in their Ordination which is a Consecration and their self-dedication to God And it is high sacriledge in themselves or any other that shall alienate them unjustly from their sacred calling and work Or of things to holy uses as places and utensils may be sanctified Or it may be a dedication of persons to a holy state relation and use as is that of every Christian in his Baptism and this is either an external dedication and so all the baptized are sanctified and holy or an internal Dedication which if it be sincere it is both actual and habitual when we both give up our selves to God in Covenant and are also disposed and inclined to him and our hearts are set upon him yea and the life also consisteth of the exercise of this disposition and performance of this covenant This is the Sanctification which here I speak of And so much for the name The doctrinal Propositions necessary to be understood about it are these more largely and plainly laid down in my Confession Chap. 3. Prop. 1. So much of the appearance or Image of God as there is upon any creature so much it is good and amiable to God and man Object God loveth us from eternity and when we were his enemies not because we were good but to make us better than we were Answ Gods Love and all Love consisteth formally in complacency God hath no complacency in any thing but in good or according to the measure of its goodness From eternity God foreseeing the good which would be in us loved us as good in esse cognito and not as actually good when we were not When we were his enemies he had a double love to us or complacency the one was for that natural good which remained in us as we were men and repairable and capable of being made Saints The other was for that foreseen goodes in esse cognito which he purposed in time to come to put upon us This complacency exceeded not at all the good which was the object of it But with it was joyned a will and purpose to give us grace and glory hereafter and thence it is called A Love of Benevolence Not but that complacency is the true action of Love and Benevolence or a purpose to give benefits is but the fruit of it But if any will needs call the Benevolence alone by the name of Love we deny not in that sense that God loveth Saul a persecutor as well as Paul an Apostle in that his purpose to do him good is the same Object God loveth us in Christ and for his righteousness and not only for our own inherent holiness Answ 1. The Benevolence of God is exercised towards us in and by Christ and the fruits of his Love are Christ himself and the mercies given us with Christ and by Christ And our Pardon and Justification and Adoption and Acceptance is by his meritorious righteousness And it is by him that we are possessed with Gods Spirit and renewed according to his Image in Wisdom and Righteousness and Holiness And all this relative and inherent mercy we have as in Christ related to him without whom we have nothing And thus it is that we are accepted and beloved in him and for his righteousness But Christ did not die or merit to change Gods Nature and make him more indifferent in his Love to the holy and the unholy or equally to the more holy and to the less holy But his complacency is still in no man further than he is made truly amiable in his real holiness and his relation to Christ and to the Father The Doctrine of Imputation is opened before John 16.27 The Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me and believed c. And 14.21 He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father As God loved us with the love of benevolence and so much complacence as is before described before we loved him 1 John 4.10 Ephes 2.4 so he now loveth us complacentially for his Image upon us and so much of his grace as is found in us and also for our relation to his Son and to himself which we stand in by this grace But as he loveth not Saul a persecutor under the notion of a fulfiller of his Law in Christ so neither doth he love David in his sin under the notion of one that is without sin and perfect as having fulfilled the Law in Christ But so loveth him in Christ as to pardon his sin and make him more lovely in himself by creating a clean heart and renewing a right spirit within him for the sake of the satisfaction and merits of Christ Prop. 2. Holiness is Gods Image upon us and that which was our primitive amiableness Col. 3.10 Prop. 3. The loss of Holiness was the loss of our amiableness and our state of enmity to God Prop. 4. Holiness consisteth in 1. Our resignation of our selves to God as our Owner and submission to his Providence 2. And our subjection to God as our Ruler and obedience to his Teaching and his Laws 3. And in Thankfulness and Love to God as our Chief Good efficiently and finally Prop. 5. Love is that final perfective act which implyeth and comprehendeth all the rest and so is the fulfilling of the Law and the true state of sanctification Rom. 13.10 Matth. 22.37 Mark 12.33 1 John 7.16 Prop. 6. Heaven it self as it is our ultimate end and perfection is but our perfect Love to God maintained by perfect vision of him with the perfect reception of his Love to us Prop. 7. Therefore it was Christs great business in the world to destroy the works of the Devil and to bring us to this perfect Love of God Prop. 8. Accordingly the greatest use of Faith in Christ is to subserve and kindle our Love to God Prop. 9. This it doth two special waies 1. By procuring the pardon of sin which forfeited the grace of the Spirit that so the Spirit may kindle the Love of God in us 2. By actual beholding the Love of God which shineth to us most gloriously in Christ by which our Love must be excited as the most suitable and effectual means John 3.1 4.10 Prop. 10. Our whole Religion therefore consisteth of two parts 1. Primitive Holiness restored and perfected 2. The restoring and perfecting means Or 1. Love to God the final and morâ— excellent part 2. Faith in Christ the mediate part Faith causing Love and Love caused by Faith 1 Cor. 12. last 13. Rom. 8.35 Ephes 6.23 1 Tim. 1.5 2 Thes 3.5 1 Cor. 2.9 8.3 Rom. 8.28 James 1.12 2.5 1 Pet. 1.8 Prop. 11. Repentance towards God is the souls return to God in Love and Regeneration by the Spirit is the Spirits begetting us to the Image and Nature of God our heavenly Father in a heavenly Love to him So that the Holy Ghost is given us to work in us a Love to God which is our sanctification Rom. 5.5 Titus 3.4 5 6
3. We beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye be not soon shaken in mind or troubled neither by Spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us as that the day of Christ is at hand Let no man deceive you You see here that Spirit Word and Scripture may be pretended for an untruth Matth. 4. Satan often saith It is written 2 Cor. 11.12 13 14 15. False Apostles and deceitful workers may transform themselves into the Apostles of Christ and Ministers of Righteousness and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of light 1 John 4.1 Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God Gal. 1.7 8. If we or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel to you let him be accursed Quest But how then shall I know when it is the Spirit which putteth any thing into my mind Answ 1. The matter it self must be tryed whether it agree with the sacred Scripture and must be proved true by the Word of God 2. The end to which that truth is brought must be proved to be just and good For Satan pleadeth truthâ— to sinful ends 3. The application of them to your own case must be such as will hold tryal and it must be proved by sound argument that indeed they do thus and thus belong to you For Gods Spirit will not belye you nor make you better or worse than you are no more than he will belye the Scriptures Object But is it not the same Spirit which spake to the Apostles which speaketh to us If they were to believe him immediately so must we and seeing the Spirit is above the Scripture we must try the Scriptures by the Spirit and not the Spirit by the Scriptures Answ Alas how pittifully ignorance beweildreth men 1. It is the same Spirit which was in the Apostles and is in the weakest Christian But he worketh not in the same degree He inspired them to infallibility being promised to lead them into all truth and to bring all things which Christ had spoken to their remembrance and he enabled them to prove this by manifold miracles Doth he do all this by you or had you the same promises 2. The same Spirit in them was given to one end and to you for another To them it was given to cause them by his inspiration to deliver all that Christ had taught them and to leave it on record to all generations as his infallible Word and Law to be the Rule of doctrine and practice to the end of the world But to you the same Spirit is given to cause you to understand and love and obey this Law which is already written and not to write or know another 3. The Spirit indited the Scriptures before you were born and we are sure that that is the Word of God and we are sure that Gods Spirit contradicteth not it self Therefore your after-pretended revelations must be tryed by the certain ancient Rule which had the seal of miracles which yours hath not Obj. But how shall I know what application to make of Scripture to my self but by the teaching of the Spirit of God Answ But you must not take every thought and suggestion or remembrance to be the Spirits application Gods Spirit teacheth men by the light of sound evidence which may be proved and wil hold good in tryal He teacheth you by exciteing you to rational studies and argumentation and by blessing you in such sober use of Gods means But he doth not teach you to know your state by the bare remembring of a text Direct 9. Take heed also of misunderstanding what is the witness of the Spirit that we are Gods children Many think it is like some voice or suggestion or inspiration within them saying Thou art the Child of God And so many Christians languish in terrours that feel no such perswading Spirit in them And many Hypocrites are deluded by the perswasions of their own imaginations But in Scripture the word witness is oft taken for evidence or an objective testimony And the Spirits being a witness and being a seal an earnest a pledge a white stone a new name c. are all of the like signification And the meaning is By this we know that we are the children of God or that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us 1 John 3.10.24 4.13 And if any one have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8.9 As if he should say have you the Spirit of Christ or have you not if you have that is a seal an earnest a pledge of Gods Love and of your heavenly inheritance and a certain evidence or witness that you are his children Gal. 4.6 He that loveth God as his Father in Christ and is sanctified to God hath the Spirit Shew this Love and this Sanctification and you produce the true witness that you are the heirs of life Holiness and Heavenliness and Love is the witness seal and earnest and not chiefly an inward perswasion that we are Gods children 2. Yet this much more the Spirit doth when it hath sanctified us and given us the witness or evidence in our selves 1 John 5.10 11. He also helpeth us to see and know that grace which he giveth and actuateth in us 3. And also to conclude from that evidence that we are Gods children And also to feel the inward comfort of that conclusion But all this he doth by these means in a discursive or rational way and by blessing such reasoning to our comfort 4. Also he comforteth the soul in another way distinct from the way of concluding from evidence and that is by exciting the Love of God and his praises in us which are of themselves delighting acts But of this anon Direct 10. Take heed of Heretical Seducers who use to fish in troubled waters and to fall in with such perplexed consciences to perswade them that all the cause of their trouble is their opinions and unsound Religion and not in them and that the only way to comfort is to change their Religion and to come over unto them No person fitter for a Quaker a Papist or any Sectary to work upon than a troubled mind For such are like the ignorant Country people in their sickness who will hearken to any one who putteth them in hope and promiseth them ease and most confidently tells them that he can cure them and saith I was just in your case and such or such a thing cured me so will the Formalist and the Fanatick the Papist and the Quaker say I was just in your condition I was troubled and could get no peace of conscience no joy in the Holy Ghost but was alwaies held in fears and doubting till I changed my Religion and ever since that I have been well and O what joyes I have to boast of And if it be an unsound Hypocrite that is thus tempted perhaps God may
3. And this guilt and fear and unwillingness together will all keep down your thoughts from Heaven so that seldom thinking of it will increase your unbelief and they will make you unfit to see the evidences of truth in the Gospel when you do think of them or hear them For he that would not kâ—â—w cannot learn Obâ—y therefore according to the knowledge which you have if ever you would have more and would not be given up to the blindness of Infidelity Direct 11. Trust not only to your understandings and think not that study is all which is necessary to faith But remember that faith is the gift of God and therefore pray as well as study Prov. 3.5 Trust in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not to thy own understanding It is a precept as necessary in this point as in any In all things God abhorreth the proud and looketh at them afar off as with disowning and disdain But in no case more than when a blind ungodly sinner shall so overvalue his own understanding as to think that if there be evidence of truth in the mystery of faith he is able presently to discern it before or without any heavenly illumination to cure his dark distempered mind Remember that as the Sun is seen only by his own light so is God our Creatour and Redeemer Faith is the gift of God as well as Repentance Ephes 2.8 2 Tim. 2.25 26. Apply your selves therefore to God by earnest prayer for it As he Mark 9.24 Lord I believe help thou my unbelief And as the Disciples Luke 17.5 Increase our faith A humble soul that waiteth on God in fervent prayer and yet neglecteth not to study and search for truth is much liker to become a confirmed Believer than ungodly Students who trust and seek no further than to their Books and their perverted minds For as God will be sought to for his grace so those that draw near him do draw near unto the Light and therefore are like as children of Light to be delivered from the power of darkness For in his light we shall see the light that must acquaint us with him Direct 12. Lastly What measure of Light soever God vouchsafeth you labour to turn it all into Love and make it your serious care and business to know God that you may love him and to love God so far as you know him For he that desireth satisfaction in his doubts to no better end than to please his mind by knowing and to free it from the disquiet of uncertainty hath an end so low in all his studies that he cannot expect that God and his grace should be called down to serve such a low and base design That faith which is not employed in beholding the love of God in the face of Christ on purpose to increase and exercise our love is not indeed the true Christian Faith but a dead opinion And he that hath never so weak a faith and useth it to this end to know Gods amiableness and to love him doth take the most certain way for the confirmation of his faith For Love is the closest adherence of the soul to God and therefore will set it in the clearest light and will teach it by the sweet convincing way of experience and spiritual taste Believing alone is like the knowledge of our meat by seeing it And Love is as the knowledge of our meat by eating and digesting it And he that hath tasted that it is sweet hath a stronger kind of perswasion that it is sweet than he that only seeth it and will much more tenaciously hold his apprehension It is more possible to dispute him out of his belief who only seeth than him that also tasteth and concocteth A Parent and child will not so easily believe any false reports of one another as strangers or enemies will because Love is a powerful resister of such hard conceits And though this be delusory and blinding partiality where Love is guided by mistake yet when a sound understanding leadeth it and Love hath chosen the truest object it is the naturally perfective motion of the soul And Love keepeth us under the fullest influences of Gods Love and therefore in the reception of that grace which will increase our faith For Love is that act which the ancient Doctors were wont to call the principle of merit or first meritorious act of the soul and which we call the principle of rewardable acts God beginneth and loveth us first partly with a Love of complacency only as his creatures and also as in esse cognito he foreseeth how amiable his grace will make us and partly with a Love of benevolence intending to give us that grace which shall make us really the objects of his further Love And having received this grace it causeth us to love God And when we love God we are really the objects of his complacential Love and when we perceive this it still increaseth our Love And thus the mutual Love of God and Man is the true perpetual motion which hath an everlasting cause and therefore must have an everlasting duration And so the faith which hath once kindled Love even sincere Love to God in Christ hath taken rooting in the heart and lyeth deeper than the head and will hold fast and increase as Love increaseth And this is the true reason of the stedfastness and happiness of many weak unlearned Christians who have not the distinct conceptions and reasonings of learned men and yet because their Faith is turned into Love their Love doth help to confirm their Faith And as they love more heartily so they believe more stedfastly and perseveringly than many who can say more for their faith And so much for the strengthening of your faith CHAP. IX General Directions for exercising the Life of Faith HAving told you how Faith must be confirmed I am next to tell you how it must be used And in this I shall begin with some General Directions and then proceed to such particular cases in which we have the greatest use for Faith Direct 1. Remember the necessity of Faith in all the business of your hearts and lives that nothing can be done well without it There is no sin to be conquered no grace to be exercised no worship to be performed nor no acts of mercy or justice or worldly business to be well done without it in any manner acceptable to God Without Faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 You may as well go about your bodily work without your eye-sight as about your spiritual work without Faith Direct 2. Make it therefore your care and work to get Faith and to use it and think not that God must reveal his mind to you as in visions while you idly neglect your proper work Believing is the first part of your trade of life and the practice of it must be your constant business It is not living ordinarily by sense and looking when God will
man to God to love him and be beloved by him so the true use of Faith in Jesus Christ is to be as it were the bellows to kindle love or the burning-glass as it were of the soul to receive the beams of the Love of God as they shine upon us in Jesus Christ and thereby to enflame our hearts in love to God again Therefore if you would live by Faith indeed begin here and first receive the deepest apprehensions of that Love of the Father Who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And by these apprehensiâ—ns stir up your hearts to the Love of God and make this very endeavour the work and business of your lives Oh that mistaken Christians would be rectified in this point how much would it tend to their holiness and their peace You think of almost nothing of the life of Faith but how to believe that you have a special interest in Christ and shall be saved by him But you have first another work to do You must first believe that common Love and Grace before mentioned John 3.16 2 Cor. 5.19 20.14 15. 1 Tim. 2.6 Heb. 2.9 And you must believe your own interest in this that is that God hath by Christ made to all and therefore unto you an act of oblivion and free deed of gift that you shall have Christ and pardon and eternal life if you will believingly accept the gift and will not finally reject it And the belief of this even of this common Love and Grace must first perswade your hearts accordingly to accept the offer and then you have a special interest and withall at the same time must kindle in your souls a thankful love to the Lord and fountain of this grace and if you were so ingenuous as to begin here and first use your Faith upon the foresaid common gift of Christ for the kindling of love to God within you and would account this the work which Faith hath every day to do you would then find that in the very exciting and exercise of this holy Love your assurance of your own special interest in Christ would be sooner and more comfortably brought about than by searching to find either evidence of pardon before you find your love to God or to find your love to God before you have laboured to get and exercise it I tell you they are dangerous deceivers of your souls that shall contradict this obvious truth that the true method and motive of mans first special love to God must not be by believing first God 's special love to us but by believing his more common love and mercy in the general act and offer of grace before mentioned For he that believeth Gods special love to him and his special interest in Christ before he hath any special love to God doth sinfully presume and not believe For if by Gods special love you mean his love of complacency to you as a living member of Christ to believe this before you love God truly is to believe a dangerous lie and if you mean only Gods love of benevolence by which he decreeth to make you the objects of his foresaid complacency and to sanctifie and save you to believe this before you truly love God is to believe that which is utterly unknown to you and may be false for ought you know but is not at all revealed by God and therefore is not the object of Faith Therefore if you cannot have true assurance or perswasion of your special interest in Christ and of your justification before you have a special love to God then this special love must be kindled I say not by a common Faith but by a true Faith in the General Love and Promise mentioned before Nay you must not only have first this special love but also must have so much knowledge that indeed you have it as you will have knowledge of your special interest in Christ and the love of God for no act of Faith will truly evidence special grace which is not immediately and intimately accompanied with true love to God our Father and Redeemer and the ultimate object of our Faith Nor can you any further perceive or prove the sincerity of your Faith it self than you discern in or with it the Love here mentioned For Faith is not only an act of the Intellect but of the Will also And there is no volition or consent to this or any offered good which hath not in it the true nature of Love and the intention of the end being in order of nature before our choice or use of means the intending of God as our end cannot come behind that act of Faith which is about Christ as the chosen means or way to God Therefore make this your great and principal use of your Faith to receive all the expressions of Gods Love in Christ and thereby to kindle in you a love to God that first the special true belief of Gods more common love and grace may kindle in you a special love and then the sense of this may assure you of your special interest in Christ and then the assurance of that special interest may increase your love to a much higher degree And thus live by Faith in the work of Love Direct 7. That you may understand what that Faith is which you must live by take in all the parts at least that are essential to it in your description and take not some parcels of it for the Christian Faith nor think noâ— that it must needs be several sorts of Faith if it have several objects and hearken not to that dull Philosophical subtilty which would perswade you that Faith is but some single physical act of the soul 1. If you know not what Faith is it must needs be a great hinderance to you in the seeking of it the trying it and the using it For though one may use his natural faculties which work by natural inclination and necessity without knowing what they are yet it is not so where the choice of the rational appetite is necessary for it must be guided by the reasoning faculty And though unlearned persons may have and use Repentance Faith and other graces who cannot define them yet they do truly though not perfectly know the thing it self though they know not the terms of a just definition and all defect of knowing the true nature of Faith will be some hinderance to us in using it 2. It is a moral subject which we are speaking of and terms are to be understood according to the nature of the subject therefore Faith is to be taken for a moral act which comprehendeth many physical acts Such as is the act of believing in or taking such a man for my Physician or my Master or my Tutor or my King Even our Philosophers themselves know not what doth individuate a physical act of the soul Nay they are not
7.21 22. Acts 1.17 24. Direct 19. Faith must not look at God now and then and leave the soul in ordinary forgetfulness of him but remember that he is alwaies present and must make us rather forget them that are talking to us or conversing with us than to forget the Lord. Nothing is more the work of Faith than to see him who is invisible Heb. 11.27 And to live as one that still remembereth that God standeth by To think as one that knoweth that our thoughts are alwaies in his sight and to speak and do as one that forgetteth not that he is the constant and most reverend witness of all To hear and pray and live and labour as if we saw the God who employeth us and will reward us Matth. 6.4 6. Isa 59.18 Rev. 20.12 Matth. 16.27 Rom. 2.6 Direct 20. Faith must lay the heart of man to rest in the Will of God and to make it our chief delight to please him and quietly to trust him whatever cometh to pass And to make nothing of all that would rise up against him or entice us from him or would be to us as in his stead Faith seeth that it is the pleasing of the will of God which is all our work and all our reward And that we should be fully pleased in the pleasing of him And that there is no other rest for the soul to be thought on but the will of God And it must content the soul in him alone 2 Thes 1.11 Col. 3.20 1 Cor. 7.32 1 Thes 4.1 2 Tim. 2.4 Heb. 11.6 Mat. 3.17 17.5 Heb. 13.16 Psal 16.5 73.26 119.57 142.5 As God is often called Jealous especially over the heart of man so faith must make us jealous of our selves and very watchful against every creature which wâ—uld become any part of the felicity or ultimate object of our souls God is so great to a believing soul that ease and honour and wealth and pleasure and all men high and low must be as dead and nothing to us when they speak against him or would be loved or feared or trusted or obeyed before him or above him It is as natural to a true life of Faith on God to make nothing of the incroaching creature as for our beholding the Sun to make nothing of a Candle And thus is faith our victory over the world 1 John 5.4 Jer. 17.5 Isa 2.22 1 Cor. 15.28 Ephes 4.6 Col. 3.11 CHAP. II. Directions how to live by Faith on Jesus Christ SO much is said already towards this in opening the grounds of Faith as will excuse me from being prolix in the rest And the following parts of the Life of Faith are still supposed as subordinate to these two which go before Direct 1. Keep still the true Reasons of Christs Incarnation and Mediation upon your mind as they are before expressed else Christ will not be known by you as Christ Therefore the Scriptures are much in declaring the reasons of Christs coming into the world as to be a sacrifice for sin to declare Gods love and mercy to sinners to seek and to save that which was lost to destroy the works of the Devil c. 1 Tim. 1.15 1 John 3.8 Heb. 2.14 Luke 19.10 Rom. 5.10 1 John 3.1 Gal. 4.4 6 c. Let this name or description of Christ be engraven as in capital Letters upon your minds THE ETERNAL WISDOM OF GOD INCARNATE TO REVEAL AND COMMVNICATE HIS WILL HIS LOVE HIS SPIRIT TO SINFVL MISERABLE MAN Direct 2. See therefore that you joyn no conceit of Christ which dishonoureth God and is contrary to this character and to Gods design Many by mistaking the doctrine of Christs Intercession do think of God the Father as one that is all wrath and justice and unwilling of himself to be reconciled unto man and of the second person in the Trinity as more gracious and mercâ—ful whose mediation abateth the wrath of the Father and with much ado maketh him willing to have mercy on us Whereas it is the Love of God which is the original of our Redemption and it was Gods loving the world which provoked him to give his Son to be their Redeemer John 3.16 Rom. 8.32 And God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing to them their trespasses 2 Cor. 5.19 And therefore we still read of Christs reconciling man to God and not the phrase of his reconciling God to man Not but that both are truly wrought by Christs mediation For the Scripture frequently speaketh of Gods hating the workers of iniquity and of his vindictive Justice and of that propitiating and attonement which signifieth the same thing But the reason is because the enmity began on mans part and not on Gods by mans forsaking God and turning his love from him to the creature and not by Gods forsaking man and the change of mans state and heart towards God by true reconciliation will make him again capable of peace with God and as soon as man is made an object fit for the complacency of God it cannot be but that God will again take complacency in him so that the real change must be only on man and then that relative or denominative change which must be on God will thence immediately result Some also there be who gather from Christs death that God desired the sufferings of Christ as pleasing to him in it self as if he made a bargain with Christ to sell so much mercy to man for so much blood and pains of Christ and as if he so delighted in the blood of the innocent that he would the willinglyer do good to us if he might first forsake and crucifie Christ But this is to contradict Christs business in the world as if he who came from Heaven to declare Gods Love had come to declare him to delight in doing hurt and as if he who came to demonstrate Gods Justice had come to shew that he had rather punish the innocent than the guilty But the case is quite otherwise God doth not delight in mans sufferings as such no not of the guilty much less of the innocent He desired not Christs suffering for it self But as it was a convenient means to demonstrate his Justice and his Holiness and to vindicate the honour of his Government and Law and to be a warning to sinners not to sin presumptuously and yet to declare to them the greatness of his Love And some are ready to gather from Christs propitiation that God is now more reconcileable to sin and so they blaspheme him as if he were unholy As if he made a smaller matter of our mis-doings since he is satisfied for them by a Mediator And they are ready to gather that God can now take complacency in man though he have no inherent holiness at all because of the righteousness of Christ imputed to him And some take Gods imputation of Christs righteousness to us to be a reputing us to be the persons who our selves fulfilled the Law
be plainlier expounded or that distribution is not sound If by Grace be meant all the extrinsick medicinal preparations made by Christ and if by Glory be meant only the Holiness of the soul the sense is good But in common use those words are otherwise understood Sanctification is usually ascribed to the Holy Ghost but Glorification in Heaven is the perfective effect of all the three persons in our state of perfect union with God Rom. 15.16 Titus 3.5 6. But yet in the work of Sanctification it self the Trinity undividedly concur And so in the sanctifying and raising the Church the Apostle distinctly calleth the act of the Father by the name of Operation and the work of the Son by the name of Administration and the part of the Holy Ghost by the name of Gifts 1 Cor. 12.4 5 6. And in respect to these sanctifying Operations of God ad extra the same Apostle distributeth them thus 2 Cor. 13.14 The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all Where by God seemeth to be meant all the persons in the Trinity in their perfection but especially the Father as the Fountain of Love and as expressing Love by the Son and the Spirit and by the Grace of Christ is meant all that gracious provision he hath made for mans salvation and the Relative application of it by his intercession together with his mission of the holy Spirit And by the Communion of the Spirit is meant that actual communication of Life Light and Love to the soul it self which is eminently ascribed to the Spirit Direct 9. The Spirit it self is given to true Believers and not only grace from the Spirit Not that the Essence of God or the person of the Holy Ghost is capable of being contained in any place or removing to or from a place by local motion But 1. The Holy Ghost is given to us Relatively as our Covenanting Sanctifier in the Baptismal Covenant We have a Covenant-right to him that is to his operations 2. And the Spirit it self is present as the immediate Operator not so immediate as to be without Means but so immediately as to be no distant Agent but by proximate attingency not only ratione virtutis but also ratione suppositi performeth his operations If you say so he is present every where I answer but he is not a present Operator every where alike We are called the Temples of the Holy Ghost both because he buildeth us up for so holy a use and because he also dwelleth in us 1 Cor. 6.19 Direct 10. By the sanctification commonly ascribed to the Holy Ghost is meant that recovery of the soul to God from whom it is fallen which consisteth in our primitive Holiness or devotedness to God but summarily in the Love of God as God Direct 11. And Faith in Christ is oft placed as before it not as if the Spirit were no cause of Faith nor as if Faith were no part of our saving special grace nor as if any had saving Faith before they had Love to God but because as Christ is the Mediatour and way to the Father so Faith in him is but a mediate grace to bring us up to the Love of God which is the final perfective grace And because though they are inseparably complicate yet some acts of Faith go before our special Love to God in order of nature though some others follow after it or go with it It is a question which seemeth very difficult to many whether Love to God or Faith in Christ must go first whether in time or order of nature For if we say that Faith in Christ must go first then it seemeth that we take not Faith or Christ as a Means to bring us to God as our End for our End is Deus amatus God as beloved and to make God our End and to love him are inseparable We first love the good which appeareth to us and then we chuse and use the Means to attain it and in so doing we make that our End which we did love so that it is the first loved for it self and then made our End Now if Christ be not used as a Means to God or as our Vltimate End then he is not believed in or used as Christ and therefore it is no true Faith And that which hath not the true End is not the true act or grace in question nor can that be any special grace at all which hath not God for his Vltimate End On both which accounts it can be no true Faith The intentio finis being before the choice or use of means though the assecution be after And yet on the other side if God be loved as our End before we believe in Christ as the means then we are sanctified before we believe And then faith in Christ is not the Means of our first special Love to God And the consequents on both parts are intollerable and how are they to be avoided Consider here 1. You must distinguish betwixt the assenting or knowing act of faith and the consenting or chusing act of it in the will 2. And between Christ as he is a Means of Gods chusing and using and as he is a means of our chusing and using And so I answer the case in these Propositions 1. The knowledge of a Deity is supposed before the knowledge of Christ as a Mediator For no man can believe that he is a Teacher sent of God nor a Mediator between us and God nor a Sacrifice to appease Gods wrath who doth not believe first that there is a God 2. In this belief or knowledge of God is contained the knowledge of his Essential Power Wisdom and Goodness and that he is our Creator and Governour and that we have broken his Laws and that we are obnoxious to his Justice and deserve punishment for our sins All this is to be known before we believe in Christ as the Mediatour 3. Yet where Christianity is the Religion of the Country it is Christ himself by his Word and Ministers who teacheth us these things concerning God But it is not Christ as a Means chosen or used by us to bring us to the Love of God for no man can chuse or use a Means for an End not yet known or intended but it is Christ as a Means chosen and used by God to bring home sinners to himself even as his dying for us on the Cross was 4. The soul that knoweth all this concerning God cannot yet love him savingly both because he wanteth the Spirit to effect it and because a holy sin-hating God engaged in Justice to damn the sinner is not such an object as a guilty soul can love but it must be a loving and reconciled God that is willing to forgive 5. When Christ by his Word and Ministers hath taught a sinner both what God is in himself and what he is to us and what we have deserved and
of sight to the blind and to set at liberty them that are bruised James 4.6 He giveth grace to the humble Matth. 18.4 Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven Matth. 23.12 He that shall humble himself shall be exalted James 4.10 Humble your selves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up Prov. 3.34 He giveth grace to the lowly 12. Promises to the peaceable and peace-makers Matth. 5.9 Blessed are the peace-makers for they shall be called the children of God James 3.17 18. The wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace 2 Cor. 13.11 Be perfect be of good comfort be of one mind live in peace and the God of Love and Peace shall be with you Prov. 12.20 To the councellours of peace is joy Rom. 15.33 16.20 Phil. 4.9 The God of peace shall be with you c. shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly Grace and Peace are the blessing of Saints 13. Promises to the diligent and laborious Christian Heb. 11.6 He that cometh to God must believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Prov. 13.4 The soul of the diligent shall be made fat 1 Cor. 15.58 Be stedfast unmoveable alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 2 Pet. 1.10 Give diligence to make your calling and election sure for if ye do these things ye shall never fail 2 Pet. 1.5 8. Giving all diligence add to your faith vertue and to vertue knowledge c. For if these things be in you and abound they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 5.9 Wherefore we labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him Matth. 6.33 Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you 1 Cor. 3.8 Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour Matth. 11.12 The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force See Prov. 3.13 c. 4. to 14. 6.20 c. 7.1 c. 8 9. throughout 14. Promises to the patient waiting Christian Heb. 6.11 12. And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end that ye be not slothful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises James 1.3 4. Knowing that the trying of your faith worketh patience but let patience have its perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire wanting nothing Psal 27.14 Wait on the Lord be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart wait I say on the Lord. Psal 37.7 9 34. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him Those that wait on the Lord shall inherit the earth Wait on the Lord and keep his way and he shall exaâ—â— thee to inherit the Land Prov. 20 22. Wait on the Lord and he shall save thee Isa 30.18 Blessed are all they that wait for him Isa 40.31 They that wait on the 〈…〉 renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as Eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not be faint Isa 49.23 They shall not be ashamed that wait for me Lam. 3.25 The Lord is good to them that wait for him to the soul that seeketh him 26. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Rom. 8.25 But if we hope for that we see not then do we with patience wait for it Gal. 5.5 For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith 2 Thes 3.5 The Lord direct your hearts into the Love of God and the patient waiting for Christ Rom. 2.7 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory honour and immortality eternal life Heb. 10.36 Ye have need of patience that after ye have done the will of God ye may inherit the promise 15. Promises to sincere Obedience Rev. 22.14 Blessed are they that do his Commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in by the gate into the City John 3.22 Whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his Commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight v. 24. He that keepeth his Commandments dwelleth in him and he in him John 14.21 He that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and manifest my self to him John 15.10 If ye keep my Commandments ye shall abide in my love even as I have kept my Fathers Commandments and abide in his love 1 Cor. 7.19 Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the Commandments of God See Psal 112.1 119.6 Prov. 1.20 21 22 c. Isa 48.18 Psal 19.8 9 c. Heb. 5.9 He became the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him Rev. 14.12 Here are they that keep the Commandments of God and the 〈◊〉 of Jesus 1 John 5.3 For this is the Love of God that we keep his Commandments Eccles 12.13 14. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of man for God shall bring every work unto judgement c. Matth. 5.8 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God James 2.24 You see then how that by works a man is justified and not by faith only Rom. 2.6 7 10. Who will render to every man according to his deeds To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life Glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good Acts 10.35 In every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him Rom. 6.16 Of obedience unto righteousness 1 John 3.7 He that doth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous James 3.18 The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace Gal. 6.8 He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit â—â—ap life everlasting Rom. 8.13 If by the Spirit ye mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live 16. Promises to them that love God Rom. 8.28 All things work together for good to them that love God 1 Cor. 2.9 Eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor hath it entred into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him James 1.12 He shall receive the Crown of life which God hath promised to them that love him James 2.5 Rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which God hath promised to them that love him John 14.21 He that loveth me shall
be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest my self to him Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me John 14.15 If ye love me keep my Commandments and I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever John 16.27 The Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me and believed 17. Promises to them that love the godly and that are merciful and do the works of love John 13.35 By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye have love one to another Gal. 5.6 13 22. In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but faith which worketh by love By love serve one another for all the Law is fulfilled in one word in this Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self The fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness Against such there is no Law Heb. 6.10 God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love 1 John 3.14 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren 18. My little children lâ—t us not love in word nor tongue but in deed and in truth And hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him 1 John 4.7 Beloved let us love one another for love is of God and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God v. 16. God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him v. 12. If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us 2 Cor. 9.7 God loveth a chearful giver v. 6. He that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully Mat. 5.7 Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy Matth. 10.41 42. He that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous mans reward And whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a Disciple verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward Matth. 25.34 40 46. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom Verily I say unto you in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me The righteous shall go into life eternal Heb. 13.16 But to do good and to communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased Phil. 4.17 I desire fruit which may abound to your account 2 Cor. 9.9 As it is written He hath dispersed abroad he hath given to the poor his righteousness remaineth for ever 18. Promises to the poor and needy Christians Matth. 6.30 32 33. If God so clothe the grass of the field which to day is and to morrow is cast into the Oven 〈◊〉 he not much more clothe 〈◊〉 O ye of little faith Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you Heb. 13.5 Let your conversations be without covetousness and be content with such things as ye have for he hath said I will never fail thee nor forsake thee James 2.5 Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom Psal 34.10 They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing Psal 23.1 The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want Psal 4.19 My God shall supply all your need Phil. 4.11 12 13 I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content 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 abound and to suffer need Psal 9.18 The needy shall not alway be forgotten the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever 19. Promises to the oppressed and wronged Christian Psal 12.5 6 7. For the oppression of the poor and for the sighing of the needy now will I arise saith the Lord I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him Thou shalt keep them O Lord thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever Psal 35.10 All my bones shall say Lord who is like unto thee which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him yea the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him Psal 40.17 But I am poor and needy yet the Lord thinketh on me thou art my helper and deliverer Psal 42.2 4 12 13. He shall judge thy people with righteousness and thy poor with judgement He shall judge the poor of the people he shall save the children of the needy and shall break in pieces the oppressor For he shall deliver the needy when he cryeth the poor also and him that hath no helper He shall spare the poor and needy and shall save the souls of the needy He shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence and precious â—â—all their blood be in his sight Psal 113.7 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill See Isa 25.3 4 5. 14.30 Zech. 9.8 Isa 51.13 Eccles 5.8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor and violent perverting of judgement and justice in a Province marvel not at the matter for he that is higher than the highest regardeth and there be higher than they 20. Promises to the persecuted who suffer for righteousness Matth. 5.10 11 12. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you Matth. 10.28 29 30 31 32. Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul Are not two Sparrows sold for a farthing and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father But the very hairs of your head are all numbered Fear you not therefore ye are of more value than many Sparrows Whosoever shall confess me before men him will I confess also before my Father which is in Heaven v. 39. He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it Matth. 19.29 And every one that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my Names sake shall receive an hundred-fold and shall inherit everlasting life 2 Thes 1.4 5 6. Your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations which ye suffer is a manifest token of the righteous judgement of God that ye may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God for which ye
true Believer should come very near such a state of death common reason and the due care of his own soul obligeth him to be suspicious of himself and to fear the worst till he have made sure of better Heb. 6. 3.10 Heb. 4.1 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 10. John 15.2 7 8 c. Direct 14. Let not the perswasion that you are justified make you more secure and bold infinning but more to hate it as contrary to the ends of Justification and to the love which freely justified you It is a great mark of difference between true assurance and blind presumption that the one maketh men hate sin more and more carefully to avoid it and the other causeth men to sin with less reluctancy and remorse because with less feat Direct 15. When the abuse of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone and not by Works doth pervert your minds and lives remember that all confess that we shall be judged according to our works as the Covenant of Grace is the Law by which we shall be judged And to be judged is to be justified or condemned I need not recite all those Scriptures to you that say that we shall be judged and shall receive according to what we have done in the body whether it be good or evil And this is all that we desire you to believe and live accordingly Direct 16. Remember still that Faith in Christ is but a means to raise us to the Love of God and that perfect Holiness is higher and more excellent than the pardon of sin And therefore desire faith and use it for the kindling of love and pardon of sin to endear you to God and that you may do so no more And do not sin that you may have the more to be pardoned The end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned Rom. 6.1 2. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid How shall they that are dead to sin live any longer therein See Titus 3.5 6 7. Rom. 5.1 4 5 6. Rom. 8.1 4 9 Gal. 4.6 5.24 26. So much for those practical Directions which are needfull for them that love not Controversie CHAP. VIII The pernicious or dangerous Errours detected which hinder the work of Faith about our Justification and the contrary Truths asserted THere is so much dust and controversie raised here to blind the eyes of the weak and to hinder the life of Faith and so much poison served up under the name of Justification and Free Grace that I should be unfaithful if I should not discover it either through fear of offending the guilty or of wearying them that had rather venture upon deceit than upon controversie And we are now so fortified against the Popish and Secinian extreams and those whom I am now directing to live by Faith are so settled against them that I think it more necessary having not leisure for both and having done it heretofore in my Confession to open at this time the method of false doctrine on the other extream which for the most part is it which constituteth Antinomianism though some of them are maintained by others And I will first name each errour and then with it the contrary truth Errour 1. Christs suffering was caused by the sins of none as the assumed meritorious cause or as they usually say as imputed to him or lying on him save only of the Elect that shall be saved Contr. The sins of fallen mankind in general except those rejections of Grace whose pardon is not offered in the conditional Covenant did lye on Christ as the assumed cause of his sufferings See John 1.29 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. John 3.16 17 18 19. Heb. 2.9 1 Tim. 2.4 5 6. 1 John 2.2 1 Tim. 4.10 2 Pet. 2.2 See Paraeus in his Irenicon Twisse vind alibi passim saying as much and Amyrald Davenant Dallaeus Testarduâ—Vsher c. proving it Errour 2. Christ did both perfectly obey and also make satisfaction for sin by suffering in the person of all the Elect in the sense of the Law or Gods account so that his Righteousness of obedience and perfect holiness and his satisfaction is so imputed to us as the proprietaries as if we our selves had done it and suffered it not by an after donation in the effects but by this strict imputation in it self Contr. The contrary Truth is at large opened before and in my confession Christs satisfaction and the merit of his whole obedience is as effectual for our pardon justification and salvation as if Believers thâ—mselves had performed it and it is imputed to them in that it was done for their sakes and suffered in their stead and the fruits of it by a free Covenant or donation given them But 1. God is not mistaken to judge that we obeyed or suffered when we did not 2. God is no lyar to say we did it when he knoweth that we did it not 3. If we were not the actors and sufferers it is not possible that we should be made the natural subjects of the Accidents of anothers body by any putation estimation or mis-judging whatsoever no nor by any donation neither It is a contradiction and therefore an impossibility that the same individual Actions and Passions of which Christs humane nature was the agent and subject so many hundred years ago and have themselves now no existence should in themselves I say in themselves be made yours now and you be the subject of the same accidents 4. Therefore they can no otherwise be given to us but 1. By a true estimation of the reasons why Christ underwent them viz. for our sakes as aforesaid 2. And by a donation of the effects or fruits of them viz. pardoning and justifying and saving us by them on the terms chosen by the Donor himself and put into his Testament or Covenant as certainly but not in the same manner as if we had done and suffered them our selves 5. If Christ had suffered in our person reputatively in all respects his sufferings would not have redeemed us Because we are finite worms and our suffering for so short a time would not have been accepted instead of Hell sufferings But the person of the Mediator made them valuable 6. God never made any such Covenant with us that he will justifie us and use us just as he would have done if we had our selves perfectly obeyed and satisfied They that take on them to shew such a Promise must see that no wise man examine it 7. God hath both by his Covenant and his Works ever since confuted that opinion and hath not dealt with us as he would have done if we had been the reputed doers and sufferers of it all our selves For he hath made conveyance of the Benefits by a pardoning and justifying Law or Promise and he giveth us additional pardon of renewed sins as we act them and he addeth threatnings in his Law or
the consideration of final despisers of his Antecedent Love But of that Antecedent Love it self which he hath shewed to lost mankind in Christ And note also that I do not deny but that Love of God in some men may be true where their own presumption that God hath elected them and loved them above others before they had any proof of it was an additional motive But this is mans way and not Gods Errour 43. That trusting to any thing save God and Jesus Christ for our salvation is sin and damnable Contr. Confusion cheateth and choaketh mens understanding In a word to trust to any thing but God and Christ and the holy Spirit for any of that which is the proper part of God of Christ of the Spirit is sin and damnable But to trust to any thing or person for that which is but his own part is but our duty And he that prayeth and readeth and heareth and endeavoureth and looketh to be never the better by them nor trusteth them for their proper part will be both heartless and formal in his work And I have shewed before that the Scripture the Promise the Apostles the Minister and every Christian and honest man hath a certain trust due to them for that which is their part even in order to our salvation I may trust only to the skill of the Physician and yet trust his Apothecary and the Boy that carryeth the Medicine for their part Errour 44. That it is sinful and contrary to free grace to look at any thing in our selves or our own inherent righteousness as the evidence of our Justification Contr. Then no man can know his Justification at all The Spirit of Holiness and Adoption in our selves is our earnest of salvation and the witness that we are Gods children and the pledge of Gods love as is proved before This is Gods seal as God knoweth who are his so he that will know it himself must depart from iniquity when he nameth Christ If God sanctifie none but those whom he justifieth then may the sanctified know that they are justified Hath God delivered in Scripture so many signs or characters of the justified in vain Object The witness of the Spirit only can assure us Ans You know not what the witness of the Spirit is or else you would know that it is the Spirit making us holy and possessing us with a filial love of God and with a desire to please him and a dependance on him c. which is the witness even by way of an inherent evidence and helping us to perceive that evidence and take comfort in it As a childlike love and a pleasing obedience and dependance with a likeness to the Fâ—ther is a witness that is an evidence which is your child Errour 45. That it is sinful to perswade wicked men to pray for Justification or any grace or to do any thing for it seeing their prayers and doings are abominable to God and cannot please him Contr. Then it is sinful to perswade a wicked man from his wickedness Praying and obeying is departing from wickedness He that prayeth to be sanctified indeed is repenting and turning from his sin to God We never exhort wicked men to pray with the tongue without the desire of the heart Desire is the soul of prayer and words are but the body We perswade them not to dissemble But as Peter did Simon Acts 8. Repent and pray for forgiveness And if we may not exhort them to good desires and to excite and express the best desires they have we may not exhort them to conversion Isa 55.6 10. Seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is neer Let the wicked forsake his way c. You see there that praying is a repenting act and when we exhort them to pray we exhort them to repent and seek God Object But they have no ability to do it Ans Thus the Devil would excuse sinners and accuse God Thus you may put by all Gods commands and say God should not have commanded them to repent believe love him obey him nor love one another nor forbear their sins for they have no ability to do it But they have their natural faculties or powers and they have common grace and Gods way of giving them special grace is by meeting them in the use of his appointed means and not by meeting them in an Ale-house or in sinful courses However a soul may be met with in his persecuting and God may be found of them that sought him not yet that is not his usual nor his appointed way Can any man of reason dream that it is not the duty of a wicked man to use any means for the obtaining of grace or to be better nor to do any thing towards his own recovery and salvation Nature and Scripture teach men as soon as they see their sin and misery to say What must I do to be saved As the reâ—â—nting Jews and Paul and the Jaylor 〈◊〉 Acts 2.37 Acts 8. 16. The prayers of a wicked man as wicked are abominable that 〈◊〉 â—oth his wicked prayers and his praying to quiet and sâ—rengthen himself in his wickedness or praying with the tongue without the heart The prayers which come from a common faith and common good desires are better than none but have no promise of Justification But the wicked must be exhorted both to this and more even to repent desire and pray sincerely Errour 46. It is sinful and against free grace to think that any works or actions of our own are rewardable or to say that they are meritorious though it be nothing but rewardableness that is meant by it Contr. The Papists have so much abused the word merit by many dangerous opâ—nions about it that it is now become more unmeet to be used by us than it was in ancient times when the Doctors and Churches even Austin himself did commonly use it But if nothing be meant by it but rewardableness or the relation of a duty to the reward as freely promised by God as many Papists themselves understand it and the ancient Fathers generally did he that will charge a man with errour in doctrine for the use of an inconvenient word is uncharitable and perverse especially when it is other mens abuse which hath done most to make it inconvenient The merit of the cause is a common phrase among all Lawyers when there is commutative meriting intended I have fully shewed in my Confession that the Scripture frequently useth the word worthy which is the same or full as much And a subject may be said to merit protection of his Prince and a scholar to merit praise of his Master and a child to deserve love and respect from his Parents and all this in no respect to commutative Justice wherein the Rewarder is supposed to be a gainer at all but only in governing distributive Justice which giveth every one that which by gift or any way is
7. 2 Cor. 13.14 1 John 4.16 Prop. 12. When Sanctification is mentioned as a gift consequent to Faith it is the Love of God as our Father in Christ and the Spirit of Love that is principally meant by that Sanctification Prop. 13. The pardon of sin consisteth more in forgiving the poenam damni the forfeiture and loss of Love and the Spirit of Love than in remitting any corporal pain of sense And the restoring of Love and the Spirit of Love and the perfecting hereof in Heaven is the most eminent part of our executive Pardon Justification and Adoption Thus far Sanctification is Pardon it self Rom. 8.15 16 17. Gal. 4 6. 1 Cor. 6.10 11. Titus 3.6 7. Titus 2.13 14. Rom. 6. Rom. 8.4 10 13. Prop. 14. The pardon of the pain of sense is given us as a means to the executive pardon of the pain of loss that is to put us in a capacity with doubled obligations and advantages to Love God Luke 7.47 Prop. 15. Sanctification therefore being better than all other pardon of sin as being its end we must value it more and must make it our first desire to be as holy as may be that we may need as little forgiveness as may be and in the second place only desire the pardon of that which we had rather not have committed and not make pardon our chief desire Rom. 6 7 8. throughout Gal. 5.17 to the end Prop. 16. Holiness is the true Morality and they that prefer the preaching and practice of Faith in Christ bâ—fore the preaching and practice of Holiness and sleight this as meer morality do prefer the means before the end and their physick before their health And they that preach or think to practise Holiness without Faith in Christ do dream of a cure without the only Physician of souls And they that preach up Morality as consisting in meer justice charity to men and temperance without the Love of God in Christ do take a branch cut off and withered for the tree Some ignorant Sectaries cry down all Preaching as meer morality which doth not frequently toss the name of Christ and Free Grace And some ungodly Preachers who never felt the work of Faith or Love to God in their own souls for want of holy experience savour not and understand not holy Preaching and therefore spend almost all their time in declaiming against some particular vices and speaking what they have learned of some vertues of sobriety justice or mercy And when they have done cover over their ungodly unbelieving course by reproaching the weaknesses of the former sort who cry down Preaching meer morality But let such know that those Ministers and Christians who justly lament their lifeless kind of Preaching do mean by morality that which you commonly call Ethicks in the Schools which leaveth out not only Faith in Christ but the Love of God and the Sanctification of the Spirit and the heavenly Glory And they do not cry down true morality but these dead branches of it which are all your morality It is not morality it self inclusively that they blame but meer morality that is so much only as Aristotles Ethicks teach as exclusive to the Christian Faith and Love And do you think with any wise men or with your own consciences long to find it a cloak to your Infidel or unholy hearts and doctrine to mistake them that blame you or to take advantage of that ignorance of others The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God the Father and the Communion of the Holy Ghost do shut up your Liturgy by way of Benediction but it is almost all shut out of your Sermons unless a few heartless customary passages And when there is nothing less in your preaching than that which is the substance of your Baptismal Covenant and Christianity and your customary Benediction you do but tell the people what kind of Christianity you have and what Benediction that is that you are neither truly Christians nor Blessed True Morality or the Christian Ethicks is the Love of God and man stirred up by the Spirit of Christ through Faith and exercised in works of Piety Justice Charity and Temperance in order to the attainment of everlasting happiness in the perfect vision and fruition of God And none but ignorant or brain-sick Sectaries will be offended for the Preaching of any of this Morality Luke 11.42 Wâ— to you Pharisees for ye tythe Mint and Rue and pass over Judgment and the Love of God These ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone CHAP. X. The Practical Directions to live by Faith a life of Holiness or Love Direct 1. TAke Jesus Christ as a Teacher sent from Heaven the best and surest revealer of God and his Will unto mankind All the Books of Philosophers are sapless and empty in comparison of the teaching of Jesus Christ they are but enquiries into the nature of the creatures and the lowest things most impertinent to our happiness or duty Or if they rise up to God it is but with dark and unpractical conjectures for the most part of them and the rest do but grope and fumble in obscurity And their learning is mostly but useless speculations and striving about words and sciences falsly so called which little tend to godly edifying It is Christ who is made wisdom to us as being himself the wisdom of God If you knew but where to hear an Angel you would all prefer him before Aristotle or Plato or Cartesius or Gassendus how much more the Son himself He is the true Light to lighten every man that will not serve the Prince of darkness Christians were first called Christs Disciples and therefore to learn of him the true knowledge of God is the work of every true Believer John 17. â— Acts 3.23 John 8.43 47. 10.3 27. 12.47 14.24 Matth. 17.5 Direct 2. Remember that Christs way of Teaching is 1 By his Word 2. His Ministers 3. And his Spirit conjunct and the place for his Disciples is in his Church 1. His Gospel written is his Book which must be taught us 2. His Ministers office is to teach it us 3. His Spirit is inwardly to illuminate us that we may understand it And he that will despise or neglect either the Scripture Ministry or Spirit is never like to learn of Christ Direct 3. Look on the Lord Jesus and the work of mans Redemption by him as the great designed Revelation of the Fathers Love and Goodness even as the fabrick of the world is set up to be the Glass or Revelation eminently of his Greatness Therefore as you chuse your Book for the sake of the Science or subject which you would learn so let this be the designed studied constant use which you make of Christ to see and admire in him the Fathers Love When you read your Grammar if one ask you why you will say it is to learn the language which it teacheth and
he that readeth Law-books or Philosophy or Medicine it is to learn Law Philosophy or Physick so whenever you read the Gospel meditate on Christ or hear his Word if you are askt why you do it be able to say I do it to learn the Love of God which is no where else in the world to be learnt so well No wonder if Hypocrites have learned to mortifie Scripture Sermons Prayers and all other means of grace yea all the world which should teach them God and to learn the letters and not the sense But it is most pittiful that they should thus mortifie Christ himself to them and should gaze on the glass and never take much notice of the face even of the Love of God which he is set up to declare Direct 4. Therefore congest all the great discoveries of this Love and set them all together in order and make them your daily study and abhor all doctrines or suggestions from men or devils which tend to disgrace diminish or hide this revealed Love of God in Christ Think of the grand design it self the reconciling and saving of lost mankind Think of the gracious nature of Christ of his wonderful condescention in his incarnation in his life and doctrine in his sufferings and death in his miracles and gifts Think of his merciful Covenant and Promises of all his benefits given to his Church and all the priviledges of his Saints of pardon and peace of his Spirit of Holiness of preservation and provision of resurrection and justification and of the life of glory which we shall live for ever And if the Faith which looketh on all these cannot yet warm your hearts with love nor engage them in thankful obedience to your Redeemer certainly it is no true and lively Faith But you must not think narrowly and seldom of these mercies not hearken to the Devil or the doctrine of any mistaken Teachers that would represent Gods Love as vailed or ecclipsed or shew you nothing but wrath and flames That which Christ principally came to reveal the Devil principally striveth to conceal even the Love of God to sinners that so that which Christ principally came to work in us the Devil might principally labour to destroy and that is our love to him that hath so loved us Direct 5. Take heed of all the Antinomian Doctrines before recited which to extol the empty Name and Image of Free Grace do destroy the true principles and motives of holiness and obedience Direct 6. Exercise your Faith upon all the holy Scriptures Precepts Promises and Threatnings and not on one of them alone For when God hath appointed all conjunctly for this work you are unlike to have his blessing or the effect if you will lay by most of his remedies Direct 7. Take not that for Holiness and Good Works which is no such thing but either mans inventions or some common gifts of God It greatly deludeth the world to take up a wrong description or character of Holiness in their minds As 1. The Papists take it for Holiness to be very observant in their adoration of the supposed transubstantiated Host to use their reliques pilgrimages crossings prayers to Saints and Angels anointings Candles Images observation of meats and daies penance auricular confession praying by numbers and hours on their beads c. They think their idle ceremonies are holiness and that their hurtful austerities and self-afflictings by rising in the night when they might pray as long before they go to bed and by whipping themselves to be very meritorious parts of Religion And their vows of renouncing marriage and propriety and of absolute obedience to be a state of perfection 2. Others think that Holiness consisteth much in being rebaptized and in censuring the Parish-Churches and Ministers as Null and in withdrawing from their communion and in avoiding forms of prayer c. 3. And others or the same think that more of it consisteth in the gifts of utterance in praying and preaching than indeed it doth and that those only are godly that can pray without book in their families or at other times and that are most in private meetings and none but they 4. And some think that the greatest parts of Godliness are the spirit of bondage to fear and the shedding of tears for sin or finding that they were under terrour before they had any spiritual peace and comfort or being able to tell at what Sermon or time or in what order and by what means they were converted It is of exceeding great consequence to have a right apprehension of the Nature of Holiness and to escape all false conceits thereof But I shall not now stand further to describe it because I have done it in many Books especially in my Reasons of the Christian Religion and in my A Saint or a Bruit and in a Treatise only of the subject called The character of a sound Christian Direct 8. Let all Gods Attributes be orderly and deeply printed in your minds as I have directed in my book called The Divine Life For it is that which must most immediately form his Image on you To know God in Christ is life eternal John 17.3 Direct 9. Never separate reward from duty but in every religious or obedient action still see it as connext with Heaven The means is no means but for the end and must never be used but with special respect unto the end Remember in reading hearing praying meditating in the duties of your callings and relations and in all acts of charity and obedience that All this is for Heaven It will make you mend your pace if you think believingly whither you are going Heb. 11. Direct 10. Yet watch most carefully against all proud self-esteeming thoughts of proper merit as obliging God or as if you were better than indeed you are For Pride is the most pernicious vermine that can breed in gifts or in good works And the better you are indeed the more humble you will be and apt to think others better than your self Direct 11. So also in every temptation to sin let Faith see Heaven open and take the temptation in its proper sense q. d. Take this pleasure instead of God sell thy part in Heaven for this preferment or commodity cast away thy soul for this sensual delight This is the true meaning of every temptation to sin and only Faith can understand it The Devil easily prevaileth when Heaven is forgotten and out of sight and pleasure commodity credit and preferment seem a great matter and can do much till Heaven be set in the ballance against them and there they are nothing and can do nothing Phil. 3.7 8 9. Heb. 12.1 2 3. 2 Cor. 4.16 17. Direct 12. Let Faith also see God alwaies present Men dare do any thing when they think they are behind his back even truants and eye-servants will do well under the Masters eye Faith seeing him that is invisible Heb. 11. is it that sanctifieth heart and life As
this Trinity also of Relations towards Man 1. Their Owner 2. Their Ruler 3. Their Benefactor The Father also as the first principle of Redemption acquiring a second title besides the first by Creation to all these and towards God Christ continueth the Relation of a heavenly Priest 30. In order to the works of these Relations for the future we must consider of Christs exaltation 1. Of his Justification and Resurrection 2. Of his Ascension and Glorification And 3. Of the delivering of All Power and All Things into his hands 31. The work of Redemption thus fundamentally wrought doth not of it self renew mans nature and therefore putteth no Law of Nature into us of it self as the Creation did And therefore we must next proceed to Christs Administration of this office according to these Relations which is 1. By Legislation or Donation enacting the New Covenant where this last and perfect edition of it is to be explained the Preceptive the Promisory and the Penal parts with its effects and its differences from the former Edition and from the Law of Nature and of Works 32. And 2. By the promulgation or publication of this Covenant or Gospel to the world by calling special Officers for that work and giving them their commission and promising them his Spirit his Protection and their Reward 33. And here we come to the special work of the Holy Ghost who is 1. To be known in his Essence and Person as the third in Trinity and the eternal Love of God 2. And as he is the grand Advocate or Agent of Christ in the world where his works are to be considered 1. Preparatory on and by Christ himself 2. Administratory 1. Extraordinary on the Apostles and their helpers 1. Being in them a spirit of extraordinary Power by gifts and miracles 2. Of extraordinary Wisdom and Infallibility as far as their commission-work required 3. And of extraordinary Love and Holiness 2. By the Apostles 1. Extraordinarily convincing and bringing in the world 2. Settling all Church-Doctrines Officers and Orders which Christ had left unsettled bringing all things to their remembrance which Christ had taught and commanded them and guiding them in the rest 3. Recording all this for posterity in the holy Scriptures 2. His Ordinary Agency 1. On Ministers 2. By sanctification on all true Believers is after to be opened 34. And here is to be considered the Nature of Christianity in fieri Faith and Repentance in our three great Relations to our Redeemer as we are his Own his Disciples and Subjects and his Beneficiaries with all the special benefits of these Relations as antecedent to our duty and then all our duty in them as commanded And then the benefits after to be expected as in promise only 35. Next must distinctly be considered the preaching and converting and baptizing part of the ministerial Office 1. As in the Apostles 2. And in their successors to the end with the nature of Baptism and the part of Christ and of the Minister and of the baptized in that Covenant 36. And then the description of the universal Church which the baptized constitute 37. Next is to be described the state of Christians after Baptism 1. Relative 1. In Pardon Reconciliation Justification 2. Adoption 2. Physical in the Spirit of Sanctification 38. Where is to be opened 1. The first sanctifying work of the Spirit 2. It s after-helps and their conditions 3. All the duties of Holiness primitive and medicinal towards God our selves and others 39. Our special duties in secret reading meditation prayer c. 40. Our duties in Family Relations and Callings 41. Our duties in Church Relations where is to be described the nature of particular Churches their work and worship their ministry and their members with the duties of each 42. Our duties in our Civil Relations 43. What temptations are against us as be to be overcome 44. Next is to be considered the state of Christians and Societies in the world How far all these duties are performed and what are their weaknesses and sins 45. And what are the punishments which God useth in this life 46. And what Christians must do for pardon and reparation after falls and to be delivered from those punishments 47. Of Death and the change which it maketh and of our special preparation for it 48. Of the coming of Christ and the Judgement of the great day 49. Of the punishment of the wicked impenitent in Hell 50. And of the blessedness of the Saints in Heaven and the everlasting Kingdom These are the Heads and this is the Method of true Divinity and the order in which it should lye in the understanding of him that will be compleat in knowledge II. And as this is the Intellectual Order of knowledge so the order which all things must lye in at our hearts and wills is much more necessary to be observed 1. That nothing but GOD be loved as the infinite simple good totally with all the heart and finally for himself And that nothing at all be loved with any Love which is not purely subordinate to the Love of God or which causeth us to love him ever the less 2. That the blessed person of our Mediatour as in the Humane Nature glorified be loved above all creatures next to God Because there is most of the Divines Perfections appearing in him 3. That the heavenly Church or Society of Angels and Saints be loved next to Jesus Christ as being next in excellence 4. That the Vniversal Church on earth be loved next to the perfect Church in Heaven 5. That particular Churches and Kingdoms be next loved and where ever there is more of Gods Interest and Image than in our selves that our Love be more there than on our selves 6. That we next love our selves with that peculiar kind of love which God hath made necessary to our duty and our happiness and end with a self-preserving watchful diligent love preferring our souls before our bodies and spiritual mercies before temporal and greater before less 7. That we love our Christian Relations with that double Love which is due to them as Christians and Relations and love all Relations according to their places with that kind of Love which is proper for them as fitting us to all the duties which we must perform to them 8. That we love all good Christians as the sanctified members of Christ with a special Love according to the measure of Gods Image appearing on them 9. That we love every visible Christian that we cannot prove hath unchristened himself by apostacy or ungodliness with the special Love also belonging to true Christians because he appeareth such to us But yet according to the measure of that appearance as being more confident of some and more doubtful of others 10. That we love our intimate suitable friends that are godly with a double Love as godly and as friends 11. That we love Neighbours and civil Relations with a Love which is suitable to
It foreseeth also the day of Judgment and teacheth us to use our prosperity and wealth as we desire to hear of it in the day of our accounts Faith is a provident and a vigilant grace and useth to ask when we have any thing in may possession which way I make the best advantage of it for my soul which way will be most comfortable to me in my last review how shall I wish that I had used my time my wealth my power when time is at an end and all these transitory things are vanished 6. And Faith doth so absolutely devote and subject the soul to God that it will suffer us to do nothing so far as it prevaileth but what is for him and by his consent It telleth us that we are not our own but his and that we have nothing but what we have received and that we must be just in giving God his own and therefore it first asketh which way may I best serve and honour God with all that he hath given me Not only with my substance and the first fruits of mine increase but with all 1 Cor. 10.31 When Love and devotion hath delivered up our selves entirely to God it keeps nothing back but delivereth him all things with our selves even as Christ with himself doth give us all things Rom. 8.32 And Faith doth so much subject the soul to God that it maketh us like servants and children that use not their Masters or Parents goods at their own pleasure but ask him first how he would have us use them Lord what wouldst thou have me to do is one of the first words of a converted soul Acts 9.6 In a word Faith writeth out that charge upon the heart 1 John 2.15 Love not the world nor the things that are in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and pride of life For if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him Ye cannot serve God and Mammon But on this subject Mr. Alleine hath said so much in his excellent Book of the Victory of Faith over the world that I shall at this time say no more The Directions which I would give you in general for preservation from the danger of prosperity by Faith are these that follow Direct 1. Remember still that the common cause of mens damnation is their Love of this world more than God and Heaven and that the world cannot undo you any other way but by tempting you to over-love it and to undervalue higher things And therefore that is the most dangerous condition which maketh the world seem most pleasing and most lovely to us And can you believe this and yet be so eager to be humoured and to have all things fitted to your pleasure and desires Mark here what a task Faith hath and mark what the work of self-denyal is The worldling must be pleased the Believer must be saved The worldling must have his flesh and fancy gratified the Believer must have Heaven secured and God obeyed Men sell not their souls for sorrow but for mirth They forsake not Heaven for poverty but for riches they turn not away from God for the love of sufferings and dishonour but for the love of pleasure preferments dignities and estimation in the world And is that state better and more desirable for which all that perish turn from God and fell their souls and are befooled and undone for ever Or that which no man ever sinned for nor forsook God for or was undone for Read over this question once and again and mark what answer your hearts give to it if you would know whether you live by sense or faith And mark what contrary answers the flesh and faith will give to it when it comes to practice I say though many sin in poverty and in sufferings and in disgrace yea and by occasion of them and by their temptations yet no man ever sinned for them They are none of the bait that straled away the heart from God Set deep upon your heart the sense of the danger of a prosperous state and sear and vigilancy will help to save you Direct 2. Imprint upon your memory the characters of this deadly sin of worldliness that so you may not perish by it whilst you dream that you are free from it but may alwâ—ies see how far it doth prevail Here therefore to help you I will set before you the characters of this sin and I will but briefly name them lest I be tedious because they are many 1. The great mark of damning worldliness is when God and Heaven are not loved and preferred before the pleasures and profits and honours of the world 2. Another is when the world is esteemed and used more for the service and pleasure of the flesh than to honour God and to do good with and to further our salvation When men desire great places and riches more to please their appetites and carnal minds with than to benefit others or to serve the Lord with when they are not rich to God but to themselves Luke 12.20 21. 3. It is a mark of some degree of worldliness to desire a greater measure of riches or honour than our spiritual work and ends and benefit do require For when we are convinced that less is as good or better to our highest ends and yet we would have more it is a sign that the rest is desired for the flesh Rom. 13.14 8.8 9 10 13. 4. When our desires after worldly things are too eager and violent when we must needs have them and cannot be without them 1 Tim. 6.9 5. When our contrivances for the world are too solâ—icitous and our cares for it take up an undue proportion of our time Mat. 6.24 25. to the end 6. When we are impatient under want dishonour or disappointments and live in trouble and discontent if we want much or have not our wills 7. When the thoughts of the world are proportionably so many more than our thoughts of Heaven and our salvation that they keep us in the neglect of the duty of Meditation and keep empty our minds of holy things Mat. 6.21 8. When it turneth our talk all towards the world or taketh up our freest and our sweetest and most serious words and leaveth us to the use of seldom dull or formal or affected words about the things which should profit the soul and glorifie our great Creator 9. When the world incroacheth upon Gods part in our families and thrusts out prayer or the reading of the Scriptures or the due instruction of children or servants when it cometh in upon the Lords day when it is intruding in Gods Worship and at Sermon or Prayer our thoughts are more pleasingly running out after some worldly thing than kept in attendance upon God Ezek. 33 31. 10. When worldly prosperity is so sweet to you that it can keep you quiet under the guilt of wilful sin and in the midst of all the
the Air and compass the Earth and tempt the wicked and work in the children of disobedience Ephes 2.1 2. Job 1. 2 Tim. 2.26 And that Satan is called the God and Prince of this world Joh. 12.31 14.30 16.11 2 Cor. 4.4 Ephes 6.12 But if it be not the place of final execution it is the place where they are kept in prison till the great Assizes and where they are reserved in chains of darkness to the Judgment of the great day and where they are tormented before the time 2 Pet. 2.4 Jude 6. Matth. 8.29 Look then from this Dungeon to the glorious incomprehensible mansions of the holy ones and judge by them and not by this prison of the goodness and infinite benignity of God And if he will give so many obstinate despisers of his grace a place with those Devils that did seduce and rule them think not God to be therefore unmerciful but behold his mercy in the innumerable vessels of honour and mercy that shall possess the higher mansions for ever CHAP. XXV How to live by Faith in the love of one another against Self-love Direct 1. LEt Faith first employ you in the knowledge of God and when you know him who is Love it self you will best learn of him to love You will see that that is best which is likest unto God and that is worst which is most unlike him And when you consider how universally though variously he loveth his creatures and how he expresseth it and how he loveth benevolently because he is good and loveth complacentially because also the thing is good which he loveth you will learn the art of love from God Rom. 9.13 Deut. 4.37 7.8 23.5 33.3 1 John 3.16 17. 4.7 9 11 12 19 20 21. Direct 2. Study Jesus Christ aright and you will also learn to love of him There you will see Self-denying Love which stooped to earth to reproach to sufferings to labours to death and spared not life or any thing to do good It is the chief Lesson which you go to School to Christ to learn And it is as proper to go to him to learn to love as it is to go to the Sun for light Rom. 5.8 John 13.34 1 Thes 4.9 John 11.36.5 13.1 15.9 Ephes 5.2 25. John 15.12 Direct 3. Know God in his Works and Image and then you will see him in his natural Image in all men as rational and in his moral Image in all his Saints and then you will see what to love and why He that cannot see God in a glass in this world cannot see him at all and cannot love him Remember that it is in his servants and creatures that he exposeth himself to be seen and known and loved 1 Joh. 2.10 3.10 14. 4.7 8 20 21. 5.1 Matth. 25.40 Direct 4. Abhor that proud malignant censoriousness which is apt to make the worst of others and to deny and extenuate and overlook Gods graces in them as the Devil did by Job and which can see no goodness in them that are not eminently good For this is but the Devils artifice to kill mens love to one another Though he pretend the honour of Godliness and the hatred of sin when he telleth you such an one is an Hypocrite and such an one hath nothing but a form and no power of Godliness I can see nothing of God in him alas they are poor carnal people all is but to destroy your Love And thus he mightily prospereth in the malignant spirit of separation by which he can make you unchurch whole Churches and unchristen whole Towns and Parishes and all because that you that are strangers to them and see not their godliness or hear of nothing eminent in them But the world of dividers will take no warning any more than the world of the prophane Satan doth deceive them all Direct 5. Abhor therefore the sin of backbiting and evil-speaking and when you hear a malignant censurer thus unchristen and unchurch men without proof behind their backs if gentler reproofs will not serve the turn frown them away and say Get thee behind me Satan the accuser of the brethren and the spirit of hatred maketh it his work in the world to destroy mens love to one another and he hath no such way to do it as by making them seem unlovely to one another And he that perswadeth me that my neighbour is not good perswadeth me that he is not lovely and so perswadeth me from loving him Prov. 25.23 Rom. 1.30 Psal 15.3 2 Cor. 12.20 Rom. 14.3 4 10 13. James 4.11 12. Matth. 7.1 2. 1 Cor. 4.5 Direct 6. Above all seek to mortifie selfishness which is the great enemy of love to God and man A selfish man can faithfully love none but himself for he loveth all others but for himself His own opinions interests and ends are the disposers of his Love Therefore he never heartily loveth his enemy no nor the best that do not honour him but seem to slight him If any should neglect him or speak hardly of him or do him any real or seeming wrong or be of another side against his party or his cause no censures are too sharp nor no love too little for such a one And yet these that can love none heartily but themselves will find that they had no greater enemies than themselves and that Hell and Earth did not so much as themselves against them Direct 7. Subject your selves truly to Gods authority and his commands will further Love For it is the summ of them all and the fulfilling of his Law both old and new Gal. 5.14 Rom. 13.8 9 10. John 13.34 15.12 17. Matth. 12.30 32 33. Direct 8. Remember that Love is the bond and life and interest of the Church and of the world Without Love the world would have neither unity peace or safety What were a family without it Were it not for Love men that were not kept fettered in Jayles or Bedlams would be as Robbers or Wolves or mad Dogs to one another Were it not for Love the Church would be crumbled into malicious Sects that would spend their time in prating and militating against each other and preach and talk down Love to one another and would call this devilish work the preaching of the Gospel or the worshipping of God while they blaspheme him by offering him a sacrifice of hatred and reviling as they do that offer him a sacrifice of mans blood Ephes 4.15 16. But speaking the truth in Love you may grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ From whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body to the edifying of it self in Love Yea their own Sects would turn to dust and atoms if Love which is there confined did not soder them together when it is dead in
and not to our own commodity in the world 2. No man can deny this principle but by setting up natural self-love or appetite and making the rational stoop to that which would infer as well that we may love our selves better than God himself and that our sense is nobler than our reason and must rule it 3. We find our own reason tell us much more of our duty in this than our corrupted wills do follow The best way therefore to discern the truth is to treat with reason alone and leave out the will till we have dispatcht with reason And you will find that the common light of nature justifieth this Law of God 1. He that would not confess that it is better he had no being than that there were no God or no world besides him is a monster of selfishness And if a man say never so much I cannot do so yet while he confesseth that this should be his desire it sufficeth to the decision of our present case 2. He that will not confess that it is better that he himself should die than all the Church of Christ or the whole Kingdom die is unreasonably selfish in the eyes of all impartial men The gallant Romans and Athenians had learnt it as one of their plainest greatest Lessons to prefer their Country before their lives And is not that to love their Countryes better than themselves 3. For the same reason many of them saw that it was the duty of a good subject or a gallant souldier to save the life of his King or General with the loss of his own Because their lives were of more publick utility And the ground of all this was these natural verities The best should be best loved Goodness must be measured by a higher rule than personal self-interest Multitudes are better than one c. 4. All men acknowledge that a man of eminent Learning Piety Wisdom and Vsefulness to the Church or World should be loved and preserved rather than a wicked sottish worthless child of our own Yea God himself requireth that Parents procure the death of their own children by publick Justice if they be obstinately wicked Deut. 21. 5. The same Reasons plainly infer that I ought rather to desire the life of a much more worthy useful instrument for the Church and State than my own and so to love a better man better than my self if I be acquainted sufficiently with his goodness And if this be all so sure and plain hence observe 1. How much humane nature is corrupted Alas how rare is this equal Love 2. How few true Christians are and how defective and imperfect grace is in the best Alas how strange are many Christians to the extent of this duty and how far are we all from practising it in any eminent degree 3. Wherein it is that natures corruption most consisteth and what is the chief part of the nature and work of sanctifying grace and reformation 4. Whence come all the oppressions injuries persecutions frauds and cruelties on the earth For want of loving mens neighbours as themselves Otherwise how tenderly would they handle one another How easily would they pardon wrongs How patiently would they bear the dissent of honest upright Christians who cannot force their judgments to be of other mens mould and size How apt would men be to suspect their own understandings of weakness presumption or errour rather than to rave with the fury of the Dragon against all others who think them to be mistaken How safely and quietly might we live by them in the world if they loved their neighbours as themselves I do not say now How plentiful would men be in doing good to others I am but pleading a lower cause How seldom they would be in doing hurt But alas miserable Brittain It was in thee that one extraordinary Emperour Alexander Sevetus was betrayed and murdered who made that Christian precept his Motto and wrote it on his doors and books and goods Do as you would be done by In thee it is that Love hath been beheaded while nothing hath been more acknowledged and professed If Love be treacherous hurtful envious scandalous ensnaring and plotting for mens destruction If Love teach proud and vicious sots to take themselves for Deities and Oracles and all for Vermine that must be hunted unto death who bow not to their carnal erroneous conceits and do not with the readiest prostitute consciences serve their carnal interests and ends If Love be known by reviling those that are much better than our selves and stigmatizing the faithfullest servants of Christ with the most odious character that lyes can utter If it was Love that called Paul a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among the people and represented Christ as an enemy to Caesar and his followers as the filth and off-scouring of the earth then happy age in which we live and happy they that are possessed with the proud and factious spirit But if all be otherwise alas where be they and how few that love their neighbours or betters as themselves 5. You see here what a plague sin is to the earth and how great a punishment may I call it or rather a misery to the sinner and to the world 6. And you see how joyful and heavenly a life we should live if we did but follow Gods commands And what a felicity Love it self is to the soul 7. And you see by what measure to try mens spirits and to know who are the best among all the pretenders to goodness in the world Certainly not the most censorious contemptuous backbiters and cruel that seek to make all odious that are not for their interest But those that most abound in Love which Faith it self is given to produce Object All this is true but still we find it a thing impossible to love our neighbour equally with our selves Can you teach us how to do it Answ It is that I have been teaching you in the ten Directions before set down But it is this which I have reserved to the close that must do the work indeed and without it nothing else will do it Direct 11. Make it the work of all your lives by Faith in Christ to bring up your souls to the unfeigned Love of God and then it will be done For then you will love God above all and love God in all and love your selves and your neighbours principally for God Then Gods Image and Glory and Will will be Goodness or Amiableness in your eyes and not carnal pleasure honour or commodity And then it will be easie to you to love that most which hath most of God You will then easily see the reason of this seeming Paradox and that the contrary is most unreasonable You will then be as Timothy who had a natural Love to others as others have to themselves and who sought the things of Jesus Christ when all others even the best Ministers too much sought their own Phil. 2.20 21. You
them 2 Thes 3.7 9. For your selves know how ye ought to follow us To make our selves an example for you to follow us Phil. 3.17 Be followers together of me and mark them that so walk as ye have us for an ensample 1 Cor. 4.16 I beseech you be followers of me 1 Thes 1.6 Ye became followers of us and of the Lord So well are both examples consistent 2. The likeness of other mens cases to ours is greatly useful to our direction and encouragement If we are to travel in dangerous waies we will be glad to hear how others have sped before us and if we were to deal with a crafty deceiver we would willingly advise with others that have dealt with him If we be to learn any Trade or Artifice we would learn it of them who with best success have practised it before us If we are sick of any disease we are glad to talk with them that have had the same and have been cured of it to hear what means they used for their cure In all such cases reason teacheth us both to observe how others were affected whether their case and ours were the same what course they took and how they sped especially if they were persons known to us and the likeness of their case well known and if they were such as for wisdom and fidelity we could trust So is it in this great business of our salvation We have nothing to do but what many thousands have done before us nothing to suffer but what they have suffered no temptation to resist but what they have been assaulted with and overcame 1 Cor. 10.13 and we want no grace no help or comfort but what they did attain And the glory which we seek and hope for they possess To look to them therefore must needs be useful to us in this our wilderness state 3. And as experience is a powerful Teacher so to be the Master of other mens experiences and so many and so wise and in such various cases and in so many ages must needs be very useful to us We that are born in the last ages of the world have the benefit of the experience of all the world that have gone before us Therefore is the Scripture written so much historically that all who are there mentioned may still be our instructors Even the first brethren that were born into the world were so plain a discovery of the nature of sin and grace and of the difference of the womans and the Serpents seed that their history is useful to all generations And Abel by his faith and sacrifice and righteousness being dead by malignant cruelty yet speaketh Heb. 11.4 He that will but soberly look back to all the worlds experience may quickly be resolved whether wisdom or folly labour or idleness godliness or ungodliness temperance or sensuality furthering the Gospel of Christ or persecuting it have sped better at the last and hath proved best to the actors upon full experience I shall therefore here give you some directions how you may believingly follow the Saints And first observe that the duty hath these parts which you must distinctly mind 1. To take them for your examples under Christ and so to fix your eyes upon them and look at them and mind them as examples must be minded 2. To improve these examples which you look upon And that is 1. For your direction in duty and for your warning against sin 2. To your encouragement and consolation Direct 1. Look after them to their end and consider 1. Whither they are gone We see nothing of them after death but the corpse which we leave in dust and darkness But Faith can attend their souls to glory and see where they now are even with Christ according to his promise John 12.26 Phil. 1.23 John 17.24 with Angels and with one another in the heavenly society the City of God 2. What they are doing And Faith can see that they are beholding God and their glorified Redeemer Matth. 5.8 Heb. 12.14 1 John 3.2 They are loving God with perfect Love 1 Cor. 12. 13.1 2 c. They are praising him with perfect alacrity and joy saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty c. Rev. 4.8 They are so far minding the state of the world as to cry How long O Lord holy and true dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth And they are waiting in white Robes till their fellow servants also and their brethren that shall be killed as they were shall be fulfilled Rev. 6.10 11. They are rejoycing when the enemies of Christ and his Church are subdued Rev. 18.20 And they shall judge the malignant Angels and the world 1 Cor. 4.2 3. And this seemeth not to be only an approbation of Christs final Judgment For 1. Judging is very often put in Scripture for governing As in the book of the Judges it is said such and such a one judged Israel that is ruled them according to the Laws of God 2. And a Kingdom and Reign is often promised to the Saints To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my Throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his Throne Rev. 3.21 Which must needs signifie some participation in power of Government and not only in splendor of Glory And so Christ expoundeth Matth. 19.28 Luke 22.30 Ye which have followed me in the regeneration shall sit on twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel And of God it is said Psal 9.4 Thou saâ—est in the Thrones judging right It is too jejune and forced an exposition of them that say this is spoken only of the power which the Apostles had in their ministration on earth And as absurd is the other that it is spoken only of Apostles Pastors and Saints and Martyrs in specie that their successors shall be Popes and Prelates and great men in the world and the Saints be uppermost after Constantines conversion As if the promise meant only to reward one man because another suffered for Christ and God had promised these great things not to the persons mentioned but to others that should be their successors yea as if that Venom then poured into the Church were all the benediction And though I know not what changes are yet to come before the final Judgment yet the Millenaries opinion who restrain all this to an earthly temporal reign of some Saints for a thousand years doth seem as unsatisfactory on many accounts It is most likely therefore that as the wicked who are now very like them must be hereafter of the same Region and Society with the Devil and his Angels Matth. 25.41 And as the godly shall be like and equal to the Angels Luke 20.36 so we shall be of the same Society with the Angels and consequently shall have their employment And as the Angels have a Ministerial Stewardship or Superintendency over men and their affairs as many Scriptures
very brief I. For the first Case before sickness cometh Direct 1. Be sure that you settle your Belief of the life to come that your Faith may not fail Direct 2. Expect Death as seriously all your life as wise Believers are obliged to do That is as men that are alwaies sure to die as men that are never sure to live a moment longer as men that are sure that life will be short and death is not far off and as foreseeing what it is to die of what eternal consequence and what will then appear to be necessary to your safe and to your comfortable change Direct 3. All your daies habituate your souls to believing sweet enlarged thoughts of the infinite Goodness and Love of God to whom you go and with whom you hope to live for ever Direct 4. Dwell in the studies of a crucified and glorified Christ who is the way the truth and life who must be your hope in life and death Ephes 3.17 18 19. Direct 5. Keep clear your evidences of your right to Christ and all his Promises by keeping grace or the heavenly nature in life activity and increase 2 Pet. 1.10 2 Cor. 13.5 John 15 1 c. 1 John 3. Direct 6. Consider often of the possession which your nature in Christ hath already of Heaven and how highly it is advanced and how near his relation is and how dear his love is to his weakest members upon earth And that as souls in Heaven have an inclination and desire to communicate their own felicity to their bodies so hath Christ as to his body the Church John 17.24 Ephes 5.25 27 c. Direct 7. Look to the Heavenly Host and those who have lived before you or with you in the flesh to make the thoughts of Heaven the more familiar to you as in the former chapter Direct 8. Improve all Afflictions yea the plague of sin it self to make you weary of this world and willing to be gone to Christ Rom. 7. Direct 9. Be much with God in Prayer Meditation and other heart-raising duties that you may not by strangeness to him be dismayed Direct 10. Live not in the guilt of any wilful sin nor in any slothful neglect of duty lest guilt breed terrour and make you fly from God your Judge But especially study to redeem your time and to do all the good you can iâ— the world and to live as totally devoted to God as conscious that you live to no carnal interest but desire to serve him with all you have and your consciences testimony of this will abundantly take off the terrours of death whatever any erroneous ones may say to the contrary for fear of being guilty of conceits of merit A fruitful life is a great preparative for death 2 Tim. 4.8 2 Cor. 1.12 c. Direct 11. Fetch from Heaven the comforts which you live upon through all your life And when you have truly learned to live more upon the comforts of believed glory than upon any pictures or hopes below then you will be able to die in and for those comforts Matth. 6.20 21. Col. 3.1 4. Phil. 3.20 21. 1 Thes 4.18 Phil. 1.21 23. Direct 12. The Knowledge and Love of God in Christ is the beginning or foretaste of Heaven John 17.3 1 Cor. 13. c. and the foretastes are excellent preparations Therefore still remember that all that you do in the world for the getting and exercising the true Knowledge and Love of God in Christ so much you do for the foretastes and best preparations for Heaven 1 Cor. 8.3 If any man love God the same is known of him with approbation and love II. In the time of sickness and near to death Direct 1. Let your first work when God seemeth to call you away be to renew a diligent search of your hearts and lives and to see lest in either of them there should be any sin which is not truly hated and repented of Though this must be done through all your lives yet with an extraordinary care and diligence when you are like to come so speedily to your tryal For it is only to Repenting Believers that the Covenant of Grace doth pardon sin And the impenitent have no right to pardon Though for ordinary failings which are forgotten and for sins which you are willing to know and remember but cannot a general Repentance will be accepted as when you pray God to shew you the sins which you see not and to forgive those which you cannot remember or find out Yet those which you know must be particularly repented of And Repentance is a remembring duty and will hardly forget any great and heinous sins which are known to be sins indeed If your Repentance be then to begin alas it is high time to begin it And though if it be sound it will be saving that is If it be such as would settle you in a truly godly life if you should recover yet you will hardly have any assurance of salvation or such comfort in it as is desirable to dying man Because you will very hardly know whether it come from true conversion and contain a Love to God and Godliness or whether it be only the fruit of fear and would come to nothing if you were restored to health But he that hath truly repented heretofore and lived in uprightness towards God and man and hath nothing to do but to discern his sincerity and to exercise a special Repentance for some late or special sins or to do that again which he hath done unfeignedly before will much more easily get the assurance and comfort of his forgiveness and salvation Direct 2. Renew your sense of the Vanity of this world Which at such a time one would think should be very easie to do When you see that you are near an end of all your pleasures and have had all except a grave to rot in that ever this world willd o for you may you not easily then see whether the godly or the worldly be the wiser and the happier man And what it is that the life of man should be spent in seeeking after Matth. 6.33 Isa 55.1 2 3. Eccles 7.3 4 5 6. Direct 3. Remember what Flesh is and what it hath been to you that you may not be too loth to lay it down Of the dust it was made and to the dust it must return Corruption is your Father and the Worm is your Mother and your Sister Job 17.14 Drought and beat consume the Snow-waters so doth the grave those which have sinned The womb shall forget him the Worm shall feed sweetly on him Job 24.20 Flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God but this mortal must put on immortality by being made a spiritual body 1 Cor. 15. And this flesh hath cost you so dear to carry it about so much care and labour to provide it food to repair that which daily vanisheth away and so many weary painful hours and so many fearful
and capacities by prayer and such distant means if they can do no more And the Religion which giveth every man so great an interest in the good of all others and engageth all men to do good to one another is evidently good it self 1 Cor. 12. Ephes 4.15 16. 29. And all this good is not destroyed but advantaged and aggravated accidentally by our sin So that where sin abounded there grace did superabound Rom. 5.15 16 17 18 19. Grace hath taken occasion by sin to be Grace indeed and to be the greater manifestation of the goodness of God and the greater obligation for gratitude to the sinner 30. Lastly All this Goodness is beautified by harmony it is all placed in a perfect order One mercy doth not keep us from another nor one grace oppose another nor one duty exclude another As it is the great declaration of Mercy and Justice wonderfully conspiring in God Mercy so used as to magnifie Justice Justice so used as to magnifie Mercy and not only so as to consist so also it worketh answerably on us It setteth not Love against filial fear not joy against necessary sorrow nor faith against repentance nor praise and thanksgiving against penitent confession of sin nor true repentance against the profitable use of the creatures nor the care of our souls against the peace and quiet of our minds nor care for our families against contentedness and trusting God nor our labour against our necessary rest nor self-denyal against the due care of our own welfare nor patience against due sensibility and lawful passion nor mercy to men against true justice nor publick and private good against each nor doth it set the duty of the Soveraign and the Subject the Master and the Servant the Pastor and the Flock nor yet their interest in any contrariety but all parts of Religion know their place and every duty even those which seem most opposite are helpful to each other and all interests are co-ordinate and all doth contribute to the good of the whole and of every part Ephes 4.2 3 15 16. And now peruse all this together but let it have more of your thoughts by far than it hath had of my words and then determine indifferently whether the Christian Religion bear not the lively Image and superscription of GOD the prime essential GOOD But all this will be more manifest when we have considered how POWER hath in the execution brought all this into effect CHAP. VI. The Image of Gods Power III. THE third part of Gods Image and superscription on the Christian Religion is his POWER And as mans own corruption lyeth more in the want of Wisdom and Goodness than of Power therefore he is less capable of discerning God in the impressions of his Wisdom and Goodness than of his Power seeing therefore he is here most capable of conviction and acknowledging the hand of God I shall open this also in the several parts in some degree 1. In the history of the Creation the Omnipotency of God is abundantly set forth which is proved true both by the agreeableness of the history to the effects and by much subsequent evidence of the Writers Veracity 2. The same may be said of Gods drowning the old world and the preserving of Noah and his family in the Ark. 3. And of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from Heaven 4. The many miracles done by Moses upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians and in the opening of the Red Sea and in the feeding of the Israelites in the wilderness and keeping their cloths from wearing for forty years and the pillar which went before them as a fire by night and a cloud by day for so long time and the darkness and thunder and trembling of the Mount at the giving of the Law with the rest of the Miracles then done not in a corner or before a few but before all the people who were perswaded to receive and obey the Law by the reason of these motives which their eyes had seen And if all this had been false if no plagues had been shewed on Egypt if no Red Sea had opened if no Pillar had gone before them if no such terrible sights and sounds at Mount Sinai had prepared them for the Law such reasons would have been so unfit to have perswaded them to obedience that they would rather with any reasonable creatures have procured scorn And to shew posterity that the history of all this was not forged or to be suspected 1. They had the Law it self then delivered in two Tables of stone to be still seen 2. They had a pot of Manna still preserved 3. They had the miracle-working Rod of Moses and Aaron kept likewise as a monument 4. They had an Ark of purpose to keep these in and that in the most inviolable place of worship 5. They had the brazâ—n Serpent till Hezekiah broke it still to be seen 6. They had the song of their deliverance at the Red Sea for their continued use 7. They had set feasts to keep the chief of all these things in remembrance They had the feast of unleavened bread which all Israel was to observe for seven daies to keep the remembrance of their passing out of Egypt in so great haste that they could not stay to knead up and make their bread but took it as in meal or unready dough They had the feast of the Passeover when every family was to eat of the Paschal Lamb and the door posts to be sprinkled with the blood to keep in remembrance the night when the Egyptians first born were destroyed and the Israelites all preserved And if these had been instituted at that time upon a pretended occasion which they knew to be untrue they would rather have derided than observed them If they had been afterwards instituted in another generation which knew not the story the beginning would have been known and the fiction of the name and institution of Moses would have been apparent to all and the institution would not have been found in the same Law which was given by Moses And it could not have been so expresly said that the Israelites did all observe these feasts and solemnities from the very time of their deliverance but in those times when the forgery began all would have known it to be false 8. And they had many other words and ceremonies among them and even in Gods Publick Worship which were all used to keep up the memory of these things 9. And they had an office of Priesthood constantly among them which saw to the execution and preservation of all these 10. And they had a form of civil Policy then established and and the Rulers were to preserve the memory of these things and the practice of this Law and to learn it themselves and govern by it so that the very form of the Common-wealth and the order of it was a commemoration hereof And the Parents were to teach and tell their children all
though we must not with Fanatical persons put first our own interpretation upon Gods works and then expound his Word by them but use his works as the fulfilling of his Word and expound his Providences by his Precepts and his Promises and Threats Direct 7. Mark well Gods inward works of Government upon the soul and you shall find it very agreeable to the Gospel There is a very great evidence of a certain Kingdom of God within us And as he is himself a Spirit so it is with the Spirit that he doth most apparently converse in the work of his moral Government in the world 1. There you shall find a Law of duty or an inward conviction of much of that obedience which you owe to God 2. There you shall find an inward mover striving with you to draw you to perform this duty 3. There you shall find the inward suggestions of an enemy labouring to draw you away from this duty and to make a godly life seem grievous to you and also to draw you to all the sins which Christ forbiddeth 4. There you shall find an inward conviction that God is your Judge and that he will call you to account for your wilful violations of the Laws of Christ 5. There you shall find an inward sentence past upon you according as you do good or evil 6. And there you may find the sorest Judgements of God inflicted which any short of Hell endure You may there find how God for sin doth first afflict the soul that is not quite forsaken with troubles and affrightments and some of the feeling of his displeasure And where that is long despised and men sin on still he useth to with hold his gracious motions and leave the sinner dull and senseless so that he can sin with sinful remorse having no heart or life to any thing that is spiritually good And if yet the sinner think not of his condition to repent he is usually so far forsaken as to be given up to the power of his most bruitish lust and to glory impudently in his shame and to hate and persecute the servants of Christ who would recover him till he hath filled up the measure of his sin and wrath be come upon him to the uttermost Ephes 4.18 19. 1 Thes 2.15 16. being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Titus 1.15 16. Besides the lesser penal withdrawings of the Spirit which Gods own servants find in themselves after some sins or neglects of grace 7. And there also you may find the Rewards of Love and faithful duty by many tastes of Gods acceptance and many comforts of his Spirit and by his owning the soul and giving out larger assistance of his Spirit and peace of conscience and entertainment in prayer and all approaches of the soul to God and sweeter forecasts of life eternal In a word if we did but note Gods dreadful Judgements on the souls of the ungodly in this age as well as we have noted our plagues and flames and if Gods servants kept as exact observations of their inward rewards and punishments and that in particulars as suited to their particular sins and duties you will see that Christ is King indeed and that there is a real Government according to his Gospel kept up in the consciences or souls of men though not so observable as the rewards and punishments at the last day Direct 8. Dwell not too much on sensual objects and let them not come too near your hearts Three things I here perswade you carefully to avoid 1. That you keep your hearts at a meet distance from all things in this world that they grow not too sweet to you nor too great in your esteem 2. That you gratifie not sense it self too much and live not in the pleasing of your taste or lust 3. That you suffer not your imaginations to run out greedily after things sensitive nor make them the too frequent objects of your thoughts You may ask perhaps what is all this to our faith why the life of faith is exercised upon things that are not seen And if you live upon the things that are seen and imprison your soul in the fetters of your concupiscence and fill your fancies with things of another nature how can you be acquainted with the life of faith Can a bird flye that hath a stone tyed to her foot Can you have a mind full of lust and of God at once Or can that mind that is used to these inordinate sensualities be fit to rellish the things that are spiritual And can it be a lover of earth and fleshly pleasures and also a Believer and lover of Heaven Direct 9. Vse your selves much to think and speak of Heaven and the invisible things of Faith Speaking of Heaven is needful both to express your thoughts and to actuate and preserve them And the often thoughts of Heaven will make the mind familiar there And familiarity will assist and encourage faith For it will much acquaint us with those reasons and inducements of faith which a few strange and distant thoughts will never reach to As he that converseth much with a learned wise or godly man will easilier believe that he is learned wise or godly than he that is a stranger to him and only now and then seeth him afar off So he that thinketh so frequently of God and Heaven till his mind hath contracted a humble acquaintance and familiarity must needs believe the truth of all that excellency which before he doubted of For doubting is the effect of ignorance And he that knoweth most here believeth best Falshood and evil cannot bear the light but the more you think of them and know them the more they are detected and ashamed But truth and goodness love the light and the better you are acquainted with them the more will your belief and love be increased Direct 10. Live not in the guilt of wilful sin For that will many waies hinder your belief 1. It will breed fear and horrour in your minds and make you wish that it were not true that there is a day of Judgement and a Hell for the ungodly and such a God such a Christ and such a life to come as the Gospel doth describe And when you take it for your interest to be an unbeliever you will hearken with desire to all that the Devil and Infidels can say And you will the more easily make your selves believe that the Gospel is not true by how much the more you desire that it should not be true 2. And you will forfeit the grace which should help you to believe both by your wilfull sin and by your unwillingness to believe For who can expect that Christ should give his grace to them who wilfully despise him and abuse it Or that he should make men believe who had rather not believe Indeed he may possibly do both these but these are not the way nor is it a thing which we can expect
contingents are known to him in their causes or in his decree or in their coexistence in eternity They can tell what Decrees he hath about Negatives as that such a man shall not have Faith given him that millions of things possible shall not be that you shall not be a plant or a beast nor any other man nor called by any other name c. And how all Gods Decrees are indeed but One and yet not only unconceivably numerous but the order of them as to priority and posteriority is to be exactly defined and defended though to the detriment of charity and peace As to sin they can tell you whether he have a real positive Decree de re eveniente or only de eventu rei or only de propriâ permissione eventus i. e. de non impediendo i. e. de non agendo whether non agere need and have a positive act of Volition or Nolition antecedent Though they know not when they hear the sound of the wind either whence it cometh or whither it goeth yet know they all the methods of the Spirit They know how God as the first-mover predetermineth the motions of all Agents natural and free and whether his influence be upon the essence or faculty or act immediately and what that influx is In a word how voluminously do they darken counsel by words without knowledge As if they had never read Gods large expostulation with Job 42 c. Deut. 29 29. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God but those things which are revealed unto us and to our children for ever that we may do all the words of this Law Even an Angel could say to Manoah Judg. 13.18 Why askest thou thus after my name seeing it is secret No man hath seen God at any time saving the only begotten Son who is in the bosome of the Father he hath declared him Joh. 1.18 And what he hath declared we may know But how much more do these men pretend to know than ever Christ declared But who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his Counsellor Rom. 11.34 Etiam vera de Deo loqui periculosum Even things that are true should be spoken of God not only with reverence but with great caution And a wise man will rather admire and adore than boldly speak what he is not certain is true and congruous Direct 6. Let all your knowledge of God be practical yea more practical than any other knowledge and let not your thoughts once use Gods Name in vain If it be a sin to use idle or unprofitable words and especially to take Gods Name in vain it cannot be faultless to have idle unprofitable thoughts of God for the thoughts are the operations of the mind it self There is no thought or knowledge which ever cometh into our minds which 1. Hath so great work to do and 2. Is so fit and powerfull to do it as the knowledge and thoughts which we have of God The vâ—ry renovation of the soul to his Image and transforming it into the Divine Nature must be wrought hereby The thoughts of his Wisdom must silence all our contradicting folly and bring our souls to an absolute submission and subjection to his Laws The knowledge of his Goodness must cause all true saving Goodness in us by possâ—ssing us with the highest love to God The knowledge of his Power must cause both our confidence and our fear And the impress of Gods Attributes must be his Image on our souls It is a common and true observation of Divines that in Scripture words of God which express his Knowledge do imply his will and affections As his knowing the way of the righteous Psal 2.6 is his approving and loving it c. And it is as true that words of our knowledge of God should all imply affection towards him It is a grievous aggravation of ungodliness to be a learned ungâ—dly man To profess to know God and deny him in works being abominable and disobedient and reprobate to every good work though as orthodox and ready in good words as others Titus 1.16 A thought of God should be able to do any thing upon the soul It should partake of the Omnipotency and perfection of the blessed Object No creature should be able to stand before him when our minds entertain any serious thoughts of him and converse with him A thought of God should annihilatâ— all the grandure and honours of the world to us and all the pleasures and treasures of the flesh and all the power of temptations what fervency in prayer what earnestness of desire what confidence of faith what hatred of sin what ardent love what transporting joy what constant patience should one serious thought of God possess the believing holy soul with If the thing known become as much one with the understanding as Plotinus and other Platonists thought or if man were so far partaker of a kind of deification as Gibieuf and other Oratorians and â—enedictus de Benedictis Barbanson and other Fanatick Fryers think surely the knowledge of God should raise us more above our sensitive desires and passions and make us a more excellent sort of persons and it should make us more like those blessed spirits who know him more than we on earth and it should be the beginning of our eternal life John 17.3 Direct 7. By Faith deliver up your selves to GOD as your Creator and your Owner and live to him as those that perceive they are absolutely his own The word GOD doth signifie both Gods essence and his three great Relations unto man and we take him not for our God if we take him not as in these Divine Relations Therefore God would have Faith to be expressed at our entrance into his Church by Baptism because a believing soul doth deliver up it self to God The first and greatest work of Faith is to enter us sincerely into the holy Covenant In which this is the first part that we take God for our Owner and resign up our selves to him without either express or implicit reserve as those that are absolutely his own And though these words are by any hypocrite quickly spoken yet when the thing is really done the very heart of sin is broken For as the Apostle saith He that is dead is freed from sin Rom. 6.7 Because a dead man hath no faculties to do evil So we may say He that is resigned to God as his absolute Owner is freed from sin because he that is not his own hath nothing which is his own and therefore hath nothing to alienate from his Owner We are not our Own we are bought with a price which is the second title of Gods propriety in us and therefore must glorifie God in body and spirit as being his 1 Cor. 6.20 And from this Relation faith will fetch abundant consolation seeing they that by consent and not only by constraint are absolutely his shall undoubtedly be loved and cared for as his Own
the first so it is the Goodness of God which must be more studied by a Believer than his Power or his Wisdom because the impress of it is more necessary to us in our lapsed state 2. They have false thoughts of Gods Goodness who make it to consist only or chiefly in a communicative inclination ad extra which we call Benignity For he was as Good from Eternity before he made any creature as he is since And his Goodness considered as essential in himself and as his own perfection is infinitely higher than the consideration of it as terminated on any Creature Man is denominated good from his adaptation to the will of God and not God chiefly from his adaptation to the commodity or will of man And they do therefore debase God and deifie his creature who make the creature the ultimate end of GOD and it self and not God the ultimate end of the creature And they might as well make the creature the Beginning also of it self and God And yet this sottish notion taketh much with many half-witted Novelists in this Age who account themselves the men of ingenuity And they have also false thoughts of the Goodness of God who think that there is nothing of communicative Benignity in it at all For all the good which God doth he doth it from the Goodness of his Nature Thou art good and doest good Psal 119.68 And his doing good is usually expressed by the phrase of being good to them The Lord is good to all Psal 145.9 Psal 25 8 86.5 Object But if communicative Benignity be natural to God as his Essential Goodness is then he must do good per modum naturae ad ultimum potentiae and then the world was from Eternity and as good as God could make it Answ 1. Those Christian Divines who do hold that the Vniverse was from Eternity and that it is as good as God can make it do not yet hold that it was its own original but an eternal emanation from God and therefore that God who is the beginning of it is the ultimate end and eternally and voluntarily though naturally and necessarily produced it for himself even for the pleasure of his will And therefore that Gods Essential Goodness as it is in it self is much higher than the same as terminated in or productive of the Universe And that no mixt bodies which do oriri interire are generated and corrupted were from eternity and consequently that this present systeme called the world which is within our sight was not from eternity But that as spring and fall doth revive the plants and end their transitory life so it hath been with these particular systemes the simpler and nobler parts of the Universe continuing the same And they held that the world is next to infinitely good and as good as it is possible to be without being God and that for God to produce another God or an infinite good is a contradiction And that all the baser and pained and miserable parts of the world are best respectively to the perfection of the whole though not best in and to themselves As every nuck and pin in a watch is necessary as well as the chief parts And that all things set together it is best that all things be as they are and will be But of this the infinite Wisdom who seeth not only some little parts but the whole Universe at one perfect view is the fittest Judge 2. But the generality of Divines do hold the contrary and say that it is natural to God to be the Alsufficient pregnant good not only able to communicate goodness but inclined to it as far as his perfection doth require but not inclined to communicate in a way of natural constant necessity as the Sun shineth but in a way of liberty when and in what degrees he pleaseth which pleasure is guided by his infinite Vnderstanding which no mortal man can comprehend and therefore must not ask any further reason of the first reason and will but stop here and be satisfied to find that it is indeed Gods Will and Reason which causeth all things when and what they are and not otherwise And that God hath not made the Universe as good in it self as by his absolute Power he could have made it But that it is best to be as it is and will be because it is most suitable to his perfect Will and Wisdom And this answer seemeth most agreeable to Gods Word And as you must see that your thoughts of Gods Goodness be not false so also that they be not diminutive and low As no knowledge is more useful and necessary to us so nothing is more wonderfully revealed by God than is his amiable Goodness For this end he sent his Son into flesh to declare his Love to the forelorn world and to call them to behold it and admire it John 1 8 9 10. 3.16 1 John 3.1 Rev. 21.3 And as Christ is the chief glass of the Fathers Love on this side Heaven so it is the chief part of the office of Faith to see Gods Love and Goodness in the face of Christ Let him not reveal his Love in vain at so dear a rate and in a way of such wonderful condescension Think of his Goodness as equal to his greatness And as you see his greatness in the frame of the world so his goodness in the wonderful work of mans Redemption and Salvation Let Faith beholding God in Christ and daily thus gazing on his goodness or rather tasting it and feasting on it be the very summ of all your Religion and your lives This is indeed to live by Faith when it worketh by that Love which is our holiness and life Direct 13. Let not Faith overlook the Books of the Creation and the wonderful demonstrations of Gods Attributes therein Even such revelations of Gods goodness and fidelity as are made in Nature or the works of Creation are sometimes in Scriptures made the objects of faith At least we who by the belief of the Scriptures do know how the worlds were made Heb. 11.2 3. must believingly study this glorious work of our great Creator All those admirations and praises of God as appearing in his works which David useth were not without the use of faith Thus faith can use the world as a sanctified thing and as a glass to see the glory of God in while sensual sinners use it against God to their own perdition and make it an enemy to God and them so contrary is the life of Faith and of Sense He hath not the heart of a man within him who is not stricken with admiration of the Power and Wisdom and Goodness of the incomprehensible Creator when he seriously looketh to the Sun and Stars to Sea and Land to the course of all things and to the wonderful variety and natures of the particular creatures And he hath not the heart of a Believer in him who doth not think O what
Psal 139.14 Direct 15. But let the chief study of Faith for the knowledge of God be of the face of Jesus Christ and the most wonderful mystery of his Incarnation and our Redemption For God is no where else so fully manifested to man in that Goodness Love and Mercy which it most concerneth us to know and the knowledge of which will be most healing and sanctifying to the soul But of this I must speak more in the chapter next following Direct 16. Let Faith make use of every mercy not only to acknowledge God therein but to have a pleasant taste and rellish of his Love For thus it is that they are all sanctified to Believers and this is the holy use of mercies Remember that as in order to Vnderstanding your eyes and ears are but the passages or inlets to your minds and if sights and sounds went no further than the senses you would be no better if not worse than beasts So also in order to Affection the taste and sense of sweetness or any other pleasure is to pass by the sense unto the heart and what should it do there but affect the heart with the Love and Goodness of the giver A beast tasteth as much of the sensitive sweetness of his food and ease as you do But it is the Believer who heartily saith How good is the Author and end of all this mercy whence is it that this cometh and whether dâ—th it tend I love the Lord because he hath heard the voice of my supplication Psal 116.1 O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness Psal 145.15 16. The eyes of all things wait on thee thou givest them their meat in due season Thou openest thy hand and satisfiest the desires of every living thing He leaveth not himself without witness in that he doth good and giveth us Rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with food and gladness Acts 14.17 The near conjunction of soul and body and the near relation of God and his mercies do tell us plainly that every pleasure which toucheth the sense should touch the heart and reach unto the soul it self and that as the creature is fitted to the sense and God is suitable to the soul so the creature should be but Gods servant to knock and cause us to open the door to himself and the way of his communication and accession to the heart Therefore so great a judgement is threatned against the Israelites in their prosperity if they did not serve God with jâ—yfulness and gladness of heart for the abundance of all things Deut. 28.47 And therefore the daies in which men were to rejoyce in God with the greatest love and thankfulness were appointed to be daies of feasting that the pleasure of the bodily senses might promote the spiritual pleasure and gratitude of the mind 2 Chron. 19.21 29.30 Neh. 8.17 12.27 Esth 9 17 18 19. Numb 10.10 Direct 17. Let Faith feel Gods displeasure in every chastisement and judgement For we must be equally careful that we despise them not and that we faint not under them Heb. 12.5 They that pretend that it is the work of faith to see nothing in any affliction but the love and benefit do but set one act of faith against another For the same word which telleth us that it shall turn to a true believers good doth tell us that it is of it self a natural evil and that as the good is from Gods Love so the evil is from our sins and his displeasure and that he would give us the good without the evil if man were without sin He therefore that believeth not that it is a castigatory punishment for sin is an unbeliever as well as he that believeth not the promise of the benefit Rom. 5.12 14 16 17 18. 1 Cor. 11.30 32. Jer. 5.25 Micah 1.5 Amos 3.2 Yea this opinion directly frustrateth the first end and use of all chastisements which is to further mens Repentance for the evil of sin by the sense of the evil of punishment and the notice of Gods displeasure manifested thereby And next to make us warnings to others that they incur not the same correction and displeasure as we have done For he that saith there is no penalty or evil in the suffering nor no displeasure of God exprest thereby doth contradict all this But as it is a great benefit which we are to reap by our corrections even the furtherance of our Repentance and amendment so it is a great work of faith to perceive the bitterness of sin and the displeasure of God in these corrections of which more anon Direct 18. Faith must hear the voice of God in all his Word and in all the counsel which by any one he shall send us When sense taketh notice of nothing but a book or of none but a man faith must perceive the mind and message of God Not only in Preachers 2 Cor. 5.19 20. 1 Thes 2.13 Titus 2.5 Heb. 13.7 but also in the mouth of wicked enemies when it is indeed the will of God which they reveal And so David heard the curse of Shimei speaking to him the rebukes of God for his sin in the matter of Vâ—iah 2 Sam. 16.10 11. And Paul rejoyced that Christ was preached by men of envy and strife who did it to add affliction to his bonds Phil. 1.18 Moses perceived the will of God in the counsel of Jethro even in as great a matter as the governing and judging of the people Exod. 18.19 The counsel of the ancients which Rehoboam forsook was the counsel of God which be rejected 1 King 12.8 David blessed God for the counsel of a woman Abigail Whoever be the Messenger a Believer should be acquainted with the voice of God and know the true significations of his will The true sheep of Christ do know his voice and follow him because they are acquainted with his Word and though the Preacher be himself of a sinful life he can distinguish betwixt God and the Preacher and will not say it is not the Word of God because it cometh from a wicked mouth For he hath read Psal 50.16 where God saith to the wicked What hast thou to do to take my Covenant in thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and hast cast my words behind thee But he never read to the godly saith God Why didst thou hear a wicked Preacher He hath read The Scribes and Pharisees fit in Moses chair hear them but do not as they do But he never read Hear none that live not according to their doctrine An unbeliever will not know Christs Word if a Judas be the Preacher of it but a Believer can read the commission of Judas or at least can understand whose counsel he delivereth and though he would be loth to chuse a Judas or to prefer him before a holy man yet if workers of iniquity do preach in Christs Name he leaveth it to Christ to say at Judgement I know you not Mat.
what our case is and then hath taught him what he himself is as to his person and his office and what he hath done to reconcile us to God and how far God is reconciled hereupon and what a common conditional pardoning Covenant he hath made and offereth to all and what he will be and do to those that do come in the belief of all this serioâ—sly by the assenting act of the understanding is the first part of saving Faith going in nature before both the Love of God and the consenting act of the Will to the Redeemer And yet perhaps the same acts of faith in an uneffectual superficial measure may go long before this in many 6. In this assent our belief in God and in the Mediatour are conjunct in time and nature they being Relatives here as the objects of our faith It is not possible to believe in Christ as the Mediatour who hath propitiated God to us before we believe that God is propitiated by the Mediatour nor vice versâ Indeed there is a difference in order of dignity and desirableness God as propitiated being represented to us as the End and the Propitiator but as the Means But as to the order of our apprehension or believing there can be no difference at all no more than in the order of knowing the Father and the Son the Husband and Wife the King and subjects These Relatives are simul naturá tempore 7. This assenting act of Faith by which at once we believe Christ to be the Propitiator and God to be propitiated by him is not the belief that my sins are actually pardoned and my soul actually reconciled and justified but it includeth the belief of the history of Christs satisfaction and of the common conditional Covenant of Promise and Offer from God viz. that God is so far reconciled by the Mediatour as that he will forgive and justifie and glorifie all that Repent and Believe that is that return to God by faith in Christ and offereth this mercy to all and intreateth them to accept it and will condemn none of them but those that finally reject i◠〈◊〉 things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the Ministry of reconciliation to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himsâ—lf not imputing their trespasses to them and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation Now then we are Embassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled unto God 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. So that it is at once the belief of the Father as reconciled and the Son as the Reconcilâ—r and that according to the tenour of the common conditional Covenant which is the first assenting part of saving Faith 8. This same Covenant which revealeth God as thus far reconciled by Christ doth offer him to be further actualy and fully reconciled and to justifie and glorifie us that is to forgive accept and love us perfectly for ever And it offereth us Christ to be our actual Head and Mediatour to procure and give us all this mercy by communicating the benefits which he hath purchased according to his Covenant-terms so that as before the Father and the Son were revealed to our assent together so here they are offered to the Will together 9. In this offer God is offered as the End and Christ as Mediatour is offered as the Means therefore the act of the Will to God which is here required is simple Love of complacency with subjection which is a consent to obey but the act of the Will to Christ is called choice or consent though there be in it Amor Medii the Love of that Means for its aptitude as to the end 10. This Love of God as the End and Consent to Christ as the Means being not acts of the Intellect but of the Will cannot be the first acts of Faith but do presuppose the first assenting acts 11. But the assenting act of Faith doth cause these acts of the Will to God and the Mediatour Because we believe the Truth and Goodness we Consent and Love 12. Both these acts of the Will are caused by assent at one time without the least distance 13. But here is a difference in order of Nature because we will God as the End and for himself and therefore first in the natural order of intention and we will Christ as the Means for that End and therefore but secondarily Though in the Intellects apprehension and assent there be no such difference because in the Truth which is the Vnderstandings object there is no dâ—fference but only in the Goodness which is the Wills object And as Goodness it self is apprehended by the Vnderstanding ut verè bonum there is only an objective dâ—fference of dignity 14. Therefore as the Gospel revelation cometh to us in a way of offer promise and covenant so our Faith must act in a way of Acceptance Covenanting with God and the Redeemer and Sanctifier And the Sacrament of Baptism is the solemnizing of this Covenant on both parts And till our hearts do consent to the Baptismal Covenant of Grace we are not Believers in a saving sense 15. There is no distance of time between the Assent of Faith and the first true degree of Love and Consent Though an unsound Assent may go long before yet sound Assent doth immediately produce Love and Consent and though a clear and full resolved degree of consent may be some time afterward And therefore the soul may not at the first degree so well understand it self as to be ready for an open covenanting 16. This being the true order of the work of Faith and Love the case now lyeth plain before those that can observe things distinctly and take not up with confused knowledge And no other are fit to meddle with such cases viz that the knowing or assenting acts of faith in God as reconciled so far and in Christ as the reconciler so far as to give out the offer or Covenant of Grace are both at once and both go before the acts of the will as the cause before the immediate effect and that this assent first in order of nature but at once in time causeth the will to love God as our End and to consent to and chuse Christ in heart-covenant as the means and so in our covenant we give up our selves to both And that this Repentance and Love to God which are both one work called conversion of turning from the creature to God the one as denominated from the terminus à quo viz. Repentance the other from the terminus ad quem viz. Love are twisted at once with true saving Faith And that Christ as the means used by God is our first Teacher and bringeth us to assent And then that assent bringeth us to take God for our End and Christ for the Means of our actual Justification and Glory so that Christ is
not by Faith chosen and used by us under the notion of a Mâ—diatour or Means to our first act of love and consent but is a Means to that of the Fathers chusing only but is in that first consent chosen by us for the standing means of our Justification and Glory and of all our following exercise and increase of love to God and our sanctification so that it is only the assenting act of faith and not the electing act which is the efficient cause of oâ— very first act of Love to God and of our first degree of sanctification and thus it is that Faith is called the seed and mother grace But it is not that saving Faith which is our Christianity and the condition of Justification and of Glory till it come up to a covenant-consent of heart and take in the foresaid acts of Repentance and Love to God as our God and ultimate end The observation of many written mistakes about the order of the work of grace and the ill and contentious consequents that have followed them hath made me think that this true and accurate decision of this case is not unuseful or unnecessary Direct 12. The Holy Ghost so far concurred with the eternal Word in our Redemption that he was the perfecting Operator in the Conception the Holiness the Miracles the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Of his Conception it is said Mat. 1.20 For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost And vers 18. She was found with child of the Holy Ghost And of his holy perfection as it is said Luke 2.52 that he increased in wisdom and stature and favour with God and men meaning those positive perfections of his humane nature which were to grow up with nature it self and not the supply of any culpable or privative defects so when he was baptized the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a Dove upon him Luke 3.22 And Luke 4.1 it is said Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost c. Isa 11.2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the Spirit of wisdom and understanding the Spirit of counsel and might the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord and shall make him quick of understanding in the fear of the Lord c. Joh. 3.34 For God giveth not the Spirit by measure to him Acts 1.2 After that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments to the Apostles whom he had chosen Rom. 1.4 And was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness that is the Holy Spirit by the resurrection from the dead Mat. 12.28 If I cast out Devils by the Spirit of God c. Luke 4.18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor he hath sent me to heal c. Isa 61.1 In all this you see how great the work of the Holy Spirit was upon Christ himself to fit his humane nature for the work of our redemption and actuate him in it though it was the Word only which was made flesh and dwelt among us John 1.3 Direct 13. Christ was thus filled with the Spirit to be the Head or quickening Spirit to his body and accordingly to fit each member for its peculiar office And therefore the Spirit now given is called the Spirit of Christ as communicated by him Rom. 8.9 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of hiâ— Joh. 7.37 This spake he of the Spirit which they that believe should receive viz. it is the water of life which Christ will give them 1 Cor. 15.45 The last Adam was made a quickening Spirit Gal. 4.6 God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts whereby we cry Abba Father Phil. 1.19 Through the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ See also Ephes 1.22 23. 3.17 18 19. 2.18 22. 4.3 12 16. 1 Cor. 12 c. Direct 14. The greatest extraordinary measure of the Spirit was given by him to his Apostles and the Primitive Christians to be the seal of his own truth and power and to fit them to found the first Churches and to convince unbelievers and to deliver his will on record in the Scriptures infallibly to the Church for future times It would be tedious to cite the proofs of this they are so numerous take but a few Matth. 28.20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you that 's the commission Mark 16.17 And these signs shall follow them that believe c. Joh. 20.22 Receive ye the Holy Ghost c. 14.26 But the Comforter the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you Joh. 16.13 When the Spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all Truth c. Heb. 2.4 God also bearing them witness both with signs and wâ—nders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will Direct 15. And as such gifts of the Spirit was given to the Apostles as their â—ffice required so thâ—se sanctifying graces or that spiritual Life Light and Love are given by it to all true Christians which their calling and salvation doth require John 3.5 6. Except a man be born of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven That which is born of the flâ—sh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Heb. 12.14 Without holiness none shall see God Rom. 8.8 9 10 14. They that are in the flesh cannot please God But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his See also v. 1 3 4 5 6 7 c. Titus 3.5 6 7. He saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour that being justified by his grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life But the testimonies of thâ—s truth are more numerous than I may recite Direct 16. By all this it appeareth that the Holy Ghost is both Christs great witness objectively in the world by which it is that he is owned of God and proved to be true and also his Advocate or great Agent in the Church both to indite the Scriptures and to sanctifie souls So that no man can be a Christian indeed without these three 1. The objective witness of the Spirit to the truth of Christ 2. The Gospel taught by the Spirit in the Apostles 3. And the quickening illuminating and sanctifying work of the Spirit upon their souls Direct 17. It is therefore in these respects that we are baptizâ—d into the Name of the Holy Ghost as well as of the Father and the Son
it being his work to make us thus both Believers and Saints and his perfective work of our real Sanctification being as necessary to us as our Redemption or Creation Matth. 28.19 2â— Heb. 6.1 2 4 5 6. Direct 18. Therefore as every Christian must look upon himself as being in special Covenant with the Holy Ghost so be must understand distinctly what are the benefits and what are the conditions and what are the duties of that part of his Covenant The special Benefits are the Life Light and Love before mentioned by the quickening illumination and sanctification of the Spirit not as in the first Act or Seed for so they are presupposed in that Faith and Repentance which is the Condition But as in the following acts and habits and increase of both unto perfection Acts 2.38 Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are afar off and to as many as the Lord our God shall call See Acts 26.18 Ephes 1.18 19. Titus 3.5 6 7. The special condition on our parts is our consent to the whole Covenant of Grace viz. To give up our selves to God as our Reconciled God and Father in Christ and to Jesus Christ as our Saviour and to the holy Spirit as to his Agent and our Sanctifier There needeth no other proof of this than actual Baptism as celebrated in the Church from Christs daies till now And the institution of it Mat. 28.19 with 1 John 5.7 8 9. 1 Pet. 3.21 with John 3.5 The special Duties afterward to be performed have their rewards as aforesaid and the neglect of them their penalties and therefore have the nature of a Condition as of those particular rewards or benefits Direct 19. The Duties which our Covenant with the Holy Ghost doth bind us to are 1. Faithfully to endeavour by the power and help which he giveth us to continue our consent to all the foresaid Covenant And 2. To obey his further motions for the work of Obedience and Love 3. And to use Christs appointed means with which his Spirit worketh And 4. To forbear those wilful sins which grieve the Spirit John 15.4 Abide in me and I in you v. 7. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you v. 9. Continue in my love Col. 1.23 If ye continue in the Faith c. Jude 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God Heb. 10.25 26. Not forsaking the assembling of your selves together c. For if we sin wilfully c. of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy who hath done despight to the Spiâ—it of grace v. 29. Heb. 6.4 5 6. Ephes 4 3â— Grieve not the holy Spirit of God 1 Thes 5.19 Quench not the Spirit Direct 20. By this it is plain that the Spirit worketh not on man as a dead thing which hath no principle of activity in it self nor as on a naturally necessitated Agent which hath no self-determining faculty of will but as on a living free self-determining Agent which hath duty of its own to perform for the attaining of the end desired Those therefore that upon the pretence of the Spirits doing all and our doing nothing without him will lye idle and not do their parts with him and say that they wait for the motions of the Spirit and that our endeavours will not further the end do abuse the Spirit and contradict themselves seeing the Spirits work is to stir us up to endeavour which when we refuse to do we disobey and strive against the Spirit Direct 21. Though sometimes the Spirit work so efficaciously as certainly to cause the volition or other effect which it moveth to yet sometimes it so moveth as procureth not the effect when yet it gave man all the power and help which was necessary to the effect because that man failed of that endeavour of his own which should have concurred to the effect and which he was able without more help to have performed That there is such effectual grace Acts 9. and many Scriptures with our great experience tell us That there is such meer necessary uneffectual grace possible and sometime in being which some call sufficient grace is undeniable in the case of Adam who sinned not for want of necessary grace without which he could not do otherwise And to deny this blotteth out all Christianity and Religion at one dash By all which it appeareth that the work of the Spirit is such on mans will as that sometimes the effect is suspended on our concurrence so that though the Spirit be the total cause of its own proper effect and of the act of man in its own place and kind of action yet not simply a total cause of mans act or volition but mans concurrence may be further required to it and may fail Direct 22. Satan transformeth himself oft into an Angel of Light to deceive men by pretending to be the Spirit of God Therefore the spirits must be tryed and not every spirit trusted 2 Cor. 11.14 15. Mat. 24.4 5 11 24. 1 John 3.7 Ephes 4.14 Revel 10.3 8. 2 Thes 3.2 1 John 4.1 3 6. Direct 23. The way of trying the spirits is to try all their uncertain suggestions by the Rule of the certain Truths already revealed in Nature and in the holy Scriptures And to try them by the Scriptures is but to try the spirits by the Spirit the doubtfull spirit by the undoubted Spirit which indited and sealed the Scriptures more fully than can be expected in any after revelation 1 Thes 1.21 Isa 8.16 20. 2 Pet. 1.19 John 5.39 Acts 17.11 The Spirit of God is never contrary to it self Therefore nothing can be from that Spirit which is contrary to the Scriptures which the Spirit indited Direct 24. When you would have an increase of the Spirit go to Christ for it by renewed acts of that same Faith by which at first you obtained the Spirit Gal. 3.3 4. Gal. 4.6 Faith in Christ doth two waies help us to the Spirit 1. As it is that Condition upon which he hath promised it to whom it belongeth to give us the Spirit 2. As it is that act of the soul which is fitted in the nature of it to the work of the Spirit That is as it is the serious contemplation of the infinite Goodness and Love of God most brightly shining to us in the face of the Redeemer and as it is a serious contemplation of that heavenly glory procured by Christ which is the fullest expression of the Love of God and so is fittest to kindle that Love to God in the soul which is the work of the Spirit These are joyned Rom. 5.1 2 5 6. Being justified by Faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ By whom also we
have access by Faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoyce in hope of the Glory of God The Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us For when we were without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly God commended his Love to us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us So Ephes 3.17 18 19. Let Christ dwell in your hearts by Faith and it would help you to be rooted and grounded in Love and to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge and so to be filled with the fulness of God If Faith be the way to see Gods Love and Faith be the way thereby to raise our Love to God then Faith in Christ must needs be the continual instrument of the Spirit or that means which we must still use for the increase of the Spirit Direct 25. The works of the Spirit next to the excitation of Life Light and Love do consist in the subduing of the lusts of the flesh and of the power of all the objects of sense which serve it Therefore be sure that you faithfully serve the Spirit in this mortifying work and that you take not part with the flesh against it A grat part of our duty towards the Holy Ghost doth consist in this joyning with him and obeying him in his strivings against the flesh And therefore it is that so many and earnest exhortations are used with us to live after the Spirit and not after the flesh and to mortifie the lusts of the flesh and the deeds of it by the Spirit especially in Rom. 8.1 to the 16. and in Gal. 5. throughout Rom. 6. 7. Col. 3. Ephes 5. Direct 26. Take not every striving for a victory nâ—r every desire of grace to be true grace it self unless grace be desired as it is the lovely Image of God and pleasing to him and be desired before all earthly things and unless you not only strive against but conquer the predominant love of every sin There are many uneffectual desires and strivings which consist with the dominion of sin Many a fornicator and glutton and drunkard hath earnest wishes that he could leave his sin when he thinketh of the shame and punishment and hath a great deal of striving against it before he yieldeth But yet he liveth in it still because his love to it is the predominant part in him Rom. 6.2 How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death We are buryed with him by Baptism Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin For he that is dead is freed from sin V. 12. Let not sin reign therefore in your mortal bodies that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof V. 13. Neither yield your members servants of unrighteousness unto sin For sin shall not have dominion over you Know ye not that to whom you yield your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness Rom. 8.13 If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live See Gal. 5.16 18 19 20 21 22 23. They that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts V. 24. and 2 Tim. 2.19 The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal The Lord knoweth who are his And let every one that nameth the Name of Christ depart from iniquity Object But it is said Gal. 5.17 The flesh lusteth against the Spirit so that ye cannot do the things which ye would Answ That is every true Christian would fain be perfect in Holiness and Obedience but cannot because of the lustings of the flesh But it doth not say or mean that any true Christian would live without wilful gross or reigning sin and cannot that he would live without murder adultery theft or any sin which is more loved than hated but cannot We cannot do all that we would but it doth not follow that we can do nothing which we would or cannot sincerely obey the Gospel Object Paul saith Rom. 7.15 18. To will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I find not and what I would that I do not Answ The same answer will serve To will perfect Obedience to all Gods Laws was present with Paul but not to do it He would be free from every infirmity but could not And therefore could not be justified by the Law of Works But he never saith that he would obey sincerely and could not or that he would live without heinous sin and could not Indeed in his flesh he saith there dwelleth no good thing but that denyeth not his spiritual power who so often proposeth himself as an example to be imitated by those that he wrote to Thousands are deceived about their state by taking every unâ—ffectual desire and wish and every striving before they sin to be a mark of saving grace misunderstanding Mr. Perkins and some others with him who make a desire of grace to be the grace it self and a combatâ— against the flesh to be a sign of the renovation by the Spirit whereas they mean only such a desire of grace as grace for the Love of God as is more powerful than any contrary desires and such a combating as conquereth gross or mortal sin and striveth against infirmities And of this this saying is very true Direct 27. Strive with your hearts when the Spirit is striveing with you and take the season of its spâ—cial help and make one gale of grace advantageous to another This is a great point of Christian wisdom The help of the Spirit is not at our command take it while you have it Use wind and tide before they cease God will not be a servant to our slothfulness and negligence As he that will not come to the Church at the hour when the Minister of Christ is there but say I will come another time will have none of his teaching there so he that will not take the Spirits time but say I am not now at leisure may be left without its help and taught by sad experience to know that it is fitter for man to wait on God than for God to wait on man More may be done and got at one hour than at another when we have no such help and motions Direct 28. Be much in the contemplation of the heavenly Glory for there are the highest objects and the greatest demonstrations of Gods Love and Goodness and therefore in such thoughts we are most likely to meet with the Spirit with whose nature and design they are so agreeable We fall
to one that liveth like a man What did God ever forbid you that was not hurtful to you And what did he ever command you which was not for your benefit either for your present delight or for your future happiness for the healing of your diseases or the preventing them And if Reason can discern the goodness of Gods Laws to us Faith can acknowledge it with more advantage For we can see by Faith the goodness of their Author and the goodness of the reward and end more fully than by reason only And a Believer hath found by sad experience how bad and bitter the waies of sin are and by sweet experience how good and pleasant the waies of God are He hath found that it is the way to peace and hope and joy to deny his lusts and obey his Maker and Redeemer And it is the way to terrour and a troubled soul and a broken heart to sin and to gratifie his sensuality Prov. 3.17 All her waies are pleasantness and all her paths are peace Psal 119.165 Great peace have they which love thy Law and nothing can offend them Psal 37 37. Mark the upright man and behold the just for the end of that man is peace Rom. 14.17 Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost are the Kingdom of God Grace Mercy and Peace are Gods entertainment of the faithful soul Titus 1.4 1 Tim. 1.2 2 Tim. 1.2 1 Cor. 1.3 c. But there is no peace to the wicked saith my God Isa 57.21 48.22 For the way of peace they have not known They have made them 〈◊〉 paths whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace Isa 54.8 Direct 3. Mark well how those Commands of God which seem not necessary for your selves are plainly necessary for the good of others and for the publick welfare which God must provide for as well as yours He is not your God only but the God of all the world And the welfare of many especially of Kingdoms and Societies is more to be regarded than the welfare much more than the humouring or pleasing of any one You may think that if you had leave to be fornicators and adulterers to be riotous and examples of evil to be covetous and to deceive and steal and lye that it would do you no harm But suppose it were so yet a little wit may serve to shew you how pernicious it would be to others and to societies And Faith can tell a true Believer what is like to be the end And that sin is a reproach to any people Prov. 14.34 You may think perhaps that if you were excused from many duties of Charity and Justice in Ministry Magistracy or a more private state it would be no harm to your selves But suppose it were so must not others be regarded If God should regard but one why should it fall to your lot rather than to anothers And why should any others be bound to use Justice or Charity to you any more than you to them There is no member of the body politick or ecclesiastick which will not receive more good to it self by the Laws of Communion if truly practised than it can do to others For you are but one who are bound to be charitable and do good to others and that but according to your own ability But it may be hundreds or thousands who may be all bound to do good to you You have the vital influences and assistances of all the parts you have the prayers of all the Christians in the world Suppose that the Laws were made to secure your selves of your estate and lives but to leave the estates and lives of your children to the will of any one that hath a will to wrong them would you be content with such kind of Laws as these And why should not others good be secured as well as your posterities 1 Cor. 12.12 14 20 c. Rom. 12.4 5 16.2 1 Cor. 10.17 33. Ephes 4.3 11 12 14 15 16. Diâ—ect 4. The chief work of Faith is to make the obedience of Gods Commands to be sweet and pleasant to us by seeing still that intrinsecal goodness and the extrinsecal motives and the eternal rewards which may cause the soul to imbrace them with the dearest love They are much mistaken who know no use for Faith but to comfort them and save them from Hell the great work of Faith is to bring up the soul to Obedience Thankfulness and Love Therefore iâ— hath to do with the Precepts as well as with the Promises and with the Promises to sweeten the Precepts to us Believers are not called to the obedience of slaves nor to be acted only by the fear of pain but to the obedience of redeemed ones and Sons that Faith may cause them to obey in Love and the essential act of Love is complacency Therefore it is the work of Faith to cause us to obey God with pleasure and delight Forced motives endure not long They are accompanied with unwillingness and weariness which at last will sit down when the fears do by distance delay or dulness abate Love is our Nature but Fear is only a servant to watch for us while we do the work of Love As many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God and therefore will obey as Sons For we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but we have received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father Rom. 8.14 15. Christ suffâ—red death to overcome the Devil that had the power of death and to deliver us from the fears of it which was the bondage of our lives Heb. 2.14 15. That we might serve God without fâ—ar in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our lives Luke 1.74 There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear because fear hath torment 1 John 4.18 The meaning is not only that the Love of God casteth out the fear of men and persecution but also that it maketh the fear of tormenting punishment to become unnecessary to drive us to obedience so far as the Love of God and of obedience doth prevail He that loveth more to feast than to fare hardly to be rich than to be poor and so to be obedient and holy than to be unholy need not so far any fear of punishment to drive him to it Even as the Love of the world as adverse to the Love of God is overcome by Faith 1 John 2.15 and yet the Love of the world as Gods creature and as representing him and sanctified to his service is but subordinate to the Love of the Father so also Fear as adverse to Love or as disjunct from it is cast out by it But as it subserveth it in watching against the enemies of Love and is truly filial it is a fruit of Faith and the beginning of wisdom Employ Faith therefore day by day in looking into the Love of God in Christ and the Kingdom of Glory the
Gods Love And so the gift of the Spirit of Miracles and Infallibility for writing and confirming Scriptures was promised to the first age which is not promised to us Direct 17. Take not any good mans observation in those times for an universal promise of God For instance David saith Psal 73. I have been young and now am old yet did I never see the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging their bread But if he had lived in Gospel times where God giveth greater heavenly blessings and comforts and calleth men to higher degrees of patience and mortification and contempt of the world he might have seen many both of the righteous and their seed begging their bread though not forsaken yea Christ himself asking for water of a woman John 4. Direct 18. Take heed of making promises to seem instead of precepts as if you were to do that your selves which God hath promised that he will do If God promise to deliver his Church or to free any of his servants from trouble or persecution you must have a precept to tell you what is your own duty and what means you must use before you mâ—st attempt your own deliverance What God will do is one thing and what you must do is another This hath been the strange delusion of the people that call themselves the Fifth-Monarchy men in our times who believing that Christ will set up righteousness and pull down Tyrants in the earth have thought that therefore they must do it by arms and so have been drawn into many rebellions to the scandal of others and their own ruine Direct 19. Take heed of mistaking Prophecies for Promises especially dark Prophecies not understood Many things are foretold by God in Prophecies which are mens sins Herod and Pontius Pilate and the people of the Jews fulfilled Prophecies in the crucifying of Christ and all the persecutors and muderers of the Saints fulfil Christs Prophecies and so do all that hate us And say all manner of evil falsly against us for his sake Mat. 5.11 12. But the sin is never the less for that It is prophesied that the ten Kings shall give up their Kingdoms to the beast that in the last daies shall come scoffers walking after their own lusts and in the last daies shall be perilous times c. These are not Promises nor Precepts It hath lamentably disturbed the Church of Christ when ignorant self-conceited Christians who see not the difficulty grow confident that they understand many Prophecies in Daniel the Revelations c. and thereupon found their presumption miscalled faith upon their own mistakes and then form their prayers their communion their practice into such schism and sedition and uncharitable waies as the interest of their opinions do require as the Millenaries before mentioned have done in this generation Direct 20. Think not that all Gods Promises are made to meer sincerity and that every true Christian must be freed from all penal hurt however they behave themselves For there are further helps of the Spirit which are promised only to our diligence in attending the Spirit and to the degrees of industry and fervour and fidelity in watching praying striving and other use of means And there are heavy chastisements which God threatneth to the godly when they misbehave themselves Especially the hiding of his face and with-holding any measure of his Spirit The Scripture is full of such threatnings and instances Direct 21. Much less may you imagine that God hath made any Promise that all the sins of true Believers shall work together for their good They misexpound Rom. 8.28 who so expound it as I have elsewhere shewed For 1. The context confirmeth it to sufferings 2. The qualification added to them that love God doth shew that the abatement of love to God is none of the things meant that shall work our good 3. And it sheweth that it is Love as Love and therefore not the least that is consistent with neglect and sin which is our full condition 4. Experience telleth us that too many true Christians may fall from some degrees of grace and the Love of God and die in a less degree than they once had and that less of holiness doth not work for their good 5. And it is not a thing suitable to all the rest of Gods method in the Scriptures that he should assure all beforehand that all their sins shall work for their good That he should command obedience so strictly and promise rewards so liberally and threaten punishment so terribly and give such frightful examples as Solomons Davids and others are and at the same time say Whatever sin thou committest inwardly or outwardly by neglecting my Love and Grace and Spirit by loving the world by pleasing the flesh as David did c. it shall all be turned to do thee more good than hurt This is not a suitable means to men in our case to keep them from sin nor to cause their perseverance Direct 22. Vnderstand well what Promises are universal to all Bâ—lievers and what are but particular and proper to some few There are many particular Promises in Scripture made by name to Noah to Abraham to Moses to Aaron to David to Solomon to Hezekiah to Christ to Peter to Paul c. which we cannot say are made to us Therefore the Covenant of Grace which is the Vniversal Promise 〈◊〉 especially be made the ground of our faith and all other as they are branches and appurtenances of that and have in the Scripture some true signification that they indeed extend to us For if we should believe that every Promise made to any Saint of God as Hannah Sarah Rebecca Elizabeth Mary c. do belong to us we should abuse our selves and God And yet to us they have their use Direct 23. It is of very great importance to understand what Promises are absolute and which are suspended upon any condition to be performed by us and what each of those conditions it As the Promise to the Fathers that the Messiah should come was absolute God gâ—ve not a Saviour to the world so as to suspend his coming on any thing to be done by man The not drowning of the world was an absolute Promise made to Noah so was the calling of the Gentiles promised But the Covenant of Promises sealed in Baptism is conditional and therefore both parties God and man are the Covenanters therein And in the Gospel the Promises of our first Justification and Adoption and of our after pardon and of our Justification at Judgement and of our additional degrees of grace and of our freedom from chastisements have some difference in the conditions though true Christianity be the main substance of them all Meer Christianity or true consent to the Covenant is the condition of our first Justification And the continuance of this with actual sincere obedience is the condition of non-omission or of continuance of this state of Jâ—stification And the use of prayer and other
thou doubt And you cannot say that this is only a hinderance in the applying act and not in the direct and principal act of faith For Luke 24.21 we find some Disciples at this pass But we trusted that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel And v. 25 26. Christ saith to them O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his Glory Luke 24.11 The words of them who told the Apostles that Christ was risen seemed but as tales to them and they believed them not And v. 41. While they believed not for joy and wondered c. 3. Nay a weak faith may have such a swouning fit as to fail extraordinarily in an hour of temptation so far as to deny Christ or shrink from him in this fear so did Peter and not only he but all the Disciples forsook him and fled Matth. 26 56. But yet he that according to the habituated state of his soul hath so much Faith and Love as will cause him to venture life and all upon the trust which he hath to the promises of the Gospel hath a true and saving faiâ—h And here I desire all doubting Christians to lay by the common mistake in the trying of their faith or trust in Christ and to go hereafter upon surer grounds Many say I cannot believe or trust Christ for salvation for I am full of doubts and fears and troubles and surely this is not trusting God Ans 1. The question is not whether you trust him perfectly so as to have no fears no troubles no doubts but whether you trust him sincerely so far as to venture all upon him in his way If you can venture all on him and let go all to follow him your faith is true and saving This would abundantly comfort many fearful troubled Christians if they did but understand it well For many of them that thus fear would as soon as any forsake all for Christ and let go all carnal pleasures and worldly things or any wilful sin whatsoever rather than forsake him and would not take to any other portion and felicity than God nor any other way than Christ and the Spirit of holiness for all the temptations in the world And yet they fear because they fear and doubt more because they doubt Doubting soul let this resolve thee suppose Christ and his way were like a Pilot with his Ship at Sea Many more promise to convey thee safely and many perswade thee not to venture but stay at Land But if thou hast so much trust as that thou wilt go and put thy self and all that thou hast into this Ship and forsake all other though thou go trembling all the way and be afraid of every storm and tempest and gulf yet thou hast true faith though it be weak If thy faith will but keep thee in the Ship with Christ that thou neither turn back again to the flesh and world nor yet take another Ship and Pilot as Mahometanes and those without the Church undoubtedly Christ will bring thee safe to Land though thy fear and distrust be still thy sin For the hypocrites case is alwaies some of these 1. Some of them will only trust God in some smaller matter wherein their happiness consisteth not As a man will trust one with some trifle which he doth not much regard whom yet he thinks so ill of that he cannot trust him in a matter of weight 2. Some of them will trust God for the saving of their souls and the life to come or rather presume on him while they call it trusting him but they will not trust him with their bodies their wealth and honours and fleshly pleasures or their lives These they are resolved to shift for and secure themselves as well as they can For they know that for the world to come they must be at Gods disposal and they have no way of their own to shift out of his hands whether there be such a life or no they know not but if there be they will cast their souls upon Gods mercy when they have kept the world as long as they can and have had all that it can do for them But they will not lose their present part for such uncertain hopes as they account them 3. Some of them will trust him only in pretence and name while it is the creature which they trust indeed Because they have learned to say that God is the disposer of all and only to be trusted and all creatures are but used by his will therefore they think that when they trust the creature it is but in subordination to God though indeed they trust not God at all 4. Some of them will trust God and the creature joyntly and as they serve God and Mammon and think to make sure of the prosperity of the body and the salvation of the soul without losing either of them so they trust in both conjunctly to make up their felicity Some think when they read Christs words Mark 10.24 How hard is it for them that trust in Riches to enter into the Kingdom of God that they are safe enough if that be all the danger for they do not trust in their riches though they love them He is a mad man they say that will put his trust in them And yet Christ intimateth it as the true reason why few that have riches can be saved because there is few that have riches who do not trust in them You know that riches will not save your souls you know that they will not save you from the grâ—ve you know that they will not cure your diseases nor ease your pains And therefore you do not trust to riches either to keep you from sickness or from dying or from Hell But yet you think that riches may help you to live in pleasure and in reputation with the world and in plenty of all things and to have your will as long as health and life will last and this you take to be the chiefest happiness which a man can make sure of And for this you trust them The fool in Luke 12.19 who said Soul take thy ease eat drink and be merry thou hast enough laid up for many years did not trust his riches to make him immortal nor to save his soul But he trusted in them as a provision which might suffice for many years that he might eat drink and be merry and take his ease and this he loved better and preferred before any pleasures or happiness which he hoped for in another world And thus it is that all worldly hypocrites do trust in riches Yea the poorest do trust in their little poor provisions in this world as seeming to them surer and therefore better than any which they can expect hereafter This is the way of trusting in uncertain riches viz. to be their surest happiness instead of trusting in the living God 1
is faithful and just to forgive us our sisn and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness If all need of pardon had been prevented by Christ what use were there of his advocation for our future forgiveness Direct 12. Remember that though unknown infirmities and unavoidable ones have an immediate pardon because the Believer hath an habitual Faith and Repentance yet great and known sins must have actual Repentance before the pardon will be plenary or perfect though the person is not in the mean time an unregenerate nor unjustified person 1. That great and known sins must have a particular repentance appeareth 1. In that it is utterly inconsistent with the sincerity of habitual Repentance not to be actual when sins are known and come into our deliberate remembrance 2. By all those texts which require such repentance confession and forsaking 1 John 2.1 2. 1 John 1.9 Prov. 18.13 Psal 32. 51. 2 Cor. 7.11 Rev 2.5 16. Luke 13.3 5. Jam. 5.14 15. Luke 6.37 11.4 Repentance consisteth chiefly in forsaking sin and if men forsake not such known wilful sins they are wicked men and therefore are not pardoned 2. That unavoidable frailties and meer infirmities and unknown faults are pardoned immediately to them that are truly godly and have a general and implicit Repentance is plain because else no man in the world could be saved because every man hath such infirmities and unknown sins 1 John 1.10 3. Yet David himself is not put by his sin into a meer graceless state and as a person that hath no former Justification for he prayeth God not to take his Spirit from him and he was not deprived of the true love to God which is the character of Gods children But he had incurred heinous guilt and put himself in the way towards utter damnation and caused a necessity of a more particular deep Repentance before he could be fully pardoned than else he needed Before the world had a Saviour we were all so far unpardoned that a satisfying Sacrifice was necessary to our Justification But afterward all men are so far pardoned that only the Acceptance of what is purchased and freely though conditionally given is necessary to it Before men are converted they are yet so far unpardoned that though no more Sacrifice be necessary yet a total conversion and renovation by turning from a life of sin to God by Faith in Christ is necessary to their actual justification and forgiveness When a man is turned from a life of sin to God and liveth in the state of grace all his following sins which consist with the loving of God and holiness above the world and sinful pleasures are so far forgiven immediately upon the committing that they need neither another Sacrifice nor another Regeneration or Justification quoad statum but only an acting of that Faith and Repentance which habitually he hath already But the unknown errours and faults of such godly persons are pardoned even without that actual repentance and infirmities without forsaking of the sin overcomingly in practice And so every one liveth and dyeth in some degree of sinful defectiveness and omission of his love to God and trust and hope and zeal and desire and love to men and care of his duty and watchfulness and fervency in prayer meditation c. And in some degree of sinful disorder in our ill governed thoughts and words and affections or passions and actions we are never sinless till we die Direct 13. Remember that you must neither think that every sin which is a cause of Repentance is a sufficient reason for you to doubt of your present state of Justification nor yet that no sin can be so great as to be a necessary cause of doubting If every sin should make us doubt of our Justification then all men must alwaies doubt And then it must be because no sin is consistent with sincerity and the knowledge of sincerity which is apparently false If no sin should cause our doubting then there is no sin which is not consistent both with sincerity and with the knowledge of it which is as false and much more dangerous to hold 1. There are many sins that are utterly inconsistent with true godliness otherwise the godly were ungodly and as bad as others And if you say that no godly man commiteth these it is true and therefore it is true that he that committeth them is not a godly man or justified And how shall a man know his godliness but by his life as the product of his inward graces It is arguing from an uncertainty against a certainty to say I am justified and godly and therefore my wilful sins of drunkenness fornication oppression lying malâ—ce c. are consistent with Justification and it is arguing from a certain truth against a doubted falshood to say I live in ordinary wilful heinous sin therefore I am not justified or sincere Ephes 5.5 6. For this ye know that no whoremonger nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an Idolater hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God Let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience 1 Cor. 6 9 10. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Be not deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified c. Rom. 8.1 13. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit If ye live after the flesh ye shall die c. Gal. 5.20 21 22 23 24. 2. And there are many sins which consist with true grace which will not consist with the assurance of its sincerity And that 1. From the nature of the things because the least degree of grace conjunct with and clouded by the greatest degree of sin which may consist with it is not discernable to to him that hath it He that is so very near a state of death and so very like to an unjustified person can never be sure in that case that he is justified 2. And also God in Wisdom and Justice will have it so that sin may not be encouraged nor presumption cherished nor the comforts which are the reward of an obedient child be cast away on an uncapable child in his stubborn disobedience Psal 51. 32. 77. Therefore for a man that liveth in grost sin to say that he is sure that he is justified and therefore no sin shall make him question it is but to believe the Antinomian Devil transforming himself into an Angel of Light and his Ministers when they call themselves the Ministers of Righteousness and to deny belief to the Spirit of Holiness and Truth And if a
such Adam had such Power and such necessary grace or help to have forborn his first sin which he did not forbear And no man can prove that no final unbelievers have had such power and help to have belâ—eved aâ— Adam had to have stood But it is certain that we 〈…〉 such powers and necessary grace to have perfectly 〈◊〉 all the Law Errour 20. That Faith justifieth as an instrument and only so Of this I have written at large heretofore An instrument properly so called is an efficient cause Faith is no efficient cause of our Justification neither Gods instrument nor ours for we justifie not our selves instrumentally The known undoubted instrument of our Justification is Gods Covenant or deed of gift which is his pardoning act They that say it is not a Physical but a Moral instrument either mean that its morally called an instrument that is reputatively and not really or that it is indeed a moral instrument that is effecteth our Justification morally But the latter is false for it effecteth it not at all and the former is false for as there is no reason so there is no Scripture to prove that God reputeth it to be what it is not All that remaineth to be said is that indeed Faith in Christ is an act whose nature partly that is one act of it consisteth in the Acceptance of Christ himself who is given to us for our Justification and Salvation by a Covenant which maketh this believing-acceptance its condition And so this accepting-act in the very essence of it is such as some call a receiving instrument or a passive which is indeed no instrument but an act metaphorically called an instrument And in disputes metaphors must not be used without necessity and to understand them properly is to erre So that such an improper instrument of Justification Faith is as my trusting my Physician and taking him for my Physician is the instrument of my cure And as my trusting my self to the conduct of such a Pilot is the instrument of my safe voyage or as my trusting my Tutor is the instrument of my learning or rather as a womans marriage-consent is the instrument of all the wealth and honour which she hath by her husband Indeed marriage may be better called the instrument of it that is not her own consent which is properly the receiving condition but the consent and actual marriage by her husband For he is the giver And so the Covenant is Gods justifying instrument as signifying his donative consent and Baptism is the instrument of it by solemn investiture or tradition as the delivering of a Key is the instrumental delivery of the house The case then is very plain to him that is but willing to understand viz. that Faith in its essence is bâ—sides the assenting acts an accepting of an offered Saviour for our Justification Sanctification and Salvation and a trusting in him That this act of Faith being its essence is the most apt for the use that God in his Covenant hath appointed it unto because he will give us a Saviour freely but yet not to be refused and neglected but to be thankfully and honourably received and used That this special aptitude of Faith or its very essence is the reason why it is chosen to be the condition of the Testament or Gift That this same essence and aptitude is that which some call its Receptive or Passive Instrumentality That this essence and aptitude is not the neerest reason why we are justified by it for then Faith as Faith and as such an act or wâ—rk of ours should justifie and that ex opere operato and that without or against Gods will For if Gods will have interposed the signifier of that will must needs be the chief and nearest reason Therefore this act so apt bâ—ing by God made the condition of the Gift or Covenant iâ—s nearest and chief interest I will not call it causaliâ—y in our Justification iâ— this office of a condition Therefore in a word we are justified by Faith directly as or because it is the conditio praestita the performance of the condition of the Justifying act and it was by God made the condition bâ—cause it was in its nature mâ—st apt thereto which aptitude may be metaphorically called its Receptive Instrumentality And that thus as it accepteth Christ for Justification Adoption Sanctification and Glorification so it is first the metaphorical instrument of our part in Christ and but consequently the metaphorical instrument of our title to pardon the Spirit and Heaven and in no tollerable sense at all how figurative soever is it any instrument of Gods sentence of Justification which yet is all the Justification acknowledged by the usual defenders of Instrumentality saving as it may be said to give us a right to it by giving us constitutive Justification in the pardon of our sins And the Scripture never saith that Faith justifieth us nor calleth it Justifying Faith but that we are justified by Faith and most commonly of Faith for the usuallest phrase is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex fide as it is ex operibus when Justification by works is denyed which is not the meer Instrumentality of works So that here is a double errour 1. That Faith justifieth as a true and proper instrument 2. And no oâ—her way Errour 21. That Faith causeth Justification as it causeth Sanctification as much and as properly Contr. Faith causeth not Justification at all but only is the condition of it But Faith causeth the acts of other graces by a proper efficiency believing is a proper efficient cause of the wills volition complacency consent though but a moral efficient because the liberty of the will forbiddeth the Intellect to move it per modum naturae And the wills consent produceth other acts and physically exciteth other graces Because to love and desire and fear and seek and obey are acts of our own souls where one may properly cause another But to justifie or pardon is an act of God and therefore Faith equally procureth our right or title to Justification and to Sanctification and Glorification but it doth not equally effect them 2 Cor. 7.1 Let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and Spirit perfecting holiness c. Not let us pardon and justifie our selves James 4.8 Cleanse your hearts you sinners c. Isa 1. Wash you make you clean put away the evil of your doings not your guilt and punishment So only Christ cleanseth us from all sin and unrighteousness 1 John 1.7 9. Jude 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God John 15. Abide in me c. 1 John 5.18 He that is begotten of God keepeth himself c. Errour 22. That the Faith by which we are justified is not many physical acts of the soul only but one Errour 23. That it is only an act of one faculty of the soul Contr. The contrary is fully opened before and proved at large elsewhere and through the Scripture Faith
How ill they bear the least contempt neglect or disrespect How abundantly they overvalue their own understandings and how wise they are in their own conceits and how hardly they will think ill of their most false or foolish apprehensions and how proudly they disdain the judgments of wiser men from whom if they had humility they might learn perhaps twenty years together and yet not reach the measure of their knowledge and what a strange difference there is in their judging of any case when it is anothers and when it is their own And among how few is the sin of flesh-pleasing sensuality mortified abundance take no notice of it because it is hid and can be daily exercised in a less disgraceful way If they be rich they can enjoy that which is their own and they can cleanlily do as Dives did Luke 16. and take their good things here Having enough laid up for many years they think they may take their case and eat drink and be merry without rebuke Luke 12.19 10. They that are the most zealous in strict opinions and modes of Worship can live as Sodom did in pride fulness of bread and abundance of idleness and use meat for their lusts and make provision for the flesh to satisfie those lusts and yet never seem to themselves nor those about them to offend much less to do any thing that is grosly evil Ezâ—k 16.49 Psal 78.18 30. Rom. 13 13 14. They drink not till they are drunk they eat not more in quantity than others they labour as far as need compels them and this they think is very tollerable And because the Papists have turned the just subduing of the flesh into hurtful austerities or formal mockeries therefore they are the more hardened in their flesh pleasing way They take but that which they love and that which is their own and then they think that the fault is not great and what Christ meant by Dives his being cloathed in purple and silk and faring sumptuously every day they never truly understood Nor yet what he meaneth by the poor in spirit Matth. 5.3 which is not at least only or chiefly a sense of the want of grace but a spirit suited to a life of poverty contrary to the love of money and of fulness and luxury and pride When we are content with necessaries and eat and drink for health more than for pleasure or for that pleasure only which doth conduce to health and when we will be at no needless superfluous cost upon the 〈◊〉 but â—hâ—se the cheapest food and rayment which is sufficient to our lawful ends and use not our appetites and sense and fantasie to such delight and satisfaction as either increaseth lust or corrupteth the mind and hindereth it from spiritual duties and delights by hurtful delectation or diversion nor bestow that upon our selves which the poor about us need to supply their great necessities This is to be poor in spirit and this is the life of abstinence and mortification which these sensual professors will not learn Nay rather than their throats shall not be pleased if they be children in their Parents Families or Servants they will steal for it and â—â—ke that which their Parents and Masters they know do not consent to nor allow them And they are worse thieves than they that steal for hunger and meer necessity because they steal to satisfie their appetites and carnal lusts that they may fare better than their superiours would have them And yet perhaps be really conscientious and religious in many other points and never humbled for their fleshly minds their gluttony and thievery especially if they see others fare better than they and they quiet their consciences as the most ungodly do with putting a hansome name upon their sin and calling it taking and not stealing and eating and drinking and not fulness of bread or carnal gulosity Abundance of such instances of mens partiality in avoiding sin I must omit because it is so long a work 6. Yea in the inward exercise of Graces there are few that use them compleatly entirely and in order but they neglect one while they set themselves wholly about the exercise of another or perhaps use one against another Commonly they set themselves a great while upon nothing so much as labouring to affect their hearts with sorrow for sin and meltingly to weep in their confessions with some endeavours of a new life But the Love of God and the thankful sense of the mercy of Redemption and the rejoycing hopes of endless Glory are things which they take but little care about and when they are convinced of the errour of this partiality they next turn to some Antinomian whimsie under the pretence of valuing Free Grace and begin to give over perâ—ileâ—s 〈◊〉 and the care and watchfulness against sin and diligence in a holy fruitful life and say that they were long enough Legalâ—sts and knew not Free Grace but lookt all after doing and something in themselves and then they could have no peace but now they see their errour they will know nothing but Christ And thus that narrow foolish soul cannot use Repentance wiâ—hout neglecting Faith in Christ and cannot use Faith but they must neglect Repentance yea set Faith and Repentance Love and Obedience in good works like enemies or hindrances against each other They cannot know themselves and their sinfulnâ—ss without forgetting Christ and his righteousness And they cannot know Christ and his Love and Grace without laying by the knowledge or resistance of their sin They cannot magnifie Free Grace unless they may have none of it but lay by the use of it as to all the works of holiness because they must look at nothing in themselves They cannot magnifie Pardon and Justification unless they may make light of the sin and punishment which they deserve and which is pardoned and the charge and condemnation from which they are justified They cannot give God thanks for remitting their sin unless they may forbear confessing it and sorrowing for it They cannot take the Promise to be free which giveth Christ and pardon of sin if it have but this condition that they shall not reject him Nor can they call it the Gospel unless it leave them masterless and lawless whereas there is indeed no such thing as Faith without Repentance nor Repentance without Faith No love to Christ without the keeping of his Commandments nor no true keeping of the Commandments without Love No Free Grace without a gracious sanctified heart and life nor no gift of Christ and Justification but on the condition of a believing acceptance of the gift and yet no such believing but by Free Grace No Gospel without the Law of Christ and Nature and no mercy and peace but in a way of duty And yet such Bedlam Christians are among us that you may hear them in pangs of high conceited zeal insulting over the folly of one another and in no wiser language than if you
they are the sins of those faculties over which the will hath not a despotical power As a man may be truly willing to have no sluggishness heaviness sleepiness at prayer no forgetfulness no wandering thoughts no inordinate appetite or lust at all stirring in him no sudden passions of anger grief or fear he may be willing to love God perfectly to fear him and obey him perfectly but cannot These latter are the ordinary infirmities of the godly The former sort are if at all his extraordinary falls Rom. 7.14 to the end 6. Lastly The true Christian riseth by unfeigned Repentance when his conscience hath but leisure and helps to deliberate and to bethink him what he hath done And his Repentance much better resolveth and strengtheneth him against his sin for the time to come To summ up all 1. Sin more loved than hated 2. Sin wilfully lived in which might be avoided by the sincerely willing 3. Sin made light of and not truly repented of when it is committed 4. And any sin inconsistent with habitual Love to God in predominancy is mortal or a sign of spiritual death and none of the sins of sanctified Believers CHAP. XIV How to live by Faith in Prosperity THE work of Faith in respect of Prosperity is twofold 1. To save us from the danger of it 2. To help us to a sanctified improvement of it 1. And for the first that which Faith doth is especially 1. To see deeper and further into the nature of all things in the world than sense can do 2 Cor. 4.17 18. 1 Cor. 7.29 30 31. To see that they were never intended for our Rest or portion but to be our wilderness provision in our way To foresee just how the world will use us and leave us at the last and to have the very same thoughts of it now as we foresee that we shall have when the end is come and when we have had all that ever the world will do for us It is the work of Faith to cause a man to judge of the world and all its glory as we shall do when death and judgment come and have taken off the mask of splendid names and shews and flatteries that we may use the world as if we used it not and possess it as if we possest it not because its fashion doth pass away It is the work of Faith to crucifie the world to us and us to the world by the Cross of Christ Gal. 6.14 that we may look on it as disdainfully as the world looked upon Christ when he hanged as forsaken on the Cross That when it is dead it may have no power on us and when we are dead to it we may have no inordinate love or care or thoughts or fears or grief or labour to lay out upon it It is the work of Faithâ—o â—o make all worldly pomp and glory to be to us but loss and dross and dung in comparison of Christ and the righteousness of Faith Phil. 3.7 8 9. And then no man will part with Heaven for dung nor set his God below his dung nor further from his heart nor will he feel any great power in temptations to honour wealth or pleasure if really he count them all but dung nor will he wound his conscience or betray his peace or cast away his innocency for them 2. Faith sheweth the soul those sure and great and glorious things which are infinitely more worthy of our love and labour And this is its highest and most proper work Heb. 11. it conquereth Earth by opening Heaven and shewing it us as sure and clear and near And no man will dote on this deceitful world till he have turned away his eyes from God and till Heaven be out of his sight and heart Faith saith I must shortly be with Christ and what then are these dying things to me I have better things which God that cannot lye hath promised me with Christ Titus 1.2 Heb. 6.18 I look every day when I am called in The Judge standeth before the door James 5.9 The Lord is at hand Phil. 4.5 And the end of all these things is at hand 1 Pet. 4.7 And shall I set my heart on that which is not Therefore when the world doth smile and flatter faith setteth Heaven against all that it can say or offer And what is the world when Heaven stands by Faith seeth what the blessed souls above possess at the same time while the world is alluring us to forsake it Luke 16. Heb. 11. 12.1 2. c. Faith setteth the heart upon the things above as our concernment oâ—r only hope and happiness It kindleth that Love of God in the soul and that delight in higher things which powerfully quencheth worldly love and mortifieth all our carnal pleasures Matth. 6.20.21 Col. 3.1 2 3 4. Rom. 8.5 6 7. Phil. 30.20 21. 3. Faith sheweth the soul those wants and miseries in it self which nothing in the world is able to supply and cure Nay such as the world is apter to increase It is not gold that will quench his thirst who longs for pardon grace and glory A guilâ—y conscience a sinful and condemned soul will never be cured by riches or high places by pride or flâ—shly sports and pleasures James 5.1 2 3. This humbling work is not in vain 4. Faith looketh to Christ who hath overcome the world and carefully treadeth in his stâ—ps John 16.33 Heb. 12.2 3 4 5. It looketh to his person his birth his life his cross his grave and his resurrection to all that strange example of contempt of worldly things which he gave us from his manger to his shameful kind of death And he that studieth the Life of Christ will either despise the world or him He will either vilifie the world in imitation of his Lord or vilifie Christ for the pleasures of the world Faith hath in this warfare the surest and most onourable guide the ablest Captain and the most powerful example in all the world And it hath with Christian unerring Rule which furnisheth him with armour for every use Yea it hath through him a promise of Victory before it be aâ—tained so that in the beginning of the fight it knows the end Rom. 16.20 John 16.33 It goeth to Christ for that Spirit which is our strengâ—h Ephes 6.10 Câ—l 2.7 And by that it mortifieth the desires of the flesh and when â—he flesh is mortified the world is conquered for it is loved only as it is the provision of the flâ—sh 5. Moreover Faith doth observe Gods particular Providence who distributeth his talents to every man as he pleaseth and disposeth of their estates and comforts so that the Race is not to the swift nor the Victory to the strong nor Riches to men of understanding Eccles 9.11 Therefore it convinceth us that our lives and all being in his hand it is our wisdom to make it our chiefest care to use all so as is most pleasing unto him 2 Cor. 5.8
to be humbled in more and yet at the heart be dangerously proud The other instance is in the common separating Spirit of Sectarians and in particular in those called Quakers in these times For against commanded separation from sin by self-preservation or discipline I am far from speaking Their great pretence of singularity is to avoid and detest the Pride of others they cry out against Pride as much as any Their garb is plain humility and self-emptiness and poverty of spirit is their profession And yet when they are so ignorant that they can scarce speak sense and when they understand not the Catechism or Creed but have need to be taught which are the principles of the Oracles of God they think they are taken into the counsels of the Almighty they think they abound in the Spirit and in wisdom in revelations and in holiness and the wisest and holiest of Christs Ministers and People who are as far above them in knowledge and godliness as the aged are above a stammering Infant are proudly despised by them and openly and impenitently reviled and railed at as ignorant fools and ungodly worldly self-seeking men and as the deceivers of the people and as void of the Spirit which could never proceed to the height that we have seen it and which their words and writings utter at this day without a very strange degree of Pride and such as either maketh men mad or is made by madness or little less And here note also that it is no wonder if Religious Pride can despise the common applause of the world and bear a great deal of ignominy from the vulgar because they have learnt so much as to know that wicked men are fools and base and their judgment is no great honour or dishonour to any man and that godly men only are truly wise and their judgment most to be regarded And therefore it is with them whom they think highliest of themselves that they desire to be thought highliest of and it is among the Religious sort that Religious Pride doth fish for honour even as men that are proud of their Learning do hunt after the applause of learned men and can despise the judgment of the unlearned vulgar as quite below them I know that this last instance of Pride is not alwaies an attendant of Prosperity But oft it is a kind of wantonness thence arising which is much restrained in suffering times And being speaking of the rest I thought not meet to pass it by Direct II. Vnderstand which are the ordinary effects and characters of Pride that you may not live in it and perish by it whilst you thought you had overcome it At this time having said more of it elsewhere I shall recite but these marks of prosperous Pride and shew the contrary signs of lowliness 1. The high-minded are self-willed and much addicted to rule and domineer They would have their own wills in all their own matters and are hardly brought to submit to the judgment and will of others Obeying goeth quite against their grain any further than they like the commands of their superiours And if they are in any hope of reaching it they aspire to be the Governours of others that they may still stand uppermost and have their will in all the matters about them as well as in their own If there be a place of Power and Preferment void the proud man is the forwardest expectant and maketh no great question of his fitness but thinketh that he is injured if he be put by how worthy a man soever be preferred before him He snuffs and scorns at inferiours that stick at his most sinful and unreasonable commands and thunders out the charge of Rebellion or Schism against those that question his infallibility or that will stick at obeying him before God and against him as if he had been born to rule and other men to obey him and all do him wrong who fall not down and worship not his will at the first intimation Though perhaps he be but a Minister of Christ who should be as a little child and the servant of all and should stoop to the feet of the poorest of the flock and should receive the weak and bear with their infirmities yet Pride will there lift up the head and forget all the humbling examples and admonitions of Christ and will either seek to draw Disciples after it by speaking perverse things Acts 20.30 or forget 1 Pet. 5.3 Neither us being Lords over Gods heritage but examples to the flock But on the contrary the poor in spirit are readier to obey than rule as knowing that ruling requireth the greater parts and graces and are enclined to think others to be fitter for places of Teaching or Authority than themselves further than clear experience constraineth them to know the contrary For in honour they prefer others instead of striving to be preferred before others They have a tractable humble yielding disposition except when they are tempted to sin They are gentle and easie to be entreated James 3.17 and can submit themselves to one another yea and be their voluntary subjects 1 Pet. 5.5 Ephes 5.21 Yet not becoming unnecessarily the servants of men but chusing it rather when they may be free They are as little children in that they expect not rule but to be ruled Matth. 18.3 They have learned to serve one another in love Gal. 5.13 and take it not for Christian love that can do good only upon terms of equality and cannot stoop to voluntary service They can go two mile with him that compelleth them to go one No man more obedient when you command not sin For as he affecteth not to be called Master or Rabbi or to have the highest seat or name Mat. 23.11 c. So he hath learnt not to please himself but to please others for their good to edification Rom. 15.2 Especially if he be a Pastor of the Church though he do by an excelling light and love and good life keep up the true honour of his calling yet is he the more averse to Lord it over the flock because he knoweth that he must be an example to them And it is not an example of pride but of lowliness which Christ did give and he must give and therefore both are joyned together 1 Pet. 5.3 5. 2. The Proud do make too great a matter of that honour which perhaps may be their due They plot for it they set their hearts upon it If they are slighted or others preferred before them their countenances are cast down as Cains or they are troubled as Haman or they will revenge it as Cain and as Joab upon Abner Touch their honour and you touch their hearts Despise them and you torment them or make them your enemies But the Poor in spirit regard their honour as they do other matters of this world that is with moderation and so far as it is conducible to the honour of Religion or their Country or to the
sanctification but if they live endeavour it by all possible care in a wise and godly education Remember that nature and your dedicating them to God do both oblige you to this care for their salvation And that the education of children is one of the greatest duties in the world for the service of Christ and the prosperity of Church and State And the neglect of it not the smallest cause of the ruine of both and of the worlds calamity Many a poor sottish lazy Professor have I known who cry out against ignorant dumb and unfaithful Ministers as guilty of the blood of souls and are so religious as to separate from the Assemblies that have Ministers that are but partly such when as their own children are almost as ignorant as Heathens and they only use them to a few customary formal duties while they think they are enough against forms and turn over the chief care of their instruction to the Schoolmaster And are themselves so ignorant dumb and idle unfaithful and unnatural to their poor childrens souls as that it is a doubt whether in a well-ordered Church they ought not to be denyed communion themselves They so little practise Deut. 11.18 19. 6.7 Ephes 6.4 c. Direct 5. If your children live to the flesh in an ungodly course of life contrary to the Covenant which by you they made they forfeit all the benefits of the Covenant And you can have no assurance by any thing that you can do for them that ever they shall be converted though it is not past hope And if they be converted at age their pardon and adoption will be the effect of Gods Covenant as then it was newly entered with themselves and not as it was made before for them in infancy Direct 6. Yâ—t because that still while there is life there is hope you ought not by despair or negligence to omit prayer exhortation or any other duty which you can perform in order to their recovery And though now they have wills of their own their salvation is not laid so much upon you as it was in Infancy at their first covenanting with God yet still God will shew his love to his servants in their seed and faithful endeavours are not vain nor hopeless and therefore it is still one of your greatest duties in the world to seek their true recovery to Christ Direct 7. If God make your children a scourge or a heart-breaking to you bear and improve it as becomes Believers That is 1. Repent of your own former sin your own youthfull lusts your disobedience to your Parents your carnal fondness on your children your loving them too much and God too little the evil examples you have given them and your manifold neglect of a prudent seasonable earnest unwearied instructing them in godliness your bearing with their sin and giving them their own wills till they were masterless c Renew your Repentance and you have got some benefit 2. Think how unkindly and unthankfully you have dealt with a gracious Saviour and a heavenly Father 3. Let it take off your affections from all things under the Sun and call them up the more to God For who would love a world where none are to be trusted and where all things are vexatious even the children of your love and bowels Direct 8. If they die impenitently and perish mourn for them but with the moderation of Believers That is 1. Consider that God is more the owner of your children than you are and may do with his own as he list 2. And he is more wise and merciful than you and therefore not to be murmured at as wanting either 3. And it is an unvaluable mercy that your own soul is sanctified and shall be saved 4. And the most godly have had ungodly children before you Adam had a Cain Noah had a Cham Isaac had an Esau David had an Absalom c. 5. And if all the godly that pray for their childrens salvation must be therein gratified all the world would then have been saved For Noah would have prayed for all his children and they for theirs and so to the worlds end Object Oh but my conscience telleth me that it is my own sin which hath had a hand in their undoing Answ Suppose it be so it is certainly a pardonable sin Do you then repent of it or not If you repent as you mourn for your relations so you should rejoyce that God hath forgiven you For repented sin is certainly pardoned to you and pardoned sin to you is as great cause of joy as unpardoned sin in your relations is cause of sorrow Therefore mourn with such moderation and mixed comfort and thanksgiving as becometh one that liveth by faith The affliction indeed is neer and great and heavier than any calamity that could have befallen their bodies and is not to be slighted by an unnatural insensibility But yet you have a God who is better to you than a thousand children and your cross is but as a feather if you set it in the ballance against your blessings even the Love of God and your part in Christ and life eternal CHAP. XXIV How by Faith to order our Affections to publick Societies and the unconverted world Direct 1. TAke heed that you lose not that common Love which you owe to mankind nor that desire of the increase of the Kingdom of Christ which must keep up in you a constant compassion to the unconverted world viz. Idolaters Infidels and ungodly Hypocrites It is pittiful to observe the unchristian senslesness of most zealous Professors of Religion in this point Though God hath purposely put the three publick Petitions first in the Lords Prayer to tell them what they must first and most desire that is the hallowing of his Name and the coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his Will on Earth as it is in Heaven yet they seem not to understand it or to regard it But their thoughts and desires are as selfish and private and narrow as if they knew nothing what the World or the Church is or cared for neither Their mind and talk is all of their own matters for body or soul or of their several Parties and particular Churches or if any extend his care as far as this spot of Land in Brittain and Ireland or some of the Reformed Churches they go further than their companions their selves and their side or party is almost all that most regard Perhaps the poor scattered Jews have a few words in the prayers of some but the miserable case of the vast Nations of the Earth who seem to be forsaken of God is neglected by them Five parts in six of the earth are Heathens and Mahometanes and of the sixth part the Protestants are but about a sixth compared with the poor ignorant Abbassines Armenians Syrians the Greek Churches and the Papists to say nothing what the most of the Protestants themselves are Yet are almost all these put by with
could love that best which was best Therefore where ever any of this is wanting it is sin 4. The principal part or summ of positive sin doth consist in selfishness Man is fallen from the Love of God and man to himself and grace recovereth him from this Therefore it is that this duty is not only unperformed but hardly discerned by unrenewed men so far as they are selfish they hardly believe that they should love their neighbours as themselves 5. To love our neighbours as our selves in point of duty containeth these two things First To love them simply according to their goodness without any hinderance of selfishness or partiality Not to forbear loving them because they are not our selves or because they are against any inordinate selfish interest or appetite of our own And also comparatively to love them in the same degree with our selves if they have the same degree of loveliness so that it cannot extend to the kind and the end â—nd reason of the Love but it must needs also extend to the degree If I love him less than my self who is better than my self I love him not as my self as to ends and reason 6. Yea I am bound by this Law to love every man better or more than my self who is really better and is so manifest to me Or else I love him not as my self that is on the same true Reasons as I must love my self for God and the goodness of the object 7. But as all men fail in the degree of this Love and therefore none perfectly keep the Law so the sincerity which all Gods servants have doth consist in this that 1. Our love to others is for Gods sake and for the goodness which he hath endued them with and the service they may do him 2. That this God and his service for whose sake we love them be preferred before our selves and every creature and loved better than all our sinful pleasures 3. That our love to them for Gods sake and graces be such as ordinarily in the exercise and effects will prevail agâ—â—â—st our Love of sensual interest and delights and will bring us effectually to succour relieve and do them good though to our fleshly loss when God requireth it He that cannot love Christ in his servants better than his carnal pleasures loveth him not at all sincerely Gods Image and interest in his servants and in mankind must be practically more precious to us and more beloved by us than all our carnal sinful pleasures For as for our own spiritual good it standeth in such a connexion with Gods will and glory and our neighbours good that I know not how to put them into comparison in the tryâ—l much less in opposition 4. That all carnal self-love and uncharitableness contrary to this be hated resisted repented of and subdued and be not predominant in us against the Love of God and man 8. The meaning of the Command is not that we shall love our neighgours as we inordinately and sinfully love our selves but as we ought to love our selves and as we regularly and justly do love our selves He that loveth himself too much and sinfully must not therefore so love his neighbour 9. He that loveth his neighbour as himself that is without selfish partiality and for the same reasons as he must love himself viz. for the Image and Interest of God is obliged by this very rule to love himself more than his neighbour when he is better and more pleasing and serviceable to God Therefore he that would warrantably love himself most must labour to be himself the best and then he may lawfully do it so far as his own goodness and other mens defects are truly known to him 10. As a Fathers Love may consist with the correction of his children and self-love with blood-letting purging labour and other unpleasing things so we may love our neighbours as our selves and yet correct and punish evil doers For sometimes their own good requireth it and ordinarily the publick good requireth it poena debetur Reipublicae and also Gods command requireth it so that this is not loving our selves more than our neighbour but loving him more than his ease or his favour and loving God and the Common-wealth more than him 11. Our love of our neighbours as our selves doth not at all make our natural selfish appetites and senses or desire of food health ease rest c. to be sinful Nor oblige us to have such natural senses and appetites for others but only rationally to equal them in estimation and complacence and to do them so much good as God requireth us 12. And it doth not oblige us to do as much for them as for our selves for the reasons before allâ—dged but to do them good without the hinderance of self interest That selfishness be not to us as a Bile or Imposthume which draweth the humours and spirits unequally and disorderly from the rest of the body to it self By all this it is evident 1. That no man hath an inequality in his love to himself and his neighbour beyond the inequality of goodness but it is sinful speaking of Rational Love 2. That all Love to out neighbour is not sincere There is a real Love to them which bad men may have which is not the sincere love which God requireth 3. Every man that loveth another for his goodness and godliness loveth him not sincerely For he may have a love to goodness it self which is not sincere As if he love his lusts and pleasures more 4. Every man that doth good to another in Love doth not therefore sincerely love him A Dives may give Lazarus his sâ—â—â—ps And the very est sensualist may give another some of the leavings of his fleshly lusts And though the giving of a cup of cold water to a Disciple when we have no better to give doth shew sincerity and shall have its reward because God accepteth it according to mens will and to what they have and not according to what they have not yet it is certain that an unhappy worldling may give much more And if Christ had bid him Luke 18.23 sell part instead of selling all it 's like he might not have gone away sorrowful 5. It is not therefore the value or proportion of the gift which is it that must try our love to others in it self considered for it may oft fall out that a Widdows mite may signifie truer charity than the substance of some others But it is the prevalency of the Love of God in man and of man for the sake of God against our sinful self-love and carnal interest And now I will add a little more evidence to the principal thing in question viz. that 〈◊〉 the very degree the Rational Appetite or Will should love another equal with our selves And 1. The forementioned reason is undenyable that the Will should love that best which is best and must measure that by the respect which things have to God
will understand Pauls charge Phil. 2.3 4. In lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves Look not every man on his own but every man also on the things of others Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus You will learn of Christ to take your neerest friend for a Satan that would perswade you to save or spare your self yea your life when you ought to lay it down for the Glory of God and the good of many Matth. 16.22 23. SELF and OWN are words which would then be better understood and be more suspected And the reason of the great Gospel duty of SELF-DENYAL would be better discerned Therefore set your selves to the study of God especially in his Goodness study him in his Works and in his Word and in his Son and in the Glory where you hope everlastingly to see him And if you once love God as God indeed it will teach you to love your Brethren and in what sort and in what degree to do it For many waies are we taught of God to love one another Even 1. By the great and heavenly teacher of Love Jesus Christ 2. And by Gods own example Matth. 5.44 45 3. And by the shedding abroad of his love in our hearts by the Spirit of Love Rom. 5.5 4. And by this actual loving God and so loving all of God in the world Object But by this doctrine you will prepare for the Levellers and Fryers to cast down or cry down Propriety Answ 1. There is a propriety of food rayment c. which individuation hath made necessary 2. There is a propriety of Stewardship which God causeth by the various disposal of his talents and which is the just reward of humane industry and the necessary encouragement of wit and labour in the world None of these would we cast down or preach down 3. But there is a common abuse of propriety to the maintenance of mens own lusts and to the hurt of others and of all Societies This we would preach down if we could But it is Love only which must be the Leveller In the Primitive Church Love shewed its power by such a voluntary community Acts 4. And all Politicians who have drawn the Idea of a perfect Common-wealth have been fumbling at other waies of accomplishing it But it is Christian Love alone that must do it Unfeignedly love God as God and love your neighbours really as your selves and then keep your proprieties as far as this will give you leave I will conclude with this considerable observation that though it is false which some affirm that individuation is a punishment for some former sin for how could a soul not individuate sin And though sensitive self-love which is the principle of self-preservation be no sin it self nor doth grace destroy it yet the inordinacy of it is the summ and root of all positive sin and an increaser of privative sin And this inseparable sensitive self-love was made to be more under the power of reason and to be ruled by it than now we find it in any the most sanctified person even as Abrahams love of the life of his only Son was to be subject to his Faith And holiness lyeth more in this subjection than most men well understand And the inordinacy of this personal self-love hath so strangely perverted the mind it self that it is not only very hard to convince men of the evil of any selfish principles or sins but it greatly blindeth them as to all duties of publick interest and social nature Yea and maketh them afraid of Heaven it self where the union of souls will be as much neerer than now it is as their Love will be greater and more perfect And though it will not be by any cessation of personal individuation and by falling into one universal soul yet perfect Love will make the union neerer than we who have no experience of it can possibly now comprehend And when we feel the strongest Love to a friend desiring the neerest union we have the best help to understand it But men that feel not the divine and holy love are by inordinate self-self-love and abuse of individuation afraid of the life to come lest the union should be so great as to lose their individuation or prejudice their personal divided interests Yea true believers so far as their holy Love is weak and their inordinate sensitive self-love is yet too strong are from hence afraid of another world when they scarce know why but indeed it is much from this disease which maketh men still desire their personal felicity too partially and in a divided way and to be afraid of losing their personality or propriety by too neâ—r a union and communion of souls CHAP. XXVI How by Faith to be followers of the Saints and to look with profit to their examples and to their end THE great work of living in Heaven by Faith I have said so much of as to the principal part in my Saints Rest that no more of that must be expected here Only this subject which is not so usually and fully treated of to the people as it it ought being one part of our heavenly conversation I think meet to speak to more distinctly at this time As we are commanded first to look to Jesus the Author and perfecter of our faith Heb. 12.2 3. so are we commanded to remember our guides and to follow their faith and consider the end of their conversation Heb. 13.7 And not to be slothful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises Heb. 6.12 To which end we have a cloud of witnesses set before us in Heb. 11. that next to Jesus whom they followed we should look to them and follow them Jam. 5.10 My Brethren take the Prophets for an example The Reasons of this duty are these 1. God hath made them our examples two waies 1. By his graces making them holy and fit for our imitation He gave them their gifts not only for themselves nor only for that present generation but for us also and all that must survive to the end of the world As it is said of Abrahams Justification Rom. 4.23 24. It was said that Faith was imputed to him for righteousness not for his sake alone but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe So I may say in this case their faith their piety their patience was given them and is recorded not for their salvation or their honour only but also to further the salvation of their posterity by encouragement and imitation If all things are for our sakes 2 Cor. 4.15 then the graces of Gods Saints were for our sakes For the Churches edification it is that Christ giveth both offices gifts and graces to his Ministers Ephes 4.5 12 14 15 16. yea and sufferings too Phil. 1.12 20. 2 Cor. 1.4 6. 2 Tim. 2.10 I endure all things for the elects sake 2. By commanding us to follow
to joyn in consort with all these in those seraphick praises which are harmoniously sounded forth continually through all the intellectual world in the greatest fervours of perfect Love and the constant raptures of perfect Joy in the fullest intuition of the glory of the Eternal God and the glorified humanity of your Redeemer and the glory of the celestial world and society and under the streams of Infinite Life and Light and Love poured forth upon you to feed all this to all Eternity And all this in so near and sweet an union with the glorified ones who are the body and Spouse of Christ that it shall be all as one Praise one Love one Joy in all O for a more lively and quick-sighted faith to foresee this day in some measure as affectingly as we shall then see it Alas my Lord is this dark prospect all that I must here hope for Is this dull and dreaming and amazing apprehension all that I shall reach to here Is this sensless heart this despondent mind these drowsie desires the best that I must here employ in the contemplation of so high a glory Must I come in such a sleepy state to God and go as in a dream to the beatifical vision I am ashamed and confounded to find my soul alas so dark so dead so low so unsuitable to such a day and state even whilest I am daily looking towards it and whilest I am daily talking of it and perswading others to higher apprehensions than I can reach my self and even whilest I am writing of it and attempting to draw a Map of Heaven for the consolation of my self and fellow-believers Thou hast convinced my Reason of the truth of thy predictions and of the certain futurity of that glorious day And yet how little do my affections stir and how unanswerable are my joyes and my desires to those convictions when the light of my understanding should cure the deadness of my heart alas this deadness rather extinguisheth that light and cherisheth temptations to unbelief and my faith and reason and knowledge are as it were asleep and useless for want of that Life which should awaken them unto exercise and use Awakened Reason serveth Faith and is alwaies on thy side But sleepy Reason in the gleams of prosperity is ready to give place to flesh and fancy and hath a thousand distracted incoherent dreams O now reveal thy Power thy Truth thy Love and Goodness effectually to my soul and then I shall wait with love and longing for the revelation of thy Glory Thy inward heavenly powerful Light is kin to the glorious brightness of thy coming and will shew me that which books and talk only without thy Spirit cannot shew Thy Kingdom in me and my daily faithful subjection to thy Government there must prepare me for the glorious endless Kingdom If now thou wouldest pour out thy Love upon my soul it would flame up towards thee and long to meet thee and think with daily pleasure on that day And my perfect Love would cast out that fear which maketh the thoughts of thy coming to be a torment O meet me now when my soul doth seek thee and secretly cry after thee that I may know thou wilt meet me with love and pitty at the last O turn not now thine ears from my requests For if thou receive me not now as thy humble supplicant how shall I hope that thou wilt receive me then And if thou wilt not hear me in the day of grace and visitation and in this time when thou mayest be found how can I hope that thou wilt hear me then when the door is shut and the seeking and finding time is past If thou cast me out of thy presence now and turn away thy face from my soul and my supplication as a loathed thing how can I then expect thy smiles or the vital embracements of thy glorifying Love or to be owned by thee before all the world with that cordial and consolatory Justification which may keep my conscience from becoming my Hell If thou permit my flesh and sense to conquer my faith and to turn away my love and desire from thee how shall I then expect that Joy that Heaven which consisteth in thy Love And if thou suffer this unstedfast heart to depart from thee now will it not be the forerunner of that dreadful doom Depart from me ye workers of iniquity I know you not And if for the love of transitory vanity I now deny thee what can I then expect but to be finally denyed by thee Come Lord and dwell by thy Spirit in my soul that I may have something in me to take my part and may know that I shall dwell with thee for ever If now thou wilt make me thy temple and habitatâ—on and wilt dwell by faith and love within me I shall know thee by more than the hearing of the ear and thy last appearing will be less terrible to my thoughts Thou wilt be health to my soul when my body lyeth languishing in pain And when flesh and heart fail my failing heart will find reviving strength in thee And when the portion of worldlings is spent and at an end I shall find thee a never-ending portion Why wouldest thou come down from Heaven to Earth in the daies of thy voluntary humiliation but to bring down grace to dwell where God himself hath dwelt If the Eternal Word will dwell in flesh the Eternal Spirit will not disdain it whose dwelling is not by so close an union but by sweet unexpressible inoperations This world hath had the pledge of thy bodily presence when thou broughtest life and immortality to light O let my dark and fearful soul have the pledge of thy illuminating quickening comforting Spirit that life and immortality may be begun within me Thy word of promise is certain in it self but knowing our weakness thou wilt give us more Thy seal thy pledge thy earnest will not only confirm my faith as settling my doubting mind but it will also draw up my love and desire as suited to my intellectual appetite and will be a true foretaste of Heaven How oft have I gazed in the glass and yet overlookt or not been taken with the beauty of thy face But one drop of thy Love if it fall into my soul will fill it with the most fragrant and delectable odour and will be its life and joy and vigour I shall never know effectually what Heaven is till I know what it is to love thee and to be beloved by thee For what but Love will tell me what a life of Love is If I could love thee more ardently more absolutely more operatively I should quickly know and feel thy Love And O when I shall know that prosperous life and live in in the delicious entertainments of thy love and in the sweet and vigorous exercise of mine then I shall know the nature of Heaven the wisdom of believers and the happiness of enjoyers And then
cast in the light of Faith extraordinarily which is indeed the life of Faith Nor is it seeming to stir up Faith in a Prayer or Sermon and looking no more after it all the day This is but to give God a salutation and not to dwell and walk with him And to give Heaven a complemental visit sometimes but not to have your conversation there 2 Cor. 5.7 8. Direct 3. Be not too seldom in solitary meditation Though it be a duty which melancholy persons are disabled to perform in any set and long and orderly manner yet it is so needful to those who are able that the greatest works of Faith are to be managed by it How should things unseen be apprehended so as to affect our hearts without any serious exercise of our thoughts How should we search into mysteries of the Gospel or converse with God or walk in Heaven or fetch either joyes or motives thence without any retired studious contemplation If you cannot meditate or think you cannot believe Meditation abstracteth the mind from vanity and lifteth it up above the world and setteth it about the work of Faith which by a mindless thoughtless or worldly soul can never be performed 2 Cor. 4.16 17 18. Phil. 3.20 Mat. 6.21 Col. 3.1 3. Direct 4. Let the Image of the Life of Christ and his Martyrs and holiest servants be deeply printed on your minds That you may know what the way is which you have to go and what patterns they be which you have to imitate think how much they were above things sensitive and how light they set by all the pleasures wealth and glory of this world Therefore the Holy Ghost doth set before us that cloud of witnesses and catalogue of Martyrs in Heb. 11. that example may help us and we may see with how good company we go in the life of Faith Paul had well studied the example of Christ when he took pleasure in infirmities and gloryed only in the Cross to be base and afflicted in this world for the hopes of endless glory 2 Cor. 11.30 12.5 9 10. And when he could say I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death Phil. 3.8 9 10. No man will well militate in the life of Faith but he that followeth the Captain of his salvation Heb. 2.10 who for the bringing of many Sons to glory even those whom he is not ashamed to call his Brethren was made perfect as to perfection of action or performance by suffering thereby to shew us how little the best of these visible and sensible corporeal things are to be valued in comparison of the things invisible and therefore as the General and the souldiers make up one army and militate in one militia so he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one Heb. 2.10 11 12. Though that which is called the life of Faith in us deserved a higher title in Christ and his faith in his Father and ours do much differ and he had not many of the objects acts and uses of Faith as we have who are sinners yet in this we must follow him as our great example in valuing things invisible and vilifying things visible in comparison of them And therefore Paul saith I am crucified with Christ Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me Gal. 2.20 Direct 5. Remember therefore that God and Heaven the unseen things are the final object of true Faith and that the final object is the noblest and that the principal use of Faith is to carry up the whole heart and life from things visible and temporal to things invisible and eternal and not only to comfort us in the assurance of our own forgiveness and salvation It is an exceeding common and dangerous deceit to overlook both this principal object and principal use of the Christian Faith 1. Many think of no other object of it but the death and righteousness of Christ and the pardon of sin and the promise of that pardon And God and Heaven they look at as the objects of some other common kind of Faith 2. And they think of little other use of it than to comfort them against the guilt of sin with the assurance of their Justification But the great and principal work of Faith is that which is about its final object to carry up the soul to God and Heaven where the world and things sensible are the terminus à quo and God and things invisible the terminus ad quem And thus it is put in contradistinction to living by fight in 2 Cor. 5.6 7. And thus mortification is made one part of this great effect in Rom. 6. throughout and many other places and thus it is that Heb. 11. doth set before us those numerous examples of a life of Faith as it was expressed in valuing things unseen upon the belief of the Word of God and the vilifying of things seen which stand against them And thus Christ tryed the Rich man Luke 18.22 whether he would be his Disciple by calling him to sell all and give to the poâ—r for the hopes of a treasure in Heaven And thus Christ maketh bearing the Cross and denying our selves and forsaking all for him to be necessary in all that are his Disciples And thus Paul describeth the life of Faith 2 Cor. 4.17 18. by the contempt of the world and suffering afflictions for the hopes of Heaven For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal Our Faith is our victory over the world even in the very nature of it and not only in the remote effect for its aspect and believing approaches to God and the things unseen and a proportionable recess from the things which are seen is one and the same motion of the soul denominated variously from its various respects to the terminus ad quem and à quo Direct 6. Remember that as God to be believed in is the principal and final object of Faith so the kindling of love to God in the soul is the principal use and effect of Faith And to live by Faith is but to love obey and suffer by Faith Faith working by Love is the description of our Christianity Gal. 5.6 As Christ is the Way to the Father Joh. 14.6 and came into the world to recover Apostate