Be sure you be a Sacrifice dedicated to God really entred into Covenant with God and set apart for his Use that this may be your End your Business your Scope to please glorify and enjoy him 2 Cor. 1. 9. We can the better speak to you when you are under a Covenant-Engagement Christ bound you to this when he died for you He sanctified himself that you might be sanctified through the Truth that is dedicated to God John 17. 19. And by one Offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified that is them that are consecrated to God or entred into a holy Covenant with God Christ bound you to it and your own Gratitude will suggest it to you I beseech you by the Mercies of the Lord present your selves c. Nay the new Nature will incline you to it Rom. 6. 13. Yeeld your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your Members as Instruments of Righteousness unto God The new Life will presently discover it self by its Tendency and End if this be indeed your End and Work to be faithful to God's Covenant 5. You will see a need of denying worldly and fleshly Lusts you will see nothing can be done in the spiritual Life without Mortification that being dead to all things here below you may be alive to God That this must be your daily Work your Necessity will sufficiently shew Are there no rebellious Desires to be subdued No corrupt Inclinations to be broken Do not you feel the Bias of Corruption drawing you off from God David did therefore he saith Incline my Heart to thy Testimonies and not to Covetousness Do not you find the sensitive Lure prevail upon you enticing your Minds and drawing you from the purity of your Hopes and strictness of Conversation Every Man is drawn away when he is enticed by his own Lusts Jam. 1. 6. Consider the sad Condition of a Believer that is under the corrective Discipline of God though he do not vacate his Justified State A sinning Believer that hath made bold with forbidden Fruit how doth he smart for Sin What a Wound in the Conscience will wilful heinous Sins make Witness David Psal. 32. And Psal. 51. He gives an account how uneasy his Heart did sit within him he was afraid of God who before was his Joy and Delight and speaks as one ready to be cast out of his Presence SERMON VI. 2 THESS 3. 5. And the Lord direct your Hearts into the Love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ. THere are two things keep Religion alive in the Soul a Love to God and a hearty intent upon the coming of Christ. These are the two necessary Graces which the Apostle prays for in the Text Here is the love of God that is the first Grace and the earnest or patient waiting for Christ. Love respects God because he is the chief Object of it primum amabile as being the first and chiefest good but hope or patient expectation respects Christ who at his glorious coming will give us our full reward Love is the Life and Soul of our present Duties and by patient expectation we wait for our future hope The Love of God urgeth us to the Duties of Religion and Hope strengthens us against Temptations whether they arise from the allurernents of Sence or the troubles of the World
expectation that we shall have an Estate of compleat Felicity and excellent Holiness that we shall behold our Nature united to the Godhead in the glorified Redeemer and our Persons admitted into the nearest intuition and fruition of God we are capable of and live in the exercise of a constant uninterrupted Love and be perfectly capable of receiving his highest Benefits Surely this Joy we have in our Pilgrimage But there is not only our hope but our partial enjoyment of it is matter of Happiness to us his Favour is as Life and his Frown as Death to the Soul that loves him The Saints look on God reconciled as the best Friend God displeased as the most dreadful Adversary therefore if they have any taste of his Love their Souls are filled as with Marrow and Fatness Psal. 63. 3 4 5. Because thy loving-kindness is letter than Life my Lips shall praise thee I will bless thee while I live my Soul shall be satisfied as with Marrow and Fatness and my Mouth shall praise thee with joyful Lips But if God hide his Face if God be altogether a stranger then they are troubled indeed Psal. 30. 7. But yet we are not gone to the bottom of the matter of delighting in God Those whose Souls are possessed with the Love of God are so well pleased with him that every thing is sweet to them by the relation it hath to God It is a delight to them to think of God Psal. 104. 34. I will be glad and rejoyce in him my meditation of him shall be sweet It is a delight to them to speak of God Eph. 5. 4. Not foolish jesting but giving of Thanks The Delight of God's Children or that which serves instead of jesting to Christians is the grateful remembrance of the Lord's Mercies especially of our Redemption by Christ. To draw nigh to him in Ordinances there this delight is exercised again There is Prayer A gracious Soul cannot be a Stranger to it because it cannot have a greater refreshing than to be alone with God and unbosome himself with God The Hypocrite is rejected from being capable of this Character Job 27. 10. Will he delight himself in the Almighty will he always call upon God Sometimes he will call upon God he is frighted into a little Religiousness it may be when Death is at his Back in great Afflictions or time of great Judgments but he hath no constant delight in God The constant delight in God is that that brings the Saints into his presence So for all other Christian duties Psal. 122. 1. I was glad when they said unto me Come let us go into the House of the Lord there they entertained Traffick and Commerce with God about matters of the highest concernment to their precious and immortal Souls nay all their work the whole course of their Obedience is sweetned to them because it is commanded by God and tends to the enjoyment of God as Psal. 112. 1 Blessed is the Man that feareth the Lord that delighteth greatly in his Commandments they not only keep the Commandments but delight and that greatly to keep the Commandments And Psal. 119. 14. I have rejoyced in the way of thy Testimonies as much as in all riches Delight in God is a great act of Love to which we should not be Strangers even in the house of our Pilgrimage though we have no assurance or sensible enjoyment of his Favour For it is a Duty of the first Commandment that results from the owning of God as our God II. For the External Effects of Love they are Doing and Suffering his Will when we are contented to do what God will have us do and be what God will have us be 1. For Doing If we love God we shall be loth to offend him we shall be desirous to please him Faith I do confess is a marvellous Grace it can apprehend things strange to Nature but it can do no worthy thing for God till it be accompanied with Love Gal. 5. 6. When the Apostle tells us of that Faith that carries away the prize of Justification he describes it to be a Faith working by Love Faith itself serves as the Bellows to blow up this Flame in our Hearts as the next and immediate principle of Action In short Love is the overruling bent of our Souls the weight and poize upon us that inclines us to God And look as all noble Qualities when restrained cannot produce their consummate Act so Love suffers a kind of imperfection till it can thus break forth into some Act of Thankfulness to God but then it is perfected 1 Joh. 2. 5. Whoso keepeth his Word in him the Loue of God is perfect that is hath attained its consummate Act that which it aims at No Man certainly can be owned as a perfect sincere lover of God but he that makes conscience of doing what he commands none but they have a deep sence of his Majesty none but they have an esteem of his Favour therefore they dare not hazard it by a breach or neglect of their Duty 2. For Suffering his Will For when the Apostle prays here God would direct their Hearts to love him he means that they should endure any thing rather than deny the Faith and confess Christ whatever it cost them As Obedience is virtually contained in Love so also Courage and Resolution Solomon represents Love as a powerful thing as an Affection that will not be bribed nor quenched Cant. 8. 7. Many Waters cannot quench Love nor can the Flouds drown it if a Man would give the whole substance of his House for it it would be utterly contemned It is true of Love in general much more of Love to God In carnal matters Love is a venemous Poison when it hath invaded the Heart nothing will reclaim us but in Divine matters it is a sovereign Antidote against Temptations both on the right hand and on the left For right-hand Temptations all the Riches Pleasures Honours are contemned they cannot bribe them over from Christ that really love him All the Flouds of Persecution cannot quench this holy Desire This is the Genius and Disposition of Love when once the bent of the Heart is set towards God and Heaven they are vehemently set against any thing that would turn them out of the way and divert them from their purpose III. To speak of the Properties if it be sincere 1. It is not a speculative but Practical Love not consisting in lofty airy strains of devotion too high for the common rate of us poor Mortals no it is put upon a surer and infallible Test our Obedience to God Again it consists not in a bold familiarity but in an humble subjection and compliance with his Will He that hath my Commandments and keeps them he it is that loves me God's love is a love of Bounty but ours a love of Duty therefore we are properly said to love God when we are careful to please him and fearful to offend him
prejudices to smother the belief of it they would be glad in their Hearts to hear such news that Christ would never come Now their wishes do easily commence into opinion Christ's coming is the burden and torment they would willingly get rid of And Men readily believe what they earnestly desire 2. The second sort It is dreaded by the Wicked and Impenitent And therefore hated and abhorred by them At the mention of it Felix trembled Acts 24. 2. There is reason for it for Christ comes to them as a terrible Judg. In Scripture his coming is set forth by Light and sometimes by Fire Light is comfortable but Fire dreadful 2 Thess. 1. 8. He shall come in flames of Fire to render vengeance to them that obey not the Gospel But 3. To the Godly it is not matter of Terror but Delight not like the hand-writing on the Wall to Belshazzer but like comfortable tidings to one that expects news from far they long for it and would hasten it if they might have their desire Cant. 8. 14. Make haste my Beloved and be like a young Hart or Row upon the Mountains of Spices Christ is not slack but the Churches Affections are strong therefore she saith Make haste So Rev. 22. 20. Christ saith I come and the Church like a quick eccho takes the words out of his Mouth even so come Lord Iesus come quickly Christ's Voice and the Churches Voice are Unisons You will say this is the desire of the Church in general but doth every particular Believer so desire it I answer the part follows the reason of the whole the same Spirit is in all the Faithful the Spirit in the Bride says come the Holy Ghost in necessary things works uniformly in all the Saints therefore he breeds this desire in them The meanest the weakest even those that tremble at their own unpreparedness have some inclination that way There may be a drowziness and indisposition but no total extinction of the desire of meeting with Christ. 3. There is Waiting and here it is exprest by its adjunct patient waiting for patient waiting is an act of Hope as well as longing expectation 1 Thess. 1. 3. Knowing saith he your work of Faith and labour of Love and patience of Hope Faith or a sound belief of things will break out into practice therefore the work of Faith Love will put us upon Labour and Hope produces Patience There is a threefold Patience spoken of in Scripture all the branches are near a-kin for they are all begotten by Hope 1. The bearing Patience which is a constancy in Adversity or a perseverance in our Duty notwithstanding the difficulties and tryals that we meet with in our passage to Heaven Heb. 6. 12. Be ye Believers of them who through Faith and Patience have inherited the Promises As we cannot inherit the Promises without Faith so not without Patience for our Obedience and Fidelity to Christ requires not only labour and great pains but courage and constancy to suffer as well as to do Heb. 10. 36. Ye have need of Patience that after ye have done the will of God you might inherit the Promise A Child of God cannot be without Patience because he must reckon for troubles and molestations We have indeed our calms as well as our storms many intermissions but at other times God will exercise us and shew us our Fidelity is not sufficiently tried in doing good but before we go to Heaven we must sometimes suffer evil God hath something to do by us and something to do with us We must be prepared for both to endure all things and readily and willingly suffer the greatest evil rather than commit the least Sin that so at length we may be accepted in the Judgment 2. There is a waiting Patience to wait God's leisure The evil is present the good is absent now we long for the good as well as bear the evil Rom. 8. 25. But if we hope for that we see not then do we with patience wait for it This is the work of Patience to wait to refer it to the good pleasure of God when our Warfare shall be accomplished and our Troubles at an end and our final Deliverance come about The time cannot belong for what are a few years to Eternity This waiting Patience is delivered to us under the Similitude of an Husbandman Jam. 5. 7. who waiteth for the precious Fruits of the Earth and hath long Patience for it till he receive the early and the latter rain The Husbandman that hath laid out all his Substance in Seed-Corn cannot hope for a present Harvest or that he should receive the Crop as soon as the Seed is cast into the Ground no it must lie a while there it must endure all Weathers before it can spring up in the Blade and Ear and ripen and be fit to be reaped So though we venture all upon our everlasting hopes yet we must expect our Season till we see the fruit and recompence of it This is the waiting Patience 3. There is the working Patience which is a going on with our self-denying Obedience how tedious soever it be to the Flesh. Thus we are told the good Ground bringeth forth fruit with Patience They were hasty to have present satisfaction or else grew weary of Religion and turned aside to worldly things So the Heirs of the promises are described Rom. 2. 7. To be those that continued with Patience in well-doing And to the Church of Ephesus God saith Rev. 2. 2. I know thy works thy labour and thy Patience Religion is not an idle and sluggish profession the work of it is carried on by diligence and faithfulness Lusts are not easily mortified neither do Graces produce their perfect work with a little perfunctory care Much labour and serious diligence is required of us we have many things to conflict withal there is the burden of a wearisom Body the seducing Flesh unruly Passions disordered Thoughts a dark Mind dead Affections and sometimes the misery of a troubled Conscience that we conflict withal and therefore we need much Patience that we may not faint but be accepted of the Lord at his coming Well then to live in this constant and patient expectation of Christ is the perpetual necessary duty of all those that love him II. The Connection and Affinity between it and the Love of God For if a Man love God he will wait for the coming of Christ. The one is inferred out of the other The Lord direct your Hearts to the love of God and the patient waiting for Christ. 1. They that love God level all their thoughts and desires to this that God may be enjoyed that God may be glorified 1. That he may be enjoyed in the fullest manner and measure they are capable of Now this full enjoyment is the fruit of Christ's coming then we shall be ever with the Lord. 1 Thess. 4. 17. When Christ shall appear we shall see him as he is and be
Evidence of their Sincerity and Christianity waiting for the Coming of Christ. And so it is said Heb. 9. 28. That Christ would appear unto the Salvation of them that look for him That is the Property of true Believers But they that look not for his Coming love not and look not for his Coming cannot expect his Salvation It is an Allusion to the People who upon the Day of Expiation when the High-Priest went into the Holiest before the Mercy-Seat were waiting for his coming out that he might solemnly bless them So must we look for Christ's Return now he is gone within the Vail of the Heavenly Sanctuary that he may come out and bless us with everlasting Blessings 3. This should move us to it the Benefits that will come to us hereby For this waiting for Christ breeds in us Contempt of the World Mortification of the Flesh Tolerance and enduring of the Cross. 1. It breeds in us Contempt of the World Because we look for higher and better things to be dispensed to us when Christ comes Set not your Affections on things on Earth but on things in Heaven Why For your Life is hid with Christ in God And when Christ who is our Life shall appear then shall you also appear with him in Glory Col. 3. 2 3 4. The more the Heart is given to one the other gets the less Earthly things be little regarded in comparison of that glorious State both of Soul and Body which we shall have at Christ's Appearance 2. This conduceth to the Mortification of the Flesh therefore we deny our selves present Satisfactions that we may not be Cast-aways disallowed in the Judgement Be sober and hope to the end for the Grace that is to be brought to you at the Coming of Christ 1. Pet. 1. 13. 3. The Tolerance and Enduring of the Cross. This gives a quiet Temper in all Troubles We may suffer now but when Christ shall appear we shall rejoyce with exceeding Ioy 1 Pet. 4. 13. And then our Reward will very much exceed the Proportion of our Sufferings they are no more to be set against them than a Feather against a Talent of Lead I reckon they are not worthy to be compared saith the Apostle Rom. 8. 18. It would be a Disgrace to a Man's Reason that these things should bear any Competition with our great Hopes these light Afflictions that are but for a Moment with that exceeding Weight of Glory Christ shall bestow upon us For Means All I shall say is this If you wait for Christ's Coming look upon it as sure and as near Rev. 22. 12. Behold I come quickly and bring my Reward with me We have the Promise of the Eternal God for it so attested and made out to us with such Evidence that we have no reason to doubt of the Recompences of Religion But Things at a distance though never so great will not leave a due Impression upon us therefore we must look upon this Promise with a certainty of Perswasion that it will not be long before its Accomplishment Thus Faith lessens the distance between Hope and Enjoyment and enables us comfortably to wait SERMON VIII EPHES. 1. 8. Wherein he hath abounded towards us in all Wisdom and Prudence IN the context the Apostle speaks of the Spiritual Blessings we have by Christ he considers them under a threefold reference 1. As they were appointed and prepared for Believers in God's Decree of Election There was the first Stone laid towards this Building 2. As they were purchased by Christ in the great and wonderful work of Redemption 3. As conveyed and applyed to us in effectual calling and so brought home to our Souls In all these God gave evident proofs of the riches of his free Grace For 1. If he chuse us to be holy before the Foundations of the World nothing anteceded his Love not in us for there was nothing in being then we were not and so could do nothing to deserve it nor in that prospect and foresight which God had of Things for he could foresee nothing but what was the effect of his free Grace not because Holy but that we might be Holy and without blame before him in Love 2. Consider his purpose to bring about all this by Christ still he shewed his free Grace For when there was nothing to move him much to hinder the design of his Grace yet he found out a way to bring this about by Christ. 3. In the effectual application to us who were ignorant obstinate unbelieving his Grace doth more shine forth that he would do all this for Creatures so much unworthy Now in the Application God discovers two things 1. His abundant Favour or the Riches of his Grace vers 7. That his Love so long hid in his Decree did afterwards overflow in the effects to persons so averse and unworthy 2. His excellent Wisdom in the Text. Wherein he hath abounded to us in all Wisdom and Prudence The only difficulty in the Words is What is this Wisdom and Prudence spoken of Whether it imply the Wisdom of God or the Wisdom wrought in us by the Spirit in Conversion Many Interpreters go for the last The former I suppose is here meant which is eminently discovered in the Mysteries of the Gospel Rom. 11. 33. Oh the Depths of the Riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledg of God! Surely it is not meant of Wisdom in us for how little a portion have we of true and Heavenly Wisdom Now the two words used Wisdom noteth the sublimity of the Doctrine of the Gospel and Prudence the usefulness of it As Prov. 8. 12. I Wisdom dwell with Prudence which sheweth there is some distinction between those words It was Wisdom to find out a way of recovering lapsed Mankind and it was Prudence to dispose it into so good and convenient order that it might be commodious for our acceptance If any think it relateth to the effects wrought in us I am not against it Christ is Wisdom 1. Cor. 1. 24. and made Wisdom to us 1. Cor. 1. 30. These Asiaticks to whom the Apostle wrote gloried in their secular Wisdom and curious Arts now the true Wisdom was found in the Mysteries of the Gospel Doct. That in the dispensation of Grace by Christ. God hath shewed great Wisdom and Prudence When his Grace overflowed to us he shewed therein not only his Goodness but his Wisdom Now though we can easily yeeld to this Assertion yet to make it out needeth more skill The manifold Wisdom of God is better seen to Angels than to us Eph. 3. 10. They have more orderly understandings whereas we are confused and dark Yet to discover it to you in a few particulars the Grace of the Redeemer may be considered three ways I. As to the purchase and impetration of it by the Incarnation and Death of the Son of God II. The publication of it in the Gospel or Covenant of Grace III. The Application of it to particular Believers
In all these God hath shewed great Wisdom I. As to the purchase and impetration of Grace by the Death and Incarnation of the Son of God 1. There is Wisdom in this that in our faln estate we should not come immediately to God without a Mediator and Reconciler God is out of the reach of our commerse being at such a distance from us and variance with us The wise Men of the World pitched on such a way 1 Cor. 8. 5 6. The Heathens saw so far that it was an uncomfortable thing to make their immediate approaches to their Supream God But here is the true God and the true Mediator But to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Iesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him One God the Father from whom we derive all Graces to whom we direct all Services one Lord Iesus Christ who conveyeth the Graces and Benefits to us and returneth our Prayers and Acts of Obedience to God This is a mighty relief to our thoughts for the apprehensions of the pure God-head do amaze us and confound us when we come to consider of that glorious and infinite Being As heretofore before they found out the use of the Compass they only coasted as loth to venture themselves in the great Ocean So by Christ we come to God He is the true Iacob's Ladder Joh. 11. 50. 2. That this Mediator is God in our Nature Therein the Wisdom of God appeared in crossing and counter-working Satan's design Satan's great design was double to dishonour God and depress the Nature of Man 1. To dishonour God to Man by a false representation as if he were envious of Man's Happiness Gen. 3. 5. God doth know in the day that ye eat thereof your Eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evil His first Battery was against the Goodness of God to weaken the esteem thereof Now by the Incarnation of Christ the Lord's Grace is wonderfully manifested he is represented as lovely and amiable in our Eyes not envying our Holiness and Happiness but promoting it and that at the most costly rate and shewing love to Man above all his other Creatures God is Love 1 Joh. 4. 8. 'T is eminently demonstrated to us in the Son of God assuming our Nature and dying for us Rom. 5. 8. When Christ was incarnate Love was incarnate Love walked up and down and healed all Sicknesses and Diseases Love died and Love hung on a Cross Love was buried in the Grave When that ill representation was suggested to us it was necessary there should be some eminent demonstration of the Love of God to Man Especially after we had made our selves liable to his Wrath and were conscious to our selves that we had incurred his displeasure and so it was necessary that we should have some notable discovery of his Philanthropy or Love to Mankind Many Believers are harrast with doubts and fears and cannot come to be perswaded that God loves them Herein is Love and God commended his Love to us in that his Son died for us 2. The next design of Satan was to depress the nature of Man which in its innocence stood so near to God Now that the humane nature so depressed and debased by the malicious suggestion of the Tempter should be so elevated and advanced and set up so far above the Angelical Nature and admitted to dwell with God in a personal Union it is a mighty counter-working of Satan and sheweth the great Wisdom of God When he laboured to put God and us asunder the Lord sent his Son who took the unity of our Nature into his own Person 3. That being in our Nature he would set us a Pattern of Obedience by his Holy Life for he lived by the same Laws that we are bound to live by He imposed no Duty upon us but what he underwent himself that he might be an Example of Holiness unto us we learn of him Obedience to God at the dearest rates contempt of the World and contentation with a low and mean Estate and to be lowly and meek in Heart Mat. 11. 29. Now Man being so prone to imitation it is the greatest effect of the Wisdom of God thus to oblige us unless we would be utterly unlike him whom we own as our Lord and from whom we have all our Hopes and Expectations 4. That he should die the Death of the Cross to expiate our Sins Gal. 3. 13. Christ hath redeemed us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us c. Phil. 2 8. He humbled himself and became obedient unto Death even the death of the Cross. That the Justice of God might be eminently demonstrated the Law-giver vindicated and the breach that was made in the frame of Government repaired and God might keep up his just Honour without prejudice to his Peoples Happiness that he might be manifested to be Holy and an hater of Sin and yet the Sinner saved from Destruction Rom. 3. 25 26. An absolute Pardon without satisfaction might have exposed God's Laws to contempt as if the violation of them were not much to be stood upon therefore God dispensed his Grace with all Wisdom and Prudence would shew eminent Mercy but withal a demonstration of his Justice and Holiness that the World might still be kept in awe and there might be a full Concord and Harmony between his Mercy and Justice 5. That after his Death he should rise from the Dead and ascend into Heaven to prove the reality of the Life to come 1 Pet. 3. 21. Guilty Man is faln under the power and fear of Death strangely haunted with doubts about the other World therefore did Christ in our Nature arise from the Dead and ascend into Heaven that he might give a visible demonstration of the Resurrection and Life to come which he had promised to us and so encourage us by a Life of Holiness and Patience in Sufferings to follow after him into those Blessed Mansions So that from first to last you see the Wisdom of God II. The Publication of it in the Gospel or Covenant of Grace 'T is ordered in all things and sure 2 Sam. 23. 5. The Messengers by whom it is published are not extraordinary ones but Men of like Passion with our selves The great thing in a Minister is love to Souls Christ saith he came not to be ministred unto but to minister In the Covenant of Grace you see the Wisdom of God in two things 1. The Priviledges offered 2. The terms or Duties required 1. In the Priviledges offered to us which are Pardon and Life In these Benefits Pardon and Life there is due Provision made for the desires necessities and wants of mankind Pardon answereth the fears of the Guilty Creature and Life those desires of Happiness which are so natural to us and therefore are the most powerful and inviting Motives to draw our Hearts to
God 1. The consciousness of God's displeasure and the fear of his Wrath should make offers of Pardon acceptable to us When Sin entred into the World Fear entred with Sin The grand scruple which haunteth the guilty Creature is how God shall be appeased and the Controversy taken up between us and his Justice Micah 6. 6 7. Wherewith shall he be appeased and what shall I give for the Sin of my Soul We fear Death and Punishment from a Holy and Just God and this is the bottom cause of all our Troubles Therefore till the forgiveness of Sin be procured for us and represented to us upon commodious Terms we know not how to get rid of this Bondage the Justice of the Supream Governour of the World will be ever dreadful to us These fears may be for a while stifled in Men but they will ever and anon return upon us Now let us admire the Wisdom of God who hath provided such a suitable remedy to our Disease as reconciliation and remission of Sins by Jesus Christ. And that God shewed himself so ready to pardon us who are so obnoxious to his Wrath and vindictive Justice 2. The other great Priviledg offered in the Covenant is Eternal Life which suiteth with those desires of Happiness which are so natural to us Corrupt Nature is not against the offers of Felicity We would have Immunity Peace Comfort Glory none would be against his own Benefit but every one would be willing to be freed from the curse of the Law and the Flames of Hell and enjoy Happiness for evermore Though we be unwilling to deny the Flesh and renounce the Credit Pleasure and Profit of Sin and grow dead to the World and worldly things yet never was there a Creature heard of that would not be happy for there was never a Creature but loved himself Now the Lord in his Covenant hath brought Life and Immortality to light setled our Happiness and the way to it he promises that which we desire to induce us to that which we are against As we sweeten Pills to Children that they may swallow them down the better they love the Sugar though they loath the Aloes God would invite us to our duty by our Interest He hath told us of an Happiness full sure and near that he may draw us off from the false Happiness wherewith we are inchanted and bring us into the way of Holiness that we may look after this blessed Hope 2dly The Terms he hath required of us The Terms are either for Entrance or making Covenant with God or Continuance or keeping Covenant with God For Entrance Faith and Repentance are required 1. Faith in Christ. The World thinks Faith quits Reason and introduceth fond Credulity No there is much of the Wisdom of God to be seen in it For Faith hath a special aptitude and fitness for this Work 1. Partly in respect of God For He having design'd to glorify his Mercy and free Grace and to make our Salvation from first to last a meer Gift and the Fruit of his Love to us hath appointed Faith for the acceptance of this Gift Rom. 4. 16. It is of Faith that it might be by Grace Faith and Grace go always together and it is put in opposition to the Merit of Works or the Strictness of the old Covenant 2. As it is fittest to own Christ the Redeemer the Fountain of Life and Happiness and our Head and Husband whom we receive and to whom we are united and married by Faith 3. With respect to the Promises of the Gospel which offer to us an Happiness and Blessedness spiritual and for the most part future Unseen things are properly Objects of Faith Heb. 11. 1. Faith is the Substance of things hoped for the Evidence of things not seen 4. It is fittest as to our future Obedience that it may be comfortable and willing Now we owning Christ in a way of Subjection and Dependance and consenting to become his Disciples and Subjects other Duties come on the more easily 2 Cor. 8. 5. 2. For Repentance This is the most lively and powerful Means of bringing Men to new Life and Blessedness 1. It is most for the Honour of God that we should not be pardoned without submission without confession of past Sin and Resolution of future Obedience Common Reason will tell us that our Case is not compassionable while we are impenitent and hold it out against God Who will pity those in Misery who are unwilling to come out of it Besides it would infringe the Honour of God's Law and Government that one continuing in his Sins and despising both the Curse of the Law and the Grace of the Gospel should be pardoned and saved Repentance is often called a giving Glory to God Mal. 2. 2. Ye will not lay it to Heart and give Glory to my Name Josh. 7. 19. My Son give Glory to God and make Confession to him Rev. 16. 9. They repented not to give Glory to God Repentance restoreth God's Honour to Him as it acknowledges the Justice of his Laws The self-condemning Sinner acknowledges that God may destroy him and if he save him it is meer Mercy 2. The Duty of the Creature is best secured and the penitent Person more bound to future Obedience partly by the Vow it self or the Bond of the holy Oath into which he is entred and the Circumstances accompanying it which surely induce a Hatred of Sin and a Love of Holiness There will be a hearty Consent to live in the Love Obedience and Service of our Creator with a detestation of our former Ways When we feel the smart of Sin such a Sense of it will ever stick by us and when we are in the deepest and freshest Sense of his pardoning Mercy when we see at how dear rates he is pleased to have us and upon what free terms to pardon all our Wrongs we shall love much Luk. 7. 47. Surely they that are brought back from the Gibbet and the very Gates of Hell by such an Act of pardoning Mercy are most likely to remember the Vows of their Distress and are more ingaged to love God and please Him than others are 3. It is most for the Comfort of the Creature that a stated Course of recovering our selves into the Peace and Hope of the Gospel should be appointed to us which may leave the greatest Sense upon our Consciences Now what is likely to do so much as this apparent Change whereby we renounce and utterly bewail our former Folly and solemnly devote and give up our selves to God by Christ. Those things that are serious and advised leave a Notice and Impression upon the Soul This is the most important Action of our Lives the Setling of our Pardon and Eternal Interest The Heart is hardly brought to this to renounce what we dearly love therefore it is usually rewarded with some notable Tasts of God's Love Isa. 57. 15. God delights to revive the Hearts of his contrite Ones 2.
For Continuance in the new Covenant and delightful Obedience unto God The Remedy is not only suted to the Disease but the Duty to the Reward Our Duty is to know God and to love Him and our Reward is to see Him and be like Him 1 Ioh. 3. 2. There is a marvellous Sutableness between the End and Means Holiness and Happiness Conformity to God and our Communion with Him the Holiness required of us now and the Happiness we expect hereafter perfect Conformity and uninterrupted Communion And they differ only but as the Bud and the Flower the River and the Ocean Here it is begun hereafter perfected III. In the Application of his Grace to particular Believers he hath abounded towards us in all Wisdom and Prudence 1. In the Way God taketh to convert Souls to Himself there is a sweet Contemperation and Mixture of Wisdom and Power There is a Proposal of Truth and Good to the Understanding and the Will and by the secret Power of his Grace it is made effectual We are taught and drawn Ioh. 6. 44 45. No Man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him In the 45th vers And they shall be all taught of God Every Man therefore that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh unto me There is opening of blind Eyes and the turning of an hard Heart Acts 26. 18. To open their Eyes and to turn them from Darkness to Light c. Eph. 1. 18. The Eyes of the Understanding being opened c. Col. 3. 10. Renewed in Knowledg Turning the Heart Acts 16. 29. God opened the Heart of Lydia Acts 11. 21. The Hand of the Lord was with him and a great Number believed and turned to the Lord. His Hand implieth his Power Thus God worketh strongly like Himself sweetly with respect to us that he may not oppress the Liberty of our Faculties Christ comes into the Heart not by Force but by Consent We are transformed but so as we prove what the Will of God is Rom. 12. 2. He draweth we run Cant. 1. 4. The Power of God and Liberty of Man do sweetly consist together As God is said to create in us a new Heart he is also said to give us a free Spirit Psal. 51. 10 12. Eph. 2. 10. We are said to be his Workmanship created in Christ Iesus unto good Works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them So he puts a new Heart and we are said to walk in his Ways Ezek. 36. 26 27. A new Heart will I also give you and a new Spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony Heart out of your Flesh and I will give you an Heart of Flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes and ye shall keep my Iudgments and do them Thus God sheweth forth the powerful Efficacy of his Grace and doth also win the Consent and good Liking of the Sinner he obtaineth his Effect and yet doth preserve the Liberty of Man's Nature and the Principles thereof It is not only Voluntas mota but mutata the Nature is changed and renewed 2 Cor. 3. 18. But we all with open Face beholding as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2. In the perswasive and moral Way the Wisdom of God is seen as taking the most likely Course to gain the Heart of Man discovering Himself to us as a God of Love Kindness and Mercy Guilty Creatures stand aloof from a condemning God our Fear of his Justice maketh us run from him Gen. 3. 7 10. Adam hid himself from the presence of the Lord. So all his Posterity forsake God and hate him But God though the Superior though the wronged Party maketh Offers of Peace and sheweth how willing he is to be reconciled to us Having first laid the Foundation in the highest Demonstration of Goodness that ever could come to the Ears of Man to hear of or enter into the Heart of Man to conceive namely in giving his Son to die for a sinful World 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. What more apt to make Man relent And then because Man had fallen from the Love of God to the Creature Ier. 2. 3. What Wisdom doth God shew not only in the Offers of Pardon but Eternal Life and Blessedness infinitely beyond the false Happiness which carnal Self-Love inclineth us to that it is a Shame and Disgrace to our Reason to think these things are worthy to be compared together What are all the Pleasures Profits and Honours we dote upon to the Pleasures at God's right-Hand the Riches of the Inheritance of the Saints and the Glory which cometh from God And therefore what more powerful Motive can be produced than this Blessed Immortality Indeed God is invisible and the Glory is to come and sensual Pleasures are at hand ready to be enjoyed But Faith checketh Sense Heb. 11. 1. Faith is the Evidence of Things not seen O the Wisdom of God in the Frame of the Gospel 2. In the Effect it self the new Creature which is the wisest Creature on this side Heaven To evidence this to you I shall shew you that all Wisdom and Prudence consisteth in three things 1. In fixing a right End 2. In the choice of apt and proper Means 3. In a dextrous effectual Prosecution of the End by those Means 1. In fixing and propounding to ourselves a right End A wise Man doth not mind Trifles but is conversant about Things of the greatest Reality Necessity and Excellency such are God and Heaven All other Wisdom will prove but Folly in the end Others disquiet themselves about a vain Show Psal. 59. 6. Poor silly Creatures cark and labour and turmoil to get together a few poor transitory Enjoyments where there is neither durable possession nor solid Satisfaction The Honours Pleasures and Riches of the World are but Pictures and Shadows of the true Honours the true Riches and Fulness of Joy at God's right Hand Surely he is a wise Man that chooseth God for his Portion and Heaven for his Home Prov. 15. 24. The Way of Life is above to the Wise to avoid Hell beneath He is wise and hath chosen the true Sort of living which mindeth the Salvation of his Soul and looketh after Eternal Life Surely this is above and beyond any Wisdom Man can pretend unto to be happy not for a while but for ever 2. In the Choice of apt and proper Means A Man is wise enough if he knows his Duty and the Way to Happiness God hath appointed us the Way wherein to walk to fear him and love him and keep his Commandments Deut. 4. 6. Keep these Statutes for this is your Wisdom Job 28. 28. The Fear of God that is Wisdom and to depart from Evil that is Understanding There is an Excellency in this sort of Life Prov. 12.
Principle Eph. 4. 24. It is created after God in Righteousness and true Holiness as suiting us to these things So the Spirit is promised to enable us to walk in God's ways Ezek. 36. 27. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes and ye shall keep my Iudgments and do them It helps us to avoid Sin 1 Joh. 3. 9. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit Sin for his Seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God They that give back cannot yeild to those Sins with which others are surprized and captivated 2. It prepares us for Heaven Thither is the tendency of the new Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. 1 Joh. 5. 4. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the World it moveth us to mind love and seek after Heavenly things This Grace came from Heaven and there it is perfected 2. There is an other Principle of corrupted Nature remaining in us which is sometimes called Flesh as before sometimes the old Man Eph. 4. 22. Sin that dwelleth in us Rom. 8. 17. The Body of Sin Rom. 6. 6. The Law of the Members warring against the Law of the Mind Rom. 7. 23. By this Principle they are inclined to that which is evil This Principle also may be known 1. By the manner how it was derived to us 2. By its Tendency and Operations 1. The manner how it was derived to us from Adam in his Apostacy and as faln from his chief Good and last End Ioh. 3. 6. When Man fell from God he fell to himself The Temptation was Ye shall be as Gods Gen. 3. 5. He would set up Self as a God And what was that Self which Man sought to idolize but himself rather considered as a Body than as a Soul And therefore when God sought to reduce Man where lay the difficulty that Text will inform you Gen. 6. 3. My Spirit shall not always strive with Man for that he is also Flesh that is sunk or lost in Flesh altogether wedded to the Interests of the bodily Life 2. By its Tendency and Influence it prompts us to do those things which are most acceptable to Sense or agreeable to our worldly and carnal Ends. The Flesh operateth several ways according to Mens callings occasions or constitutions Isa. 53. 6. 1 Ioh. 2. 16. As every Soil beareth such Weeds as are most suitable to the Nature and Quality of the Ground so some are enslaved by this some by that particular Sin yet all of them alike opposite to God Differences there are as to the choice of their way wherein they please the Flesh some in a more gross some in a more cleanly manner yet they all walk in the Lust of the Flesh following inbred Corruption as their Guide or obey it either in a way of Worldliness Ambition or Sensuality Some ways are more blameless before the World because they less deserve a Worldly Interest some are so prodigiously wicked that they cause a Horror even in Mankind though degenerated Now after Conversion some of our former Sins cripple us and we halt of the old Maim still and it is not enough to stop one gap while corruption runneth out at many more but we must make Conscience of not fulfilling the Lusts of the Flesh in any kind Well now I have shewed you the two Principles which are in a Christian That we may have a Sence of our imbecillity and that we are but regenerated in part II. I will prove to you that there is a Liberty in a Christian of walking according to each Principle either the Spirit or Flesh. 1. That the Christian hath Liberty of walking according to the Spirit is out of question for where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty 2 Cor. 3. 17. Surely the Spirit of Christ can free us and doth free us from the bondage of Corruption Rom. 8. 2. The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ hath freed me from the Law of Sin and Death otherwise there would be no distinction between Nature and Grace If we should be still shackled and manacled by our Lusts and be as unable to pursue our last End as we were before if there were no inclination to God and Heavenly things what have they gotten by Grace and therefore though we are still weak yet we have the gift of the Spirit to free us from Sin The Force and Efficacy of the new Nature appeareth in three things Scire Velle Posse in knowing our Duty and willing and purposing and doing our Duty suitable to the three Faculties of Man his Understanding Will and vital Power So the Spirit received from Christ 2 Tim. 1. 7. is a Spirit of Power Love and a sound Mind 1. For Scire The new Nature partly consists in the internal Light of the Mind by which we understand the things of God revealed in the Scriptures concerning our Duties and Priviledges and so the Unction is said to teach us all things 1 Joh. 2. 20. That is all things which belong to our necessary Duty and Happiness God's Children in necessary things have a good Understanding or as it is said Isa. 11. 3. They are quick of Understanding in the fear of the Lord. By this it doth warn us of our danger mind us of ourduty upon all occasions 2. For Velle To be willing The force of the new Creature lieth in the love of God for we are never converted to God till he hath our Hearts till we love him with all our Soul with all our Might and Strength and hate what is contrary to him Psal. 17. 10. Ye that love the Lord hate evil Now surely they that love God and hate evil are at liberty more than others to serve and please God and avoid Sin Hate Sin once and it hath little Power over you 3. For Posse or the active Power The wonder is rather how he can sin deliberately voluntarily than how he cannot sin 1 Ioh. 3. 9. and for doing good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 2. 13. I can do all things Eph. 2. 10. A Spiritual Man is prepared for every good work 2. The Assistant Power which accompanieth the new Creature in all his Actions doth certainly give him a great advantage of Liberty to know will and do things pleasing unto God As he doth first convert us unto God and quicken us when we are dead in Trespasses and Sins so after Conversion when the Principles of a new Life are put into us he still helpeth us and as all Creatures depend upon God in esse conservari operari Acts 17. 28. So doth the new Creature depend on the Spirit he leadeth and guideth all the Children of God to their Everlasting Estate Rom. 8. 14. He assists the Will and the vital Power Phil. 2. 13. Otherwise we may complain with Paul Rom. 7. 18. For to Will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I find not There may be a Will or an
the Law as a Rule of Obedience is impossible for a Creature To challenge such an Exemption in point of Right is to make our selves Gods To usurp it in point of Fact is to make our selves Devils It must be meant therefore either of the irritating or condemning Power of the Law If of the former as the Law by the rigid exacting of Obedience doth increase Sin rather than subdue it and maketh corrupt Nature spurn and rebel against it so it is the same with the former Motives but that is a more limited Sence Not under the Law may be expounded to be not under the condemning Power of it and so to be under the Law is opposed to be under Grace Rom. 8. 1. There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus There is a great Priviledge but what is the Qualification Who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit That is obey the new Nature 2. A Periculo the Danger of not obeying the new Nature or walking after the Spirit 1. They lose their Advantage and receive one of God's Gifts in vain To receive objective Grace in vain aggravateth our Guilt Ioh. 3. 19. But to receive subjective Grace in vain doth more provoke God Objective Grace is that which is discovered in the Gospel subjective Grace is that which is found in the Heart of a Believer the internal Grace of the holy Spirit renewing the Heart Now to sin away this Advantage after we are made Partakers of it doth increase our Guilt surely therefore if we live in the Spirit we should walk in the Spirit Gal 5. 25. We should improve God's best Gifts or else the work of his Spirit is lost He loseth nothing but Corn Wine and Oil bestowed upon others but he hath bestowed the Sanctification of the Spirit upon you shall he lose the Glory of that also 2. The new Nature is exceedingly weakned and suffers loss if it be not cherished and obeyed The Church of Sardis is warned to prevent the dying of gracious Habits David speaketh as if the Work were to begin anew and his Restoring were a second Conversion Psal. 51. 10. Create in me a clean Heart O Lord and renew a right Spirit within me The Principle of Grace being not adher'd to loseth much of Vigor and Power 3. When these Motions are not obeyed and this Power is not exercised God is provoked to withdraw the quickning Grace Though the Spirit here spoken of is the new Nature yet the Holy-Ghost is the Super-intendent of it and doth move guide direct and quicken by it The new Nature inclineth but he giveth Strength to its Motions Now the Spirit withdraweth when this Work is slighted and we wilfully run into Sin Psal. 51. 11. Take not thy holy Spirit from me 4. There is another Mischief his sanctifying Work is not only obstructed but his certifying and sealing Work is obscured and so our Day is turned into Night Eph. 4. 30. Grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed to the Day of Redemption Use 1. It sheweth what Necessity there is that we should look after Conversion to God or a Work of Grace wrought in us by the holy Spirit for the Apostle supposeth they had the Spirit There is no walking without living for otherwise our Motions are but the Motions of Puppets not proceeding from internal Life but acted from Springs and Engines no subduing the Flesh without setting up an opposite Principle Therefore we must give up our selves to the Holy Spirit first to be sanctified then governed by him first renewed then guided ordered and directed by him in all our Actions and the Flesh dieth away insensibly 2dly Being renewed by the Holy-Ghost that is having our Minds enlightned and Hearts inclined we must obey this Inclination for Life is not given us that we may have it but that we may act by it and do things sutable to that Life which we have Grace is not a sluggish idle Quality but is always working and warring on the opposite Principle 3dly Though at first we are pester'd and encountred with the Lusts of the Flesh which divert us from God and Heavenly Things yet we should not be discouraged by every difficulty For Difficulties do but inflame a resolved Spirit as Stirring doth the Fire And besides though we do not wholly subdue the Lusts of the Flesh yet we shall not accomplish them and live in subjection to them but by degrees get power against them 4thly The carnal Life is not of one Sort. Some wallow in sensual Pleasures others have Head and Heart altogether taken up with the World and worldly things Now if God hath put a new Biass upon our Wills and Affections we must shew it forth by an Heavenly Conversation For they that mind earthly Things are carnal and the great Inclination of the new Nature is to carry us unto God and the Things of another World 2 Cor. 5. 5. 5thly They are much to blame that complain of Sin and will not take the Course to get rid of it by obeying the Instincts of the Holy-Ghost or the Motions of the new Nature The Lord's Spirit is a free Spirit Psal. 51. 12. And his Truth maketh us free John 8. 32. And we are interessed in this Liberty when born of the Spirit Let us be true to our Duty and we shall bless God for our Liberty rather than complain of our Bondage It is Laziness and Cowardise not to improve Grace which was given us for this use 6thly How much we are concerned in all Conflicts especially in those which allow Deliberation to take part with the Spirit and obey his Motions rather than to fulfill the Lusts of the Flesh otherwise by Consent and upon Deliberation you are unfaithful to Christ and your own Souls Your Business is not to gratify the Flesh but to crucify it to over-rule Sense and Appetite and cherish the Life of Grace Galat. 5. 24. And surely when Conscience hath help to deliberate it is a greater Evil to resist it than when hurried by our own Passions 7thly It is of great Use and Profit to us to observe which Principle decayeth the Flesh or the Spirit for thereby we judge of our Condition both in order to Mortification and Comfort The Increase of the Flesh may be known 1. By your Backwardness to God Grace is clogged when you cannot serve Him with Sweetness and Delight Rom. 7. 18. 2. When the Heart groweth careless of Heaven and your Life and Love is more taken up about things present than to come Phil. 3. 18 19. The contrary is found when Grace is in vigor 2 Cor. 4. 18. Col. 3. 1 2. Secondly The Prevalency and Increase of the Spirit is known 1. By an humble Contentedness and Indifferency to Plenty Pleasures and Honours Phil. 4. 12. I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry both to
This sheweth that he is fuller of Mercy and Goodness than the Sun is of Light or the Sea of Water So great an Effect shews the greatness of the Cause Wherefore did he express his Love in such a wonderful astonishing way but that we might have higher and larger thoughts of his Goodness and Mercy By other Effects we easily collect the Perfection of his Attributes that his Power is Omnipotent Rom. 1. 20. That his Knowledge is Omniscient Heb. 4. 12 13. And by this Effect it is easy to conceive that his Love is infinite or that God is Love Use 2. Is to quicken us to admire the Love of God in Christ. There are three things which commend any Favour done unto us 1. The good Will of him that giveth 2. The Greatness of the Gift 3. The Unworthiness of him that receiveth All concur here 1. The good Will of him that giveth Nothing moved God to do this but his own Love It was from the free Motion of his own Heart without our thought and asking No other Reason is given or can be given We made not suit for any such thing it could not enter into our Minds and Hearts into our Minds to conceive or into our Hearts to desire such a Remedy to recover the lapsed Estate of Mankind Not into our Minds for it is a great Mystery 1 Tim. 3. 16. And without Controversy great is the Mystery of Godliness c. Not into our Hearts to ask or desire for it would have seemed a strange Request that we should ask that the Eternal Son of God should assume our Flesh and be made Sin and a Curse for us But Grace hath wrought exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think Eph. 3. 20. Above what we can imagine and above what we can pray for to him 2. The Greatness of the Gift Great things do even force their way into our Minds whether we will or no. The Gift of Jesus Christ is so great that the Love of God is gone to the uttermost in it He hath not a better Christ nor a more worthy Redeemer nor another Son to die for us nor could the Son of God suffer greater Indignites than he hath suffered for our sakes God said to Abraham Gen. 22. 12. Now I know that thou fearest God since thou hast not with-held thy Son thine only Son from me God was not ignorant before but the Meaning is this is an apparent Proof and Instance of it So now we may know God loveth us here is the manifest Token and Sign of it 3. The Unworthiness of him that receiveth This is also in the Case We were altogether unworthy that the Son of God should be incarnate and die for our sakes This is notably improved by the Apostle Rom. 5. 7 8. For scarcely for a righteous Man will one die but for a good Man some would even dare to die But God commendeth his Love to us in that while we were yet Sinners Christ died for us The Apostle alludeth to the Distinction familiar among the Iews they had their good Men or bountiful their righteous Men zealous for the Law and their wicked Men obnoxious to Judgment Peradventure one would venture his Life for a very merciful Person but you shall hardly find any to be so liberal and friendly as to venture his Life for a righteous and just Man or a Man of rigid Innocence But mark there are abating Terms Scarcely and perhaps the Case is rare that one should die for another be he never so good and righteous But God's Expression of Mercy was infinitely above the proportion of any the most friendly Man ever shewed There was nothing in the Object to move him to it when we were neither good nor just but wicked without respect to any Worth in us for we were all in a damnable estate he sent his Son to die for us to rescue and free us from Eternal Death and to make us Partakers of Eternal Life God so loved the World when we had so sinned and wilfully plunged our selves into an estate of Damnation But you will say If this Mercy be so great why are Men no more affected with it I answer 1. Because of their stupid Carelesness they do not see the Need of this Mercy and therefore do not prize the Worth of it If they were sensible that there is an Avenger of Blood at their heels or God's Wrath making Inquisition for Sinners they would more earnestly run into the City of Refuge Heb. 6. 18. 2. They do not truly believe this Mystery of Grace but speak of it by rote and hear-say after others All Affections follow Faith 1 Pet. 1. 7. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious 3. They do not seriously consider the Importance of it therefore the weightiest Objects do not stir us Our Minds are taken up about Toys and Trifles 4. They have not the lively Light of the Spirit Rom. 5. 5. The Love of God is shed abroad in our Hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us It is not our dry Thoughts and doctrinal Knowledge that will affect and change our Heart till the Spirit turneth our Light into Love and our Knowledge into Taste Use 3. Is to exhort us 1. To improve this Love It is an Invitation to seek after God for see what Preparations his Love hath made to recover you to Himself and will not you be recovered God doth not hate you and therefore you need not flee from him as a revenging God He so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son In that capacious Expression you are not excluded therefore exclude not your selves And such a broad Foundation of his Mercy being laid what may you not expect from it 2 Cor. 5. 19. He hath procured a Remedy and Ransom as soon as you repent and believe you shall have the Comfort of it 2. It exhorteth us also to answer it with a fervent Love to him that hath given such a signal Demonstration of his Love to us 1 Ioh. 4. 19. We love him because he first loved us Men always expect to be loved there where they love and think it hard dealing if it be not so 3. Let your Love to God be like his Love to you Love was at the bottom of all this Grace let it be at the bottom of all your Duties Let all your things be done in Love 1 Cor. 16. 14. Let your Carriage apparently be a Life of Love 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. For the Love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all then were all dead And that he died for all that they which live should not live unto themselves but unto him that died for them and rose again I come now to the second Branch of the Text the Way God took to express his Love to us He gave his only begotten Son Jesus Christ is so called to distinguish him from the adopted Children and to shew
the Text which is the end of this Love That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have Life everlasting Where I observe 1. The connection of our Duty and Priviledg Christ dyed to procure a Covenant wherein Pardon and Life is offered to us upon gracious Terms In the Gospel we must observe what God hath promised and what we must do both must be alike acceptable us the Duty as well as the Benefit or else we consent not to the whole Tenour of the Covenant 2. The Universality of the Proposal That whosoever believeth on him no sorts of Men are excluded from the Remedy but those that exclude themselves by their Impenitency and Unbelief 3. The Nature of this Act and Duty which giveth a Right and Title to the Benefits offered and that is believing no more is mentioned here But none truly believe but those that carry themselves accordingly or perform the Duties which that Belief calleth for If it be such a lively operative Faith it will secure our Title to these Benefits 4. The Benefits are Negatively and Positively expressed Negatively they shall not perish Positively but have everlasting Life 1. The Negative Expression is mentioned partly because of our former Deserts we incurred the Sentence of Eternal Death which is taken off from penitent Believers they shall not be condemned with the unbelieving World partly because of our present Fears Guilt presents Destruction before our Eyes but the cause of that is taken away as Sin is remitted and weakned And partly to support us in our troubles they may be Afflicted but not perish for ever Chastned but not destroyed not for Perdition but amendment 2. The Positive part is expressed partly to shew our Heavenly Fathers Love who cannot be satisfi'd til he hath brought us into his immediate Presence And partly to answer the desire of the Faithful who long for everlasting Communion with him we cannot be satisfied till we befor ever with the Lord in a perfect state of Subjection to him and Fruition of him Doct. That Faith is the Way which God hath appointed whereby to receive Benefits by Christ. I. What Faith is II. How this is to be understood III. Why the Gospel Covenant layeth so much weight on it What is Faith surely it concerns us to know it since the Scriptures speak so much of it every-where There are in it three things 1. Assent 2. Consent 3. Trust. 1. A firm and cordial Assent to this Truth that Jesus is the Son of God and Saviour of Mankind who came down from heaven and suffered for our Sins and became the Foundation of that new Covenant which offereth Pardon and Hopes of Bliss to all those who feeling the Burden of their Sins will trust their Souls upon Christ's Redemption and Ransom and forsake the World the Flesh and the Devil and take him for their only Lord and Saviour that by him they may return to God This Assent is a part of Faith but this is not all The reasonable Soul in Man hath Life Sense Appetite and Motion as the Souls of the Beasts have but this is not the difference between us and them besides Sense Life and Appetite we have Reason and Discourse So here Knowledg and Assent are implied in Faith but more is required to make it justifying and saying Assent is good as it is inductive of other things or leadeth on other things to wit Choice and Trust and it is not only good but necessary lest we build without a Foundation It was of great weight heretofore when Christ's Person and Doctrine was more questioned and contradicted Ioh. 8. 24. Unless ye believe that I am he ye shall die in your Sins lose all the Benefit of his Coming 'T is said 1 Ioh. 5. 1. Whosoever believeth that Iesus is the Christ is born of God It was a mighty thing then to believe and profess Christ to be the Messiah and to cleave to that Profession whatever Temptations they had to the contrary But I dare not leave the Decision of Mens Spiritual Estate upon that Trial only The bleak Winds that blew then in their Faces blow now on our backs and it as dangerous now to deny Christ to be the Messiah as it was for them to profess it However Assent is still necessary to put the greater Life and Power into our Faith for if the Fire were well kindled it would of it self break out into a Flame The stronger our Assent is the more powerful to beget Love and Dependance on God's Promises Obedience to his Commands and Perseverance notwithstanding Temptations This Assent to do its Work must be firm and cordial 1. Firm. You must believe unfeignedly that Christ is the Messiah and Redeemer of the World Acts 2. 36. Let the House of Israel know assuredly that God hath made this Iesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ. The word signifies safely they may venture their All upon it Ioh. 17. 8. They have known There is a common customary superficial Belief that Men take up upon the Credit of their Forefathers and the Consent of the Country where they live And there is a sound Perswasion of the Truth of the Gospel wrought in us by the Spirit of God And though Human Credulity doth little yet this last serveth to renew the Soul Mat. 16. 17. Flesh and Blood hath not revealed it to thee but my Father which is in Heaven when Peter had said Thou art the Christ the Son of the Living God This makes us victorious over the Devil the World and the Flesh. 1 Ioh. 5. 5. Who is he that overcometh the World but he that believeth that Iesus is the Son of God If this important supreme Truth were well believed it would doubtless prevail against the Allurements of the World and the Flesh and make Men see that they have something else than this deceitful World to look after Truths go to the quick when soundly believed 2. Cordial Many seem verily to be perswaded that Jesus is the Son of God but are no way affected with this Mystery of Grace nor changed The Devils may give a bare Assent to this great Gospel Truth Compare Mark 5. 7. with Matth. 16. 16. The Confession of the Devil with the Profession of Peter The Devil owned Jesus to be the Son of the most High God as well as Peter the Son of the Living God Austms Observation is very good Hoc dicebat Petrus hoc dicebant Daemones Petrus ut Christum amplecteretur Daemones ut Christus ab iis recederet Peter said the same thing and the Devil the same thing Peter said it that he might embrace Christ the Devils that he might depart from them It is one thing to be of this Opinion that Christ is the Saviour of the World another to accept and receive him into our Hearts 2. The next thing which I shall observe in Faith is a Consent to receive Christ as God offereth him to us in the Gospel Joh. 1. 12. To as
think all their business is to get a Victory over their Consciences and though they do not deny their Lusts yet if they can be strongly perswaded that God will be merciful to them in Christ they shall not perish but obtain everlasting Life No we must obey we must deny our selves or else we do not trust Christ to bring us to Heaven in his own ways and methods but trust to some vain conceits of our own II. How this is to be understood That whosoever believeth since many other things are required of us as Repentance Mortification of Sin Self-denial new Obedience or Holiness Luk. 13. 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Mortification Rom. 8. 13. If ye live after the Flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the Body ye shall live Self-Denial Luke 14. 16. If any Man come to me and hate not his Father and Mother yea and his own Life also he cannot be my Disciple New Obedience or Holiness Heb. 12. 14. Follow Peace with all Men and Holiness without which no Man shall see the Lord. I answer all Truths are not delivered in one place and therefore a solitary Faith will not bring us to Heaven but that which is seconded with other things But more distinctly I. Faith is not required to exclude other things that are connexed with it by the Ordination of God For every one that believeth Christ believeth the whole Gospel to be true Except against one part and you may except against all the rest Now it is evident in the Gospel that without Regeneration Repentance and Holiness no Man can be saved and see God therefore every one that believeth in Christ must trust him to obtain it in the way that he hath appointed and promised to give it 2. Faith is not required to exclude other things that are included in the nature of it or flow as genuine Effects from such a cause A purpose of Obedience is included in the Nature of Faith and actual Obedience is the fruit of it Every one that believeth Christ receiveth him in all his Offices therefore a purpose of Obedience is included in the nature of it and if Faith be sincere universal Obedience in Self-denial Mortification and our duty to God and Men will naturally be derived from it Therefore as he that is to entertain a King makes reckoning of his Train and that he will not come alone so every one of whom Faith in Jesus Christ is required must reckon that his Faith must be evidenced to be sincere by the Fruits of it III. Why is Faith required that we may receive Benefit by Christ For these Reasons 1. In respect of God 2. In respect of Christ. 3. In respect of the Creature 4. In respect of our Comforts 1. In respect of God that our Hearts may be possessed with a full apprehension of his Grace who in the new Covenant appeareth not as a revenging and condemning God but as a pardoning God This reason is rendred by the Apostle Rom. 4. 16. It is of Faith that it might be of Grace The Law brought in the Terror of God by being the Instrument of revealing Sin and the punishment due thereunto ver 15. The Law worketh Wrath for where there is no Law there is no Transgression no such stinging sense of it but the Gospel brought in Grace The Law stated the Breach but the Gospel shewed the way of our Recovery And therefore Faith doth more agree with Grace as it makes God more amiable and lovely to us and beloved by us by the discovery of his Goodness and Grace The saving of Man by Christ that is by his Incarnation Life Sufferings Death Resurrection and Ascension do all tend to possess our Hearts with his abundant Grace To the same tend also his merciful Covenant gracious Promises and all the Benefits given to us his Spirit Pardon and Communion with God in Glory all is to sill our Hearts with a Sense of the Love of God And all this is no more than necessary for a guilty Conscience is not easily setled and brought to look for all kind of Happiness from one whom we have so much wronged Adam when once a Sinner was shy of God Gen. 3. 10. and Sin still makes us hang off from him Guilt is suspicious and if we have not one to lead us by the Hand and bring us to God we cannot abide his Presence For this End serveth Faith That Sinners being possest of the Goodness and Grace of God may be recovered and return to him by a fit Means In the new Covenant Repentance more distinctly respects God and Faith respecteth Christ Acts 20. 21. Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Iesus Christ. Repentance respects God because from God we fell and to God we must return We fell from him as we withdrew our Allegiance and sought our Happiness elsewhere to him we return as our rightful and proper Happiness but Faith respects the Mediator who is the only Remedy of our Misery and the Means of our Eternal Blessedness He opened the way to God by his Merit and Satisfaction and actually bringeth us into this way by his renewing and reconciling Grace that we may be in a capacity both to please and enjoy God and that is the reason why Faith in Christ is so much insisted on as our Title and Claim to the Blessedness of the new Covenant It hath a special aptitude and fitness for our recovery from Sin to God because it peculiarly respects the Mediator by whom we come to him 2. With respect to Christ. 1. Because the whole Dispensation of Grace by Christ cannot well be apprehended by any thing but Faith partly because the Way of our Recovery is so supernatural strange and wonderful that unless we believe God's Testimony how can we be perswaded of it That the Carpenter's Son should be the Son of that great Architect and Builder who framed Heaven and Earth that Life should come to us by the Death of another that God should be made Man and the Judge a Party and he that knew no Sin be condemned as a Criminal Person that one crucified should procure the Salvation of the whole World and be Lord of Life and Death and have such Power over all Flesh as to give Eternal Life to whom he will Reason is puzsed at these things Faith can only unravel them Partly because the Comfort of the Promises is so rich and glorious and the Persons upon whom it is bestowed so unworthy that it cannot easily enter into the Heart of a Man that God will be so good and gracious to us 1 Cor. 2. 9. Eye hath not seen Ear hath not heard neither hath it entred into the Heart of Man to conceive the Things God hath prepared for them that love him Therefore Sense and Reason could look for no such thing Faith is necessary and a strong Faith that it may work upon us These are things
Acts 5. 31. This is the Grace which the Saints pray for Faith it self Repentance it self Psal. 51. 10. Create in me a clean Heart Heb. 13. 21. The Lord make you perfect to do his Will working in you that which is pleasing in his Sight We pray not only for a Grace that gives the Possibility but the Effect not only for such as doth invite and sollicit us to Good but such as doth incline and determine us to Good And this is the Grace we give thanks for not a Power to repent and believe if we please but for Repentance and Faith wrought in us If God did only give a Power to will if we please to do if we please Man would difference himself 1 Cor. 4. 7. 3. With respect to Christ. We are his Workmanship created in Christ Iesus who is the Head of the new World or renewed Estate All things are new in the Kingdom of Christ there is a Change of every thing from what it was before There is a new Adam which is Jesus Christ a new Covenant which is the Gospel a new Paradise not that where Adam enjoyed God among the Beasts but where the Blessed enjoy God among the Angels a new Ministry not the Posterity of Aaron or Tribe of Levi but a Ministry of Reconciliation put into their Hands whom God hath qualified and fitted to be Dispensers of these holy Mysteries New Ordinances We serve God not in the oldness of the Letter but the newness of the Spirit therefore if we be in Christ we must be new Creatures We are both obliged and fitted by this new Estate to be so Some are in Christ externally by Baptism and Profession they are visibly in Covenant with him and de jure of right are bound to be new Creatures Others are in Christ by real internal Union these not only ought to be but de facto are new Creatures they are made Partakers of his Spirit Rom. 8. 9. and by that Spirit they are renewed and sanctified Well then since there is a new Lord and a new Law all is new there must be a new Creation for as the general State of the Church is renewed by Christ so is every particular Believer 4. With respect to the Use for which this new Creation serveth One is mentioned in the Text Created unto good Works but other things must be taken in 1. In order to our present Communion with God Till we are created anew we are not sit to converse with an holy and invisible God earnestly frequently reverently and delightfully which is our daily Work and Business The Effects of the new Creature are Life and Likeness those that do not live the Life of God are estranged from him Eph. 4. 18. Trees cannot converse with Beasts because they do not live their Life nor Beasts with Men for they have Sense only but no Reason nor Men with God till they have somewhat of the same Nature and Life If one had Power to put the Spirit of Man into a brute Beast that Beast would discourse reasonably God hath Power to put a Divine Spirit into his People to sanctify their Souls that sits them for converse with God Look as in Innocency Adam was alone though compassed about with a Multitude of Creatures Beasts Birds and Plants yet there was none till Eve was made fit to converse with him because they did not live his Life therefore the Lord God said Gen. 2. 18. It is not good that Man should be alone I will make him an 〈◊〉 meet for him The Man was alone because he had none like himself that he might converse withal as a Man in the exercise of Speech and Reason the Beasts of the Field and Fowls of the Air were no fit Companions for him they wanted the means of Converse Reason and Speech So without Grace we are not meet for Communion with God till we have Faith and Love to admire reverence and delight in him So for likeness Conformity is the ground of Communion Amos 3. 3. How can two walk together except they be agreed Our state of Sin is a state of Enmity and our state of Holiness a state of Love Our old Course made the Breach between us and God Isa. 59. 2. but the new Life and Likeness qualifies us for Communion with him 1. Ioh. 1. 6 7. An holy Creature may sweetly come and converse with the Holy God 2. In order to our Service and Obedience to God Man is unfit for God's use till he be new moulded and framed again In the Text we must be created in Christ Iesus to good Works Every Creature hath Faculties suitable to the Operations that belong to that Creature so Man must be new created new formed that he may be prepared and made ready for the Lord. You cannot expect new Operations till there be a New Nature and Life When a Man is turned from Sin he is made meet for the Masters use and prepared unto every good Work 2 Tim. 2. 21. Our first care must be to get the Heart renewed Many are troubled about this or that Duty or particular Branches of the Spiritual Life first get Life it self There must be Principles before there can be Operations In vain do we expect strengthning Grace before we have received renewing Grace This is like little Children who attempt to run before they can go or stand Many complain of this or that Corruption but they do not groan under the burden of a corrupt Nature as suppose wandring Thoughts in Prayer when at the same time the Heart is habitually averse and estranged from God as if a Man should complain of an aking Tooth when a mortal Disease hath seized upon his Vitals or of a cut Finger when at the same time he is wounded at the Heart of deadness in Duty and want of quickning Grace when they want converting Grace This is like blowing to a dead Coal to complain of Infirmities and incident Weakness when our habitual aversion from and Enmity to God is not yet cured and unfitness for Service when we are not come out of the carnal State 3. In order to our future enjoyment of God and that Glory and Blessedness which we expect in his Heavenly Kingdom None but new Creatures can enter into the New Ierusalem It is said John 3. 3. Except a Man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God Seeing is put for enjoying Yet the expression is Emphatical as if he should not be suffered so much as to peep or look within the Vail therefore the meer carnal Man neither knoweth his true Happiness nor careth for it but followeth after his own Lusts till he be new moulded and framed By Nature Men are opposite to the Kingdom of God it being invisible future spiritual mostly for the Soul and by nature Men are for things seen present and bodily The Interest of the Flesh governeth all their choices and inclinations and how unmeet are these for Heaven In short our frail
turn unto the Lord. Psal. 119. 59. I thought on my ways and turned my Feet unto thy Testimonies Man is very inconsiderate his Soul is asleep till consideration awaken it again We are to search and try our Estate whether it be good or bad Lam. 3. 40. Let us search and try our ways and turn unto the Lord. We are to observe God's Rebukes Prov. 1. 23. Turn ye at my Reproof To set our selves to seek after God in the best Fashion we can Hos. 5. 4. They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God that is think of recovering themselves and bending their course to him chiefly we are to take heed that we do not hinder God's work and obstruct our own Mercies Prov. 1. 25. They set at nought my Counsel and would none of my Reproof Sometimes Conscience is startled either as being excited by the Word Acts 24. 25. or some notable Affliction and Strait Gen. 42. 21. by one means or another the Waters are stirred great helps are vouchsafed to us observe these Seasons However check Despair He that did turn Water into Wine can turn Sinners into Saints Lions into Lambs he hath not excluded you from his Grace therefore do not exclude your selves When did he ever forsake the anxious and waiting Souls that would not give over seeking till they did obtain the sanctifying Spirit SERMON XX. EPH. 2. 10. For we are his Workmanship created in Christ Iesus unto good Works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them WE come now to the End why we are brought into this Estate created unto good Works c. the End is not to live idly or walk loosly but holily according to the Will of God In this latter Clause Created unto good Works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them Observe 1. The Object Good Works that is Works becoming the new Creature in short we should live Christianly 2. God's Act about it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which God hath before ordained The word signifies both prepared and ordained 1. God hath prepared these Works for us 2. God hath prepared us for them He hath prepared them for us either by his Decree or Precept if you understand it in the first sense God that hath ordained the End hath also appointed Means as Acts 27. 31. compared with 24. Or else appointed by his Precept and express Will. Micah 6. 8. And he hath prepared us for them by his Spirit making our Hearts fit for our Work Heb. 8. 20. enlightning the Mind inclining the Will The first sheweth the necessity of them the second the easiness of them God hath accomodated all things to that End enabling us to know our Duty and to do it 3. Our Duty that we should walk in them Walking noteth both a Way and an Action 1. It implieth a Way that good Works are the way to obtain Salvation purchased and granted to us by Jesus Christ. Unless we walk in the Path of good Works we cannot come to Eternal Life 2. An Action Walking notes 1. Spontaneity in the Principle not drawn or driven but walk set our selves a going 2. Progress in the Motion he that walketh sets himself forward and gets ground he doth not stand still or lie down but goeth on still Doct. That new Creatures are both obliged and fitted or prepared for good Works I. What is meant by good Works II. What Obligation lieth on the new Creature to make Conscience of them III. How they are fitted and prepared by that new Nature which is bestowed upon them by and through Christ 1. What is meant by good Works 1. The Kinds 2. The Requisits First The Kinds all acts of Obedience more particularly they are divided and distributed into five sorts or ranks 1. Opera Cultus Acts of God's immediate Worship both internal and external The Internal Acts are Faith and Love Trust Delight Reverence The Children of God are often described by these by believing in his Name Iohn 1. 12. Love to God and Delight in him Psal. 97. 10. Ye that love the Lord hate Evil. Psal. 37. 4. Delight thy self also in the Lord. Trust. Psal. 62. 8. Trust in him at all times ye People Fear or Reverence Psal. 130. 4. There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayst be feared External as to Pray Read Hear to be much in Communion with God in all the parts of his Worship Without Works of Piety we are practical Atheists Psal. 36. 1. and Psal. 14. 1 2 4. God's People do certainly make Conscience of these The Internal Acts are the Life of their Souls the External are their Solace Strength and Support their Songs in the House of their Pilgrimage their refreshing by the way Cornelius Acts 10. 2. feared and prayed to God alway Daniel would not omit Prayer one Day though in danger of Death Dan. 6. 10 11. There is little Zeal in them that are not frequent with God but forget him days without number Ier. 2. 32. 2. Opera Vocationis Every Man must labour in the Work to which he is called God is pleased to appoint and accept the Duties of our Callings as a good Work Are they never so mean yet Servants may Honour God by diligence in their Duties Tit. 2. 9 10. Exhort Servants to be obedient to their Masters c. That they may adorn the Doctrine of God our Saviour in all things To be profitable to Humane Society in your place is good the new Nature helpeth us so to be Phil. 11. Onesimus in time past was to thee unprofitable but now profitable to thee and me All have their work from the Mediator to the poorest Creature in the World John 17. 4. I have glorified thee on Earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do So Tit. 3. 14. Let ours also learn to maintain good Works for necessary uses that they be not unfruitful When Iohn's Hearers came to know what they should do he referreth every one to their Callings Luke 3. 10 11 12. Walk conscionably therein glorify God Souldiers Publicans c. Without these good Works we are Drones in the common Hives yea Burdens upon the Earth 3. Opera Iustitiae Works of Righteousness and Justice to hurt none to give every one his Due to use Fidelity in our Relations Acts 24. 16. The Credit of Religion is much concerned in the just dealing of them that profess it God will have the World to know that Religion is a good Friend to Human Society Neh. 5. 9. Ought ye not to walk in the Fear of our God because of the Reproach of the Heathen our Enemies This was the Primitive Glory of Christianity Dent Exercitum talem tales Exactores fisci c. Some carry it so that they deal with God's Commandments as Hanun with David's Messengers as if they had cut off the whole second Table and so prove a Stain and Blot to Religion In short they that do not make Conscience of paying their
qualified for these Priviledges or he that thankfully and humbly accepts of the offered Saviour and consents to the Covenant made with God the Father Son and Holy Spirit he is washed from his Sins in the Blood of Christ reconciled adopted into God's Family and made an Heir according to the hope of Eternal Life Tit. 3. 7. This first Faith by which we believe and consent to the Covenant implieth both a dependance on God's Mercy and Christ's Merits and also a consent of Obedience or hearty Subjection to God 4. When we have consented to accept Christ and his Benefits and do give our selves to him then Works or new Obedience follow as necessary to continue our right to Pardon and Life For none have benefit by God's Covenant but those that keep his Covenant as well as make it and without this we cannot have Communion with God 1 John 1. 7. If we walk in the Light as he is in the Light we have fellowship one with another Nor evidence the reality of our Faith and Repentance St. Paul was sent to Preach to the Gentiles That they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for Repentance Acts 26. 20. Besides we cannot preserve our claim and right if we do not still go on to do good 1 Tim. 6. 18. Ezek. 18. 24. When the Righteous turneth away from his Righteousness and committeth Iniquity shall he live all his Righteousness shall not be mentioned in his Trespasses that he hath trespassed and in his Sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die It is true of the Hypocrite without Scruple and of the real righteous Man if you suppose the one you may suppose the other Well these things must not be confounded nor opposed not confounded but we must distinctly consider what is proper to the Grace of God proper to the Merit of Christ proper to Faith proper to Works not opposed so as to make the one exclude the other As the Grace of God to exclude the Merit of Christ or serve instead of it nor the Merit of Christ his Blood and Righteousness to exclude Faith and Repentance nor be instead of them nor Faith to exclude good Works 5. All the applying Grace is from first to last wrought in us by the Spirit He doth renew and heal our Natures as coming to us from the Grace of God and Merits of Christ. Tit. 3. 5 6. According to his Mercy he saveth us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Iesus Christ our Saviour By the Holy Spirit working in us habitual Grace and exciting it we believe repent obey do whatever is necessary to be done to obtain Eternal Life Therefore this must not be omitted but acknowledged as a great part of this Grace III. Use. To exhort us if we would shew our selves to be new Creatures indeed to be full of good Works The Arguments to move us are 1. It is a necessary fruit of inward Grace and so doth plainly shew that you are partakers of Heavenly Wisdom Iames 3. 17. The Wisdom which is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easy to be intreated full of Mercy and good fruits The carnal Worldling all his Wisdom is to grow rich to himself which indeed is but Folly Luke 12. 21. His business is to live to the Flesh Gal. 6. 8. He layeth out all his Strength Time and Care and Wealth for the feeding his own carnal Desires but the other soweth to the Spirit layeth out himself in works of Piety and Charity 2. External Acts which flow from an Internal Principle increase the Habit the more you do good the more you are inabled to do good as bodily Strength is increased by Exercise Why is the right Hand more agil stronger and bigger than the left it is oftner exercised and so fuller of Blood and Spirits So in Grace the more you act Faith the more is Faith increased Love groweth more fervent being kept in a constant Exercise and Hope more lively and affective Always Actions increase the Principles which did produce them partly of their own Nature 1 Iohn 2. 5. Whoso keepeth his Word in him verily is the Love of God perfected The more acts of Love he puts forth towards God the more doth his Love increase in him partly by Divine Reward Heb. 6. 10. He is not unrighteous to forget your labour of Love which ye have shewed towards his Name in that ye have ministred to the Saints and do minister God rewards them temporally 2 Cor. 9. 12. God is able to make all Grace abound towards you that you always having all sufficiency in all things may aboud to every good Work That is to give you to be liberal at all times And when he saith God is able it not only implieth that God is the Fountain of all Plenty and Sovereign Disposer of it and so hath power to make you the richer rather than the poorer by your Liberality to make every Alms you give like the Oil in the Cruse to multiply as you pour it out that there shall be enough for every Object and every Occasion but also he is sure to make it good for he quotes it again in the next Verse as it is written He hath dispersed abroad he hath given to the Poor his Righteousness remaineth for ever It is taken out of Psalm 112. where there are signal Promises of Wealth and Riches in the House of the liberal Alms-giver God rewards them eternally 2 Cor. 9. 6. He which soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly and he which soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully Now is the Seed-time hereafter is our Harvest and Crop we shall have a liberal reward from God in the general Resurrection God also rewards his obedient Servants Spiritually Internally and that not only with more Comfort and Peace but by increasing the Grace it self for God that punishes Sin with Sin doth reward Grace with Grace Wells are sweeter for draining on the other side a Key that is seldom turned rusts in the Lock An intermission of good Works makes us more unable and unready for them 3. It is a greater Honour to God John 15. 8. Herein is my Father glorified that you bear much Fruit. Phil. 1. 11. Being filled with the Fruits of Righteousness which are by Iesus Christ unto the Glory and praise of God 2 Thess. 1. 11 12. Wherefore we pray for you that our God would count you worthy of this Calling and fulfil all the good Pleasure of his Goodness and the work of Faith with Power that the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in him Christ's Religion is not a barren Religion but full of good Works It is a mighty credit to Religion in you that profess it when Goodness is the Constitution of your Hearts to do good the business of your Lives 4. It edifieth others and provoketh an holy Emulation Heb. 10. 24. Let us consider one another to provoke unto Love and to good Works We provoke them most by our Example when they are cold negligent and backward to Works of Piety and Mercy In all things we should be an Instance of Divine Vertues 5. This is the fruit which God expecteth from us that the Trees of Righteousness should bear the Fruits of Righteousness If we frustrate his expectation he will hew us down and cast us into the Fire Mat. 3. 10. Therefore good Works are not needless things The means to enable us are 1. Be sure that you are renewed The Dead cannot do the works of the Living Neither do Men gather Grapes of Thorns nor Figgs of Thistles Mat. 7. 16. Our first business is to look to our Conversion to God All outward Duties begin in the Heart they are valued no further than they come from it sanctified 2. Keep your Hearts under a Sence of God's Authority that you may feel something in your own Bosoms that may tell you you are bound to obey him and may plead God's right with you This is done by a frequent Meditation upon your Creation and Redemption Your Creation giveth God a full right to you and Redemption maketh it comfortable by both you see you are his Acts 27. 23. There stood by me this Night the Angel of God whose I am and whom I serve 3. You are intrusted with his Talents and of their improvement you must give an account Mat. 25. 14. A Lord called his Servants and delivered to them his Goods in order to Improvement 4. What encouragement we have from a gracious God and Covenant which takes not advantage of involuntary Weaknesses but accepteth their endeavours who sincerely do their best Mal. 3. 17. I will spare him as a Man spareth his Son that serveth him 5. Remember often your great obligation to God you can never do so much for him as he deserveth of you Psal. 116. 12. What shall I render to the Lord for all his Benefits towards me 6. Do all as in God's Eye and with a constant dependance upon him Psal. 16. 8. I have set the Lord always before me Make him your Pay-master Governour and Judg and it will not only keep you sincere but diligent in good Works The work is not sincerely done when you look to Man nor throughly done Such have their reward only here Mat. 6. 7. Love your Work A little thing will stop him that doth it unwillingly Psal. 119. 47 48. I will delight my self in thy Commandments which I have loved And I will lift up my Hands to thy Commandments which I have loved 8. Account your selves much beholden to God that he will employ you in any Service for his Glory FINIS ERRATA PAge 5. line 3. for Condemned read Contemned P. 41. l. 18. f. Love r. Fear P. 79. l. 31. f. it r. the Promises P. 92. l. 24. f. that r. if P. 104. l. 8. f. Hearty r. Heart P. 125. l. 3. f. External r. Eternal P. 128. l. 26. after they were r. not P. 150. l. 17. after Obedience dele partly P. 168. l. 17. f. Conversations r. Consolations P. 181. l. 23. f. of Cognisance r. of our Cognisance P. 212. l. 33. after ever-blessed add Life P. 113. l. 17. f. overaweth r. outlaweth P. 252. l. 20. f. them r. him P. 167. l. 11. dele partly P. 289. l. 9. f. to evince r. towards its ruine Gal. 5. 24. Gen. 3. 7 10.