towards them and in like manner our Love of God fulfils all those other Precepts which comprehend our Duty towards him For all that he requires of us towards himself is neither more nor less than to honour and worship him to do nothing in all our behaviour that savours of disrespect towards him nor by any thought word or action to disgrace or contemn him But now nothing renders any person so secure from contempt as our love and affection for him Affront and reproach are a great part of enmity and despite and so can never proceed from us towards those whom we love and value But this is always certain that if we are kindly affected towards any person we shall not fail to express a due honour of him and bear him a just respect and veneration So that if we do indeed love God he is secure from all affront and disobedience being a most consummate reproach since our Love will not permit us to dishonour it can never suffer us to disobey him Thus mighty and powerful easie and natural a Principle of an universal obedience both towards God and men is an universal Love it doth the work without difficulty and carries us on to obey with ease in as much as all the particular Precepts and Instances of obedience are but so many genuine effects and proper expressions of it The effects of our love are the parts of our obedience the products of our Duty and Religion as well as of our passion So that it is a most natural Spring of our obedient service because it prompts us to the very same things to which God has bound and obliged us by his Precepts But besides this way of an universal love's influencing an universal obedience through this coincidence of the effects of Love and the instances of Duty our Love of God who is our King and Governour were a sure principle of our obedience to him were his Precepts instanced not in the same things which are the effects of a general Love which is the true Case but in things different from them For although our love would not prompt us to perform them by its natural tendency towards them and for their own sakes yet it would through submission and duty and for his sake who enjoyn'd them It would make us deny our selves to pleasure him and produce other effects than our own temper enclines us to to do him service For as Love is for doing hurt to none so least of all to Governours it will give to every one their own but to them most especially Now Duty and Service is that which we owe to our Rulers and the proper way of Love's exerting it self in that is by obedience If we love we shall be industrious to please and the only way of pleasing them is by doing what they command us For there is no such offence to a Governour as the transgression of his Laws no injury like that of opposing his Will and despising his Authority To do this is to renounce all subjection and to cast off his Yoke and so is not to express love but to declare enmity not affectionately to owne but in open malice to defie him But if any man would contribute to his delight there is no way for that but by a performance of his pleasure it is nothing but our obedience that can add to his contentment or evidence our Love For disobedience to our Governours is clearly the most profest hatred as the observance of our Duty is the most allowed instance of friendship and good will So that Love is a Spring and Principle of our Obedience not only because the Commandment and it run parallel and the instances of Gods Laws are the same with the effects of a general Love but also because our love of God would make us obey him even in such instances of Duty as differ from them For all that aversion which we have to the thing commanded would be outweighed by our desire to please him who commands it and although we should neglect it upon its own yet for his sake we should certainly fulfil and perform it And because our Love of God and men is so natural a Spring and so sweet and easie a Principle to produce in us a perfect and intire obedience to all those Laws which concern either or to any other therefore has God promised so nobly to reward it He never intends to crown an idle and unworking love but such only as is active and industrious For when he says that he who loves God and men is known of God and accepted by him and born of him and that God dwells in him and has prepared Heaven for him he speaks metonymically and means all the while a love with these religious effects a love that is productive of an entire service and obedience And to this Point the Scriptures speak fully For as for our love of God himself and of our Saviour Christ that is plainly of no account in his judgment but when it makes us keep his Commands and become industriously obedient If ye LOVE me saith Christ keep my Commandments for he that hath my Commandments and KEEPETH them he it is that loveth me and he only who so loveth me in obeying me shall be beloved of my Father and I will love him John 14.15 21. Whoso keepeth Gods Word saith S t John in him verily is the love of God made perfect and hereby it is by this perfection of Love in Obedience that we know we are in him 1 John 2.5 But if we have only a pretended verbal love or an inward passion for God and shew no Signs or Effects of it in our obedient works and actions we shall be as far from being accepted by him as we are from any true and real service of him He will look upon all our Professions only as vain speech and down-right flattery but will not esteem it as having any thing of sober truth and reality For whosoever hath this Worlds goods and seeth his Brother hath need and obeys not Gods Command of shewing mercy and the Case is the same in other Instances but shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him how dwells the love of God in him 1 John 3.17 And then as for our love of our Brethren it doth not at all avail us unto Mercy and Life unless it make us perform all those things which are required of us by the Laws of Justice Charity and Beneficence towards them My little Children saith S t John let us not love only in word and in tongue but in deed also and in truth For it is hereby by this operative love that we know we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts in full confidence of his mercy before him 1 John 3.18 19. Our love to them is to be manifested as Christs was to us viz. in good effects and a real service yea when occasion requires it and their eternal weal may be very much promoted
continue to separate between him and his God whatever God CAN do yet certainly he WILL not save him The Lords hand saith the Prophet Isaiah to the afflicted Jews is not shortened that it cannot save nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear but your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear For your hand 's are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity your lips have spoken lies your tongue hath muttered perverseness none calls for Justice nor any pleads for Truth and since your disobedience is so heinous your hopes must needs be false you TRVST in vanity Isai. 59.1 2 3 4. Christ himself never dyed to reconcile God to mens sins and to procure hopes of pardon for the finally impenitent and unperswadably disobedient So that no man may ever think himself delivered to act wickedness or wilfully transgress Gods Laws and still dare to trust in him But if any are so bold and frontless Christ will rebuke them at the last Day as God doth the presumptuous Jews by the Prophet Jeremiah Behold says he you trust in lying words which cannot profit you Will you steal murther and commit adultery and swear falsly and notwithstanding all that come and stand before me in this house which is called by my Name as Men that owne my service and dare trust in my love and say as in effect you do by such usage we are delivered to do all these abominations Dare you by thus presuming upon my favour in the midst of all your transgressions make me become a Patron and Protector of your villainies And is this house which is called by my Name become a Den or Receptacle and Sanctuary of Robbers in your eyes Behold I even I have seen it saith the Lord and that surely not to encourage and reward but most severely to punish it for I will utterly cast you out of my sight Jer. 7.8 9 10 11 15. God will by no means endure to have his own most holy Nature become a support to sin nor his Religion to be made a refuge for disobedience nor his Mercy and Goodness a Sanctuary to wicked and unholy men So that no man must dare to hope and trust in him but he only who honestly observes his Laws and uprightly obeys him That fear of God then and trust in his mercy which the Gospel encourages and Christ our Judge will at the last Day accept of is not a fear and trust without obedience but such only as implies it We must serve him in fear and obey him through hope as ever we expect he should acquit and pardon us For no fears or hopes will avail us unto bliss but those that amend our lives and effect in us an honest service and obedience CHAP. VII Of Pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour The CONTENTS Of Pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour Of the fitness of an universal love to produce an universal obedience That pardon is promised to it for this Reason The Conclusion EIghthly That condition which the Gospel indispensably requires of us to our pardon and happiness is sometimes called Love For of this S t Paul says plainly that it is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 It is the great condition of Life the standing Terms of mercy and happiness We have the same Apostles word for it of our love of God Those things which neither eye hath seen nor ear heard neither have entred into the heart of man to conceive are prepared for them who LOVE God 1 Cor. 2.9 And again Chap. 8. If any man love God the same is known or accepted of him vers 3. And S t John says as much of the love of our Neighbour Beloved let us LOVE one another for LOVE is of God and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God 1 John 4.7 And again God is Love and manifested his Love in giving Christ to dye for us And if we love one another God dwells in us For hereby by this mark and evidence we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of this loving temper and Spirit of his ver 8 9 12 13. And to the same purpose he speaks fully in the third Chapter of that first Epistle We know says he that we have passed from death unto life because we LOVE the BRETHREN ver 14. Now our hearty love both of God and men is a most natural and easie Principle of an intire service and obedience For the most genuine and proper effect of Love is to seek the satisfaction and delight of the persons beloved It is careful in nothing to behave it self unseemly but to keep back from every thing that may offend and forward in all such services as may any ways pleasure and content them If they rejoyce it congratulates if they mourn it grieves with them If they are in distress it affords succour if in want supply in doubts it ministers counsel in business dispatch It is always full and teeming with good offices and transforms it self into all shapes whereby it may procure their satisfaction and render their condition comfortable and easie to them So that it exerts it self in pity to the miserable in protection to the oppressed in relief to the indigent in counsel to the ignorant in encouragement to the good in kind reproof to the evil in thanks for kindnesses in patience and forbearance upon sufferings in forgiveness of wrong and injuries In one word it is an universal Source and Spring of all works of Justice Charity Humility and Peace Now the Body of our Religion is made up of these Duties For what doth the Lord thy God require of thee O man saith the Prophet Micah but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Mic. 6.8 Those things which God has adopted into his Service and made the matter of our duty towards one another are nothing else but these natural effects of love and kindness and expressions of good nature towards all men All the Precepts of Religion only forbid our doing evil and require our doing good to all the World And since as the Apostle argues love seeketh all things that are good and worketh no evil to our Neighbour therefore Love must needs be the fulfilling of those Laws which concern them This Commandment for instance as he illustrates it Thou shalt not commit Adultery thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal thou shalt not bear false witness thou shalt not covet all these and if there be any other Commandment relating to our Brethren it is briefly comprehended in this Saying Thou shalt LOVE they Neighbour as thy self For LOVE worketh none of all these ills to our Neighbour therefore LOVE is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.9 10. Thus doth our Love of our Neighbour fulfil all those particular Laws which contain our Duty
with all thy heart or will and with all thy soul or affections and with all thy strength or executive and bodily powers and with all thy mind or understanding Luke 10.25 26 27 28. Obedience with all these powers and with our whole Nature is the means of life and the indispensable condition of our eternal happiness First We must keep all Gods Commandments with our minds or understandings It is a dangerous conceit for any man to phansie that he may be as sinful as he will in his thoughts so long as he only loves and chuses projects and contrives for the forbidden instance in his mind but doth not proceed so far as to obey it in his outward practice For at the last Day we must be called to account and justified or condemned by the counsels and imaginations of our minds as well as by the works of our lives For not only the works and practice but also the thoughts of the wicked or of wickedness are an abomination to the Lord Prov. 15.26 The thought of foolishness is sin Prov. 24.9 And since God forbids and hates them as ever we hope for his favour we must repent of them and forsake them Let the wicked man forsake his thoughts saith the Prophet and turn them from his sin unto the Lord and then he will have mercy upon him and abundantly pardon him Isai. 55.7 For the warfare that God has set us after which we are to attain the reward of eternal happiness is a casting down imaginations as the Apostle tells us and bringing into captivity every rebellious thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.4 5. In particular this obedience of our minds to the Law of God must be as a doing what he enjoins so likewise a keeping off from every thing which he forbids First In our imaginations We must not phansie it in our minds with love and delight nor indulge to any thoughts of it with such pleasure as may be a bait to our choice and weaken our aversation and hatred of it and thereby ensnare us into the practice of it Our warfare as we have heard from the Apostle must not be against actions only but against imaginations also and insnaring phancies of evil casting down rebellious imaginations and making every thought obedient to the Laws of Christ 2 Cor. 10.4 5. And in the old world when the imaginations of mens thoughts were always evil it repented the Lord that he had made man insomuch as he resolved to destroy him Gen. 6.5 6 7. Secondly In our counsels and contrivances We must not study what means are fittest what times are best and what manner is most advantageous for the acting of our sins They must no more have our care and contrivance than our service and obedience For if we cast about in our thoughts and consult about the most commodious way of committing any sin although all our designs be defeated before we come to any effect yet shall we be damned for our contrivance as well as we should for the compleat action And this our Lord himself has plainly determined in one instance and the Case is the same in all the rest For of the contrivances and machinations of murther he assures us That they as well as murther it self are of the number of those things which pollute a man and so utterly unfit him for Heaven where nothing can ever enter that is polluted or unclean Out of the heart saith he proceed evil thoughts or murtherous machinations and besides them compleat murthers adulteries c. and these defile the man Matth. 15 19. And as for that particular sort of contriving for sin which is the height and perfection of villany viz. the inventing of new and before unknown ways of transgressing it of all others is sure to meet with the severest punishment and to thrust men down into the deepest Abyss of Hell Of this sort are all invention of new Oaths new Nick-names or evil speakings new frauds and methods of couzenage new incentives of lust new modes of drinking and arts of intemperance But of these and of all others that are like unto them God will one day exact a most rigorous and terrible account For he that deviseth to do evil saith Solomon although he himself doth not act but only devise it he shall be called and dealt with as a mischievous and wicked person Prov. 24.8 And S t Pauls words are full to this purpose For he tells us expresly that in the judgment of God inventers of evil things shall be declared worthy of death Rom. 1.30 32. As for our minds or understandings then they are one faculty which is plainly implied in the Integrity of our service and without the obedience whereof at the last day God will not accept us And another faculty implied in it likewise is Secondly Our Soul or Affections It is a vain thing for any man to love and set his heart upon any particular sin and yet for all that to expect that God should love and reward him If I regard iniquity in my heart saith the Psalmist the Lord will not hear me Psal. 66.18 No man as our Saviour sayes can serve two masters for if he love the one for his sake when their interests enterfere he will hate the other so that we cannot serve God if with our affections we continue to serve sin Mat. 6.24 To pretend obedience to God and yet to love what he sorbids to make a show of his service and yet in our very hearts to hanker after his vilest enemies whom above all things his soul abhors this surely is not honestly to serve but grosly to collogue and slatly to dissemble with him For in very deed if any man love sin he sides with Gods enemy but for the service and fear of the Lord it is to hate evil Prov. 8.13 If ever we expect that God should accept our works we must offer up our affections with them For if our hearts go along with our lusts whilst our practice is against them we serve God only against our wills we submit to him as a slave doth to a tyrannous Lord not through any kindness for him but through a hatefull fear of him We utterly dislike what he bids us but yet we do it only because we dare not do otherwise But now this is such a way of performing obedience as God will never endure to accept of For he scorns to be served by a slavish fear and an unwilling mind he will never look upon a heartless sacrifice but it is the affection that we do it with which makes him set a price upon any thing that we do and our love that he regards more than our performance For this is that very thing which was thought fit to be mentioned in the command it self Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart with all thy soul and with all thy mind Mat. 22.37 'T is true indeed we do not find our affection so quick and
of the Earth but bare understanding of them doth not make him partake with them or subject to be punished for them But to make these meer apprehensions and imaginations either of good or evil an instance of obedience or disobedience they must be causes and principles of an obedient or disobedient choice or practice For our inward thoughts and imaginations are Springs and Principles both of our inward choice and also of our outward operations And the service which God requires of them is the service of the principle He demands the obedience of our minds as a means and in order to a further obedience of our hearts and actions He expects that we should think so long and so often upon the absoluteness of his authority the kindness of his Nature the reasonableness of his Commands the glory of his rewards and the terrour of his punishments till in our hearts we chuse those things which he has commanded and perform them in our works and practice For our thoughts of him and of his Laws are not in themselves Obedience but only a Spring and Principle of it and a good step and degree towards it Our knowledge shall be judged an acceptable service as it carries us on to performance but no otherwise For hereby alone says S t John we know that we know him with such knowledge as shall be accepted by him if we keep his Commandments 1 John 2.3 And on the other side our bare imaginations and apprehensions of some forbidden sin are then only disobedient when they carry us on to chuse or practise those things that are sinful We must go on from thought to choice or practice before the vices thought of become our own and our apprehensions of sin become themselves sinful For the thoughts of sin have the sinfulness of means and causes they are sinful so far as they help on either our consent or performance So our Saviour has determined in one instance viz. that of lustful looks and apprehensions Matth. 5. He that looks upon a woman so long as to lust after her or to consent in his heart to the enjoyment of her he hath committed Adultery with her already in his heart ver 28. As for our thoughts and imaginations then we see what obedience in them is required to our acceptance and when they are disobedient and will destroy us For our counsels and contrivances of evil are always sinful and so are all such simple thoughts and apprehensions as have particular Laws imposed upon them And as for our imaginations and apprehensions of things commanded or forbidden by any other Laws they are imperfect things and not fully grown up to the perfect Stature either of obedience or of disobedience So that they are neither punished nor rewarded in themselves but so far only as they are causes and principles of an obedient or disobedient choice or actions And then as for our affections their measures are the very same with those already mentioned of our bare imaginations and simple apprehensions For their service and obedience is that of the principle and their Sentence shall be according to those effects either in our wills or practice which flow from it If we love and desire obedience so far as to chuse and act it this degree of affection will gain us God's love and favour and secure his rewards but less than it no other shall He that keeps my Commandments saith Christ he it is that loveth me and they only who so love me in obeying me shall be beloved again of my Father and I will love them John 14.15 21. But if our love and desire of evil things carry us on to chuse or act any instance of disobedience for the sake of that which is loved and desired then are our affections sinful and such as will destroy us The desire of evil is not so truly the state of mortal sin as of dangerous temptation it is not deadly in it self but kills by carrying us on to a sinful and deadly choice and actions For when once it has got to that degree it is obnoxious to a dreadful Sentence Whereof the Psalmist gives us one instance in the love of violence Him that loveth violence the soul of the Lord hateth Psal. 11.5 And S t John says the same of the love of lying and the Case is alike in every other sin Without in outer darkness are murtherers and whatsoever loveth or maketh a lye Rev. 22.15 And thus we see what measure of obedience is required in these two faculties and what kinds and degrees of thoughts and affections are to be used or restrained to make theirs an acceptable Service For we must abstain from all evil counsels and contrivances from all simple apprehensions which are particularly forbidden and put in use all such as are particularly enjoined and as for all other our bare thoughts and imaginations and all our affections and desires we must fix them upon our Duty so long till they make us perform it and never suffer them to issue out upon evil so far till they carry us on either to chuse or practise it But besides these two faculties viz. our minds and affections there is yet another whose service is necessary to render ours an acceptable obedience and that is Thirdly Our hearts or wills also It is an absurd Dream for any man to think of serving God without his will because without that none of his actions can be called his own For that only is imputed to us which is chosen by us and which it was in the power of our own wills either to promote or hinder no man deserving praise or being liable to answer for what he could not help But of all persons God most of all regards our hearts in all our performances He perfectly discerns them and he estimates our services according to them So that it is not possible for any of us to obey him unwillingly in regard the choice of our will and heart it self is that which renders any action a saving and acceptable obedience For out of the heart as Solomon saith proceed the issues of life Prov. 4.23 The choice then as well as the practice of our Duty is plainly necessary to render it available to our salvation But on the other side if we chuse sin although we miss of opportunity to act it the bare choice without the practice is sufficient to our condemnation For even by that when we proceed no further our heart has gone astray from God and we are polluted by the sin which we resolve upon in our own choice since out of the heart as our Saviour tells us proceeds the pollution of the man Matth. 15.19 20. We may commit all sort of transgressions and incurr the punishment of them merely by consenting to them inwardly in our hearts without ever compleating them in our outward operation For our Lord himself has thus determined it in one instance and the Case is the same in all
are likewise unchosen and so unavoidable are not eternally punishable by the Gospel but consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation will further appear if we consider First The Nature of God Secondly The nature and plain declarations of the Gospel 1. I say their consistency with a state of Grace or Gods favour will plainly appear if we consider the Nature of God God is the most Gracious Loving and good natured Being in the whole world For all the love and kindness that appears among us men proceeds from him and makes us to resemble him and to be like unto him Nay he is not only Loving but even Love it self For God sayes S t John is Love and he who dwells in love dwells in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4.16 And if we will take that character which he gives of himself it is wholly made up of the various instances of Mercy and Goodness The Lord sayes he to Moses the Lord God mercifull and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin Exod. 34.6 7. All his delight is in exercising Love and showing kindness For he swears to us as he lives that he has no delight at all in the death of a sinner but had rather that every wicked man should turn from his wickedness and live Ezech. 33.11 He is by no means forward to espie faults or malicious to misconstrue actions or prone to admit of provocation or implacably angry when he is once provoked or cruelly vindictive when once he is angred The Lord saith the Psalmist is mercifull and gracious slow to anger and plenteous in mercy He will not alwayes chide when he has just reason for it nor keepeth he his anger for ever Psal. 103.8 9. He is not at all of the humour of severe masters who are prone to take offence but like a most tender father he is all benignity and goodness For if any thing be pitiable he pities it if any thing is done amiss he is slow to wrath and easie to forgive it Like as a father pitieth his own children even so the Lord pitieth them that fear him Psal. 103.13 Nay take this Love and Pity of a Parent where it is at the highest pitch of all viz. in mothers towards their most helpless and so most pitiable infants and yet this tenderness of God doth infinitely exceed it Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb Yea they may forget sayes God by his Prophet Isaiah but I will not forget thee Isa. 49.15 Thus Loving Pitiful and Benign a Nature do the Scriptures represent God to be And what they declare of him all the world have experienced and found by him For every impenitent sinner is a lasting monument of his long-suffering and forbearance and every prosperous event and deliverance in the world is an effect of his boundless love and kindness He is infinitely good beyond all desert nay in spite of all provocation For he is loving even unto the unthankfull and the evil making his sun to shine and his rain to fall and all the other mâ—râ—ies of life to descend upon the unjust as well as upon the just upon them who contemn as well as on them who obey him as our Saviour observed Mat. 5.45 Luk. 6.35 And this he is to such an astonishing degree as to bestow upon them not only the blessings of his substance of his protection and of his kind providence but also what is a wonder to conceive for their sakes to part with his own well-beloved and so much the more beloved because his only begotten Son For God as saith the Apostle hath recommended his love to us in that whil'st we were sinners and enemies Christ his Son came from him and died for us Rom. 5.8 Thus wondrously pitiful obliging and good natured then is God according to that account which both the Scripture and the Experience of the whole world give of him And now let any man think with himself how so surpassing kind and infinitely gracious a nature as this is like to be affected with the ignorant or inconsiderate slips and errours of his Servants Will he be utterly offended with them so as quite to cast them off and for ever to condemn them No certainly but in great mercy he will pity and bear with them For these slips where we do not consider or where we err and do not understand our duty are such instances of disobedience as imply nothing of contempt or of a rebellious heart nor have any thing of our will in them They are clearly involuntary so that whatsoever the action may appear to be the will it self is innocent For the disobedience cannot be chosen since it is not understood which indeed in the notion and interpretation of Gods Law makes it not to be that sin and disobedience which is threatned but something else for that sin as S t John tells us is a rejecting or a renouncing of the Law whereas in these slips where we do not see it 't is plain that we cannot renounce it And since they have nothing in them of a disobedient will or of a rebellous heart can any man think that so gracious and pitifull a nature should be so highly provoked with them as for ever to condemn his own honest servants and otherwise obedient children upon the account of them Whosoever thou art who art inclined to think thus let me advise thee to consider a little what Love is and whether it can possibly be guilty of such hard usage If thou hast any competent degrees of that Love and Pity in thine own heart which are so infinite in God bethink thy self whether thou could'st do it for that is the way and thence take thy measures in judging whether or no God can Doth any gracious master use that severity towards the oversights and indiscretions of his honest servant or to rise yet higher can any tender Parent show that rigour upon every errour and inconsideration of his heartily obedient child Is not every good man prone to pass by such offences as are committed unwillingly against him and the more he has of goodness is he not still more forward to pardon and bear with them There is no Nature upon Earth that is kind and pitifull but will make allowances for those things which proceed from want of understanding and will pass over those miscarriages which imply nothing of ill will or ill intention Every good man will overlook and connive at them when they are committed by a perfect stranger but then most of all when they are incurr'd by his own intimate and dear acquaintance or relations by his own servant or his own child This I say every good and loving man doth and the more he has of love and goodness the proner still he is to do it For it is a natural and inseparable effect of charity so
sufferings Where it needs to be defended disobedience is no fit means to preserve it because God cannot be honoured nor Religion served by it Religion and the love of God is only the colour but the true and real cause of such disobedience is a want of Religion and too great a love of mens own selves Men are liable to be deceived by this pretence from a wrong Notion of Religion for religious opinions and professions A true Notion of Religion for religious practice upon a religious belief as it implies both faith and obedience The danger of disobedience upon this pretence The practice of all religious men in this case Of Religion in the narrow acceptation for religious professions and opinions The commendable way of mens preserving it First By acting within their own sphere Secondly By the use only of lawful means Thirdly By a zeal in the first place for the practice of religious Laws and next to that for the free profession of religious opinions 330 CHAP. VII Of the two remaining pretences for a partial obedience The Contents The second pretence for the allowed practice of some sins whilst men obey in others is the serving of their necessities by sinful arts in times of indigence An account of mens disobedience upon this pretence The vanity of it and the danger of disobeying through it A third pretence is bodily temper and complexion age and way of life A representation of mens disobedience upon this pretence The vanity of it and the danger of sinning through it No justifying Plea for disobedience from our age Nor from our way of life Nor from our natural temper and complexion So that this integrity of the Object is excusable upon no pretence It was always required to mens acceptance 355 CHAP. VIII Of obeying with all the heart and all the soul c. The Contents Of obeying God with all the heart and with all the strength c. It includes not all desire and endeavour after other things but it implies First Sincerity Secondly Fervency Thirdly Integrity or obeying not some but all the Laws of God These three include all that is contained in it which is shown from their obedience who are said in Scripture to have fulfilled it Integrity implies sincerity and fervency and love with all the heart is explained in the places where it is mentioned by loving him entirely Sincerity and uprightness the Conditions of an acceptable Obedience This a hard Condition in the degeneracy of our manners but that is our own fault It was easie and universally performed by the primitive Christians This shown from the Characters of the Apostles and of the primitive Writers Hence it was that they could despise Death and even provoke Martyrdom Some Pleas from our impotence against the strictness of this Obedience which are considered in the next Book 370 BOOK IV. Shewing what defects are consistent with a regenerate state and dispensed with in the Gospel CHAP. I. Shewing in general that some sins are consistent with a state of Grace The Contents SOme failings consistent with a state of Grace This shewn in the general First From the necessity of humane Nature which cannot live without them Secondly From sundry examples of pious men who had right to life whilst they lived in them 385 CHAP. II. Of the nature of these consistent slips more particularly The Contents Our unchosen sins are consistent with a state of Grace but our wilful and chosen ones destroy it All things are made good or evil a matter of reward or punishment by a Law Laws are given for the guidance and reward only of our voluntary and chosen actions This proved first from the clear reason of the thing Where it is inferred from the nature of Laws which is to oblige from that way that all Laws have of obliging which is not by forcing but perswading men from the dueness of rewards and punishments commendations and reproofs from the applause or accusations of mens own Consciences upon their obedience or transgressions Secondly From the express declarations of Scripture 396 CHAP. III. Of the nature and danger of voluntary sins The Contents The nature of a wilful and a deliberate sin Why it is called a despising of Gods Law a sinning presumptuously and with a high hand Wilful sins of two sorts viz. some chosen directly and expresly others only indirectly and by interpretation Of direct and interpretative volition Things chosen in the latter way justly imputable Of the voluntary causes of inconsideration in sins of commission which are drunkenness an indulged passion or a habit of sin Of the power of these to make men inconsiderate The cause of inconsideration in sins of omission viz. Neglect of the means of acquiring Vertue Of the voluntariness of all these causes Of the voluntariness of drunkenness when it mâ—y be looked upon as involuntary Of the voluntariness of an indulged passion mens great errour lies in indulging the beginnings of sin Of the voluntariness and crying guilt of a habit of sin Of the voluntariness of mens neglect of the means of Vertue No wilful sin is consistent with a state of Grace but all are damning A distinct account of the effect of wilful sins viz. when they only destroy our acceptance for the present and when moreover they greatly wound and endanger that habitual Vertue which is the foundation of it and which should again restore us to it for the time to come These last are particularly taken notice of in the accounts of God 409 CHAP. IV. Of the nature of involuntary sins and of their consistence with a state of salvation The Contents Of involuntary actions Of what account the forced actions of the Body are in Morals Two causes of involuntariness First The violence of mens passions It doth not excuse Secondly The ignorance of their understandings This is the cause of all our consistent failings and the sins that are involuntary upon this account are consistent with a state of salvation This proved 1. From their unavoidableness The causes of it in what sense any particular sin among them is said to be avoidable 2. From the nature of God A representation of God's nature from his own Word and mens experience The Argument drawn from it for the consistence of such failings 3. From the nature and declarations of the Gospel It is fitted to beget a cheerful and filial confidence and therefore is called the Spirit of Adoption The Argument from this The Scripture Declarations and Examples in this matter These Arguments summed up 440 CHAP. V. Of these involuntary and consistent sins particularly and of the first cause of innocent involuntariness viz. ignorance The Contents A twofold knowledg necessary to choice viz. a general understanding and particular consideration Consistent sins are either sins of ignorance or of inconsideration Of sins involuntary through ignorance of the general Law which makes a Duty How there is still room for it in the World Of crying sins which are against natural
things relating to our last doom and shewâ—â—â—oth what in the Judgment shall be indispensably required to our salvation what Defects do not overthrow but consist with it what Remedies when 't is wounded or lost can heal and restore us to it and what and of how great consideration those things really are which being wrong understood do often create causless fears and jealousies in good peoples minds about it Having I say clearly accounted for all these I suppose I may think I have said enough to shew men their Future State and fairly take leave of this Argument BOOK I. Of the indispensable condition of happiness in the general CHAP. I. Of Obedience the general condition of happiness The CONTENTS Obedience the indispensable condition of happiness The Laws of the Gospel are given as a Rule to it The Promises are all upon condition of it and intended to encourage it All the threatnings are now denounced and will be executed upon the disobedient Of those other things whereto Pardon is promised as well as to obedience Of Metonymy's Of the Principles of Humane Actions Of Principles of Obedience All those speeches metonymical where obedience is not express'd and yet pardon is promised THat Condition which the Gospel indispensably requires of us and which is to mete out to us our last doom of Bliss or Misery is in the General our Obedience When we are brought to that Bar and stand to be judged according to those Laws which are proclaim'd to us in the Gospel it is only our having kept them and Repented of all such transgressions of them as we have wilfully been guilty of which can capacitate us to be rewarded by them For 't is just with them as it is with all other Laws they never promise any thing but to obedience but threaten and punish all that disobey Whosoever breaks and despises them is guilty they do not comfort but accuse not acquit but condemn him For there is no Law that is wisely ordered but is sufficiently guarded against affront and back'd with such punishments as will make it every mans interest to fulfil and keep it The evil threatned must always by far exceed the pleasure that is reaped by disobedience so that no man may have any temptation sufficient to bear him out in Sin or ever hope to be a gainer by his transgression This is the tenour of all wise laws whose enactors have both wit and power sufficient to defend them They have dreadful Punishments annexed to them which take place upon disobedience they encourage and reward the obedient but severely punish all that dare presume to disobey And this is most eminently seen in all the Laws of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He gave them for the compleatest Rules to mens Lives and has annexed to them most glorious Promises to encourage our obedience but has made them breath out nothing but woes and intolerable punishments to all that disobey He has given them for Rules of Life and annexed Rewards as encouragements to obedience He never intended his Laws for an entertainment of our eyes but for a Rule for our Actions not for a matter of talk and discourse but of practice not to be complemented by words of honour and lofty expressions but to be own'd in our lives and served by obedience He is our King and issues out his Laws as the instruments of his Government he is our Lord and they are Rulers for his Service They must be guides of our Lives and Actions it is not enough to know and talk of them but as ever we hope to live by them we must do and keep them For in the end they will be available to no mans happiness but his who has conscientiously performed them In Christ Jesus or the Christian Religion says S t Paul nothing avails but keeping of the Commandments of God 1 Cor. 7.19 Blessed are they saith S t John who do the Commandments for they only have right to the Tree of Life Rev. 22.14 It is not an idle wish or ineffectual endeavour but a thorough practice and performance of Christs Laws which can continue us in his Love and approve us Righteous in his Judgment If ye keep my Commandments says he ye shall abide in my Love Joh. 15.10 Let no man deceive you for it is he only that doth Righteousness who in Gods account is Righteous 1 Joh. 3.7 They only are pronounced Righteous and Sons of God in the Gospels estimation who walk after the spirit Rom. 8.4 who are led by the spirit vers 14. who bring forth the Fruits of the Spirit all words expressing Action and Practice Gal. 5 16-22 No man therefore will be acquitted and rewarded at that Bar barely for knowing and discoursing for wishing or desiring but only for working and obeying Such only the Gospel reckons for true servants now his servants ye are not whom you confess in words but whom in actions you obey Rom. 6.16 And such only he will honour and reward then For it is not every one who fawns upon me in his words whilest he reproaches me in his actions who says unto me Lord Lord that shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he only who doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven Which will he had just then proclaim'd to them in that Volume of Christian Laws which was published in the Sermon upon the Mount whereof this is in part the conclusion Matt. 7.21 He tells us that when the Son of Man shall come to judgment he will reward every man according to his works Matt. 16.27 and he repeats it again in his declaration to S t John Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be Rev. 22.12 And so it was in that Prophetick sight of the Last Judgment which this same Apostle had vouchsafed him Rev. 20. For there as we are told when the Sea gave up the Dead which were in it and Death and Hell delivered up the Dead which were in them and they all both small and great stood before the Throne and him that sate thereon they were judged every man according to his WORKS vers 11 12 13. His Laws then Christ has given us not for talk and discourse but for action and practice and his Promises he has annexed to them not as rewards of idleness but only of active service and obedience Wherein if men fail Gods Rewards belong not to them they can make no claim or colourable pretence to them because they cannot show that which is to be rewarded by him Nay further if men disobey they are not only excluded from all glorious hopes but are moreover put into a desperate state of fears and dreadful expectations For God has back'd his Laws with threatnings as well as promises and as they propose most noble rewards to all that are obedient so likewise do they breath out most intolerable punishments to all that disobey
and their Faith confirmed by it in giving up our selves to Martyrdome and laying down our own lives for their advantage Hereby says this same Apostle perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us And if we would be reputed to have that love which as we are told at the fourteenth Verse wafts us over from Death unto Life we ought upon a fit occasion not to flinch from the most costly service but even to lay down our very lives for the Brethren 1 John 3.16 It is only this obedient and operative love of men which will be owned by Christ our Judg and confer a just claim to Life and Pardon at the last Day Our Love will not be rewarded as a thing that is absolute in it self but only as an Instrument in as much as it makes us as S t Paul says to fulfil the whole Law which makes any thing an instance of Duty towards them Rom. 13.8 But if we only profess love to them in kind words and tender expressions but shew none in our works and actions this idle useless love will be of no account to us nor benefit us more than it profits them For if a Brother or a Sister says S t James be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you gives them only some good words and says unto them Depart in peace be ye warm'd with Cloths and filled with Food but notwithstanding all this affectionate language ye give them not in the mean while those things which are needful for the Body what doth it profit Nothing at all surely nor will it ever advantage your selves as an instance of that mercy which rejoyceth against judgment Verse 13. more than it profits them James 2.15 16. So that when Christ comes to Judgment at the last Day we see plainly that no love either of God or men will avail us but only that which has kept the Commandments we shall never be acquitted at that Bar upon a pretence of love without obedience for all that can possibly stand us in any stead there is a loving service a love which has made us careful and diligent to obey And thus at last we have fully seen that as for all those other things besides obedience whereunto the Gospel promises pardon and happiness they are by no means available to our bliss when they are separate from obedience but then only when they effect and imply it They all aim at it and end in it and are of no account in Gods Judgment further than they produce it It is not either our knowing Christ or our believing Christ or our being in Christ or our trusting in Christ or our loving Christ or our fears of God or our confessions of sins or our pouring out many prayers or any thing else that will save us whilst we disobey No at the last Day we shall certainly be damned notwithstanding them if the obedience of our works is wanting It is only a working service that will please our Judge and which can possibly secure us if we are able in that Court to produce that it will clear us but without it nothing else will Christs Gospel whereby all of us must stand or fall at that Day has fully declared this already and Christ himself will then confirm it So that 't is in vain to cast about for other marks and to seek after other Evidences for our title to bliss and happiness nothing less than our Repentance and Obedience will avail us unto life and through the merits of Christ and the Grace of his Gospel it shall And now at last we see clearly what that Condition is which the Gospel indispensably requires of us and which is to mete out to us our last doom of bliss or misery that in the general it is nothing else neither more nor less than our obedience BOOK II. Of the Laws of the Gospel which are the Rule of this Obedience in particular CHAP. I. Of the particular Laws comprehended under the Duty of Sobriety The CONTENTS A Division of our Duty into three general Vertues Piety Sobriety Righteousness Of the nature of Sobriety The particular Laws commanding and prohibiting under this first Member A larger explication of the nature of Mortification BUT in regard our working and obeying is that whereupon all our hopes and happiness our security and comfort hangs it is very necessary that after all which has been hitherto discoursed of it in the general we go on still further and enquire of it more particularly For if it be our Obedience or Disobedience that must dispense Life or Death to us and eternally save or destroy us at the last Day then whosoever would know before-hand what shall be his final Sentence must enquire what is his present state and what have been his past actions whether in them he have obeyed or no. And the way to understand that is first to know what those Laws are whereto his obedience is due and in what manner and degrees he is to obey them and when once he has informed himself in these he may quickly learn from the Testimony of his own heart and Conscience whether he has performed that Obedience which is indispensably required to his happiness or has fallen short of it And to give the best assistance that I can in so weighty a Case I will here proceed to enquire further in this Obedience and shew concerning it these two things I. What those Laws are which under the Sanctions of Life or Death the Gospel binds us to obey And II. What degrees and manner of obedience is indispensably required to them I. Then I will enquire what those Laws are whereby at the last Day we must all be judged and which under the Sanction of Life or Death the Gospel binds us to obey And that I may render this enquiry as useful as I can I will set down as I go along the meaning and explication of those several Vertues and Vices which are either required or forbidden in the particular Laws that so we may more truly and readily understand whether the Vertues have been performed or the Vices incurred and whether thereby the Laws have been broken or kept by us As for the Laws and Commands of God they are all reduced by S t Paul to three Heads For either they require something from us towards God himself and so are contained in works of piety or towards our Neighbours all which are comprehended in works of righteousness or towards our own selves as all those Precepts do which are taken up in works of sobriety In these three general Vertues is comprized the Sum of our Christian Duty even all that is required by the Gospel as the Condition of Salvation For the Gospel saith he or that Grace of God which brings us the welcome offers of Salvation hath appeared now to all men teaching us as ever we expect that salvation which it tenders to us that denying ungodliness and
of the elect of God holy and beloved humbleness of mind Col. 3.12 It is this poverty and lowliness of Spirit which must prepare us for eternal happiness Blessed are the poor in Spirit Matth. 5.3 For as our Saviour says 't is by learning of him who is meek and lowly that we shall find both here and hereafter rest to our souls Matth. 11.29 And for all the rest their Sanction is expressed in these ensuing places Labour not for the meat that perisheth but for that which endureth to everlasting life John 6.27 This is a necessary evidence of our being risen with Christ now at present If ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God Set your affections on things above and not on things on the earth Col. 3.1 2 and a necessary condition to our being blessed with him for ever hereafter the blessedness which our Saviour pronounces being to those which hunger and thirst after righteousness Matth. 5.6 Add to temperance patience for he that lacketh these is blind and shall not be looked on as a new man seeing he has forgot that he was purged from his old sins 2 Pet. 1.6 9. The fruit of the Spirit saith S t Paul is temperance or continence and it is against this among others that there is no Law to condemn it Gal. 5.23 And to the Hebrews he says that they have need of patience to inherit the promises of life and happiness Heb. 10.36 and therefore they must not cast away but hold fast their confidence or couragious and open owning even of a suffering Religion which hath great recompence of reward ver 35. It bring to them only who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and immortality that God will give eternal life Rom. 2.7 Dearly Beloved I beseech you as Strangers and Pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul to vanquish and destroy it 1 Pet. 2.11 This abstinence is one chief thing which we were called to at our Call to Christianity God hath not called us to uncleanness saith S t Paul but unto holiness or purity and cleanness For this is the will of God which you are first to perform before you expect his reward your purity or sanctification and particularly in one instance wherein you are so generally defective that you abstain from fornication and every one of you possess his Vessel or Body in purity or sanctification and honour And this Commandment you know we gave you by the Lord Jesus's order so that whosoever among you despiseth it despiseth not man but God 1 Thess. 4.2 3 4 7 8. For the wisdom which cometh from above and which must carry us thither is in the first place pure or chast James 3.17 Love not the world nor the things of the world for if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him 1 John 2.15 For the esteem and friendship of the world is in very deed downright enmity with God Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God James 4.4 Godliness if it be joined with contentment is great gain saith S t Paul 1 Tim. 6.6 And our being content with such things as we have is reckoned a part of that Grace whereby we must serve God acceptably and be secured from his wrath who where he is angred is a consuming fire Heb. 12.28 to the fifth Verse of the thirteenth Chapter Christ said unto them all If any man will come after me and be accounted one of my Disciples let him deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me Luke 9.23 If ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body saith S t Paul you shall live Rom. 8.13 Yea its affections and desires as well as its sinful actions are to be deaded and brought under For they that are Christ's whom he will own for his at the last Day and reward accordingly have crucified the Flesh with the affections and lusts or desires thereof Gal. 5.24 They who would not be accounted in Gods judgment as Children of the night and of darkness S t Paul says plainly must watch and be sober 1 Thess. 5.5 6. For watching is necessary unto bliss Blessed is that Servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find watching Luke 12.37 And give diligence to make your calling and election sure saith S t Peter for this is one of those things which if you do you shall never fall either from your duty or your reward 2 Pet. 1.10 Thus are all the particular Laws recited in the first Class sobriety expresly bound upon us by all our hopes of Heaven and our obedience to them plainly necessary to our life and pardon when we come to be judged according to them And the Sanction is the same for all the Particulars of the second Class our piety towards God as will appear by the following Scriptures Them that honour me saith God I will honour or make honourable but they who despise me shall on the other hand be as lightly set by 1 Sam. 2.30 And if any man be a worshipper of God him said the man who had received his sight most truly he heareth John 9.31 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 For this is the will of him that sent me saith our Saviour that whosoever believeth on me may have everlasting life John 6.40 And what we hear of Faith is also said of Knowledge For this is life eternal saith Christ to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent John 17.3 The good things which neither eye hath seen nor ear hath heard i. e. the joys of Heaven are laid up for those who love God 1 Cor. 2.9 And if any man love God the same is known or accepted by him 1 Cor. 8.3 It is he who believes Christs promises or hopes on him that shall never be ashamed Rom. 10.11 And we trust in God saith S t Paul who is the Saviour of all men especially of those that believe or trust in him 1 Tim. 4.10 And a cheerful dependence upon Gods Providence for our food and maintenance c. and not being sollicitous about them is one of the Particulars of Christ's Law Matth. 6.25 the sanction whereof is expressed in the fifth Chapter in these words He who breaks the least oâ— these Commandments shall be least in the Kingdom oâ— Heaven i. e. according to the Hebrew manner of speaking he shall be none at all ver 19. Pray without ceasing 1 Thess. 5.17 It is this that must bring all blessings down upon us For the promise is Ask and you shall have Matth. 7.7 But no Petition being put up no Grant can in reason
and proposed it to us because the necessity of our faith to our obedience shews plainly that it cannot be denied us and because the best men that ever were have not been able to obey without it and yet their obedience has been most graciously accepted First Some respect to our own good and intention to advantage our selves by our obedience is of that nature that it cannot be forbidden us It cannot fall under a Law or be a matter of a Commandment because it can never be performed As for any one particular advantage and self-interest indeed we may deny our selves in it and therefore any Law may very well require it For we have many particular self-interests to serve and they clash and interfere among themselves and so long as we are in pursuit of any one by virtue of it we are able to restrain and deny our selves in any other And thus all men daily deny their Ease for their Interests and their Gain for their Liberty and their Liberty for their Lives And all good men daily over-rule that Love which they have for their Bodies by that higher and stronger love which they have for their Souls and deny themselves in any Temporal Interests to secure their Eternal And because all men have this power of denying their own Self-love in small instances to serve it in greater and of parting with any goods and advantages of this world to purchase to themselves incomparably better in the next God has enacted the denial of our selves in all such particular Interests as hinder our Obedience into a Religious Duty and made it universally obliging to all the world But as for the casting off this love of our selves and respect to our own advantage not only as to some particular interests whilst our eye is upon others but as to all self-interests whatsoever this in the matter of Duty and Obedience no man can perform and therefore no Law can command it For in that Constitution of Nature which God has given us self-self-love is the first and over-ruling Principle It has a share almost in all our actions and influences all our faculties so that in all that variety of operations which flow from us there are very few wherein we have no eye at our own advantage In some actions 't is true we are influenced chiefly and almost wholly by our love of others which is a noble and a generous Principle For there are several good Offices which we daily do to others in doing whereof we no way prejudice our selves and these our love of others makes us perform and our own self-love doth not withstand it which is seen in all the Offices of humanity and common courtesie And other things again there are wherein we advantage them though it be considerably to our own trouble and our own hindrance and here although our own self-love oppose it self yet our love of them prevails and over-rules it as is daily shown in the Offices of Christian Charity and particular friendship In these Cases our love of others and of our selves are separate our kindness for them shews it self in such things wherein our own self-love is either not concerned at all or wherein it is opposed and over-powered so that here we are not influenced and governed by it And if this were the Case in all our obedient actions there might be more pretence for performing them purely out of love to God without mixing therewith any love of our own selves But in them quite contrary our love of God and of our selves are neither repugnant nor so much as separate but most closely conjoined For God hath made the same things the matter both of our Duty and of our interest so that in serving him we do in the highest measure serve our own selves too And in this Case where our own self-love is so much concerned and has not the love of God to oppose and over-rule it but to jump in and conspire with it it is not possible but that we shall be influenced and acted by it For it naturally issues out upon our own good and here it has an object in the highest advancement and there is nothing to hinder or restrain it So that whatsoever we may do through a bare abstracted love of others without any regard to our own selves in those Cases where our own self-love and it are separate or repugnant yet in the matter of obedience where they are so close conjoined and Gods service is so infinitely our own interest 't is plain that we cannot be wholly free from it For since in obeying we do that which we know is most highly advantageous to us we are not able perfectly to abstract our thoughts but we shall intend whether we will or no to be advantaged by it And since no man can wholly abstain from intending his own advantage in Gods service no Law can require it It is no fit matter of a prohibition nor capable of being retrenched by a Commandment being it is at no mans choice whether or no he shall observe it So that God must work a Change in his own Creation and form us into something different from what we are before he can in reason demand it of us 2. Some respect to our own advantage in performing what God commands is lawful and allowable in us because Gods Laws themselves do authorize and propose it to us God has not required us to serve him for nothing but has offered us an abundant recompence for all our labour and added such allurements to his Laws as infinitely surpass all the difficulties of our Duty He has proposed every thing to us that may any way work upon our self-love and care for our own advantage whether it be the promises of good to intice or the threats of evil to affright us into obedience For thus saith our Law Verily verily I double the Asseveration that you may give the greater credit to it I say unto you He that keepeth my Sayings or Commands shall never see death John 8.51 To my Sheep that follow me and hear or obey my voice I will give eternal life John 10.27 28. Blessed are they that do his Commandments for they shall have right to the Tree of Life and enter in through the Gate into the City Rev. 22.14 But on the other side The wrath of God cometh upon the Children of disobedience Col. 3.6 For at the Day of Judgment when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with the Guards and Attendance of his mighty Angels then will he in flaming fire take vengeance on them that obey not the Gospel who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord 2 Thess. 1.7 8 9. Thus have we in Christs Laws to omit other things a promise made to us of Heaven and endless joys to induce us to obedience and a threatning of Hell and eternal miserie denounced to us to make us afraid to disobey And these make our obedience to
upon them They have trampled already upon all spiritual aids and benummed and silenced their own Consciences and quite hardened themselves in their wickedness so that now they have nothing to hinder them but advance to work all manner of sin with greediness and wantonness and thereby fall under the severest curse that can be met with in Hell and damnation And as for this progress of all Renegado Saints and revolting Sinners both in sin and also in suffering the Scripture is express and plain When the unclean Spirit which is once gone out of a man returns into him again says our Saviour he taketh unto himself seven other Spirits which are more wicked than he himself is and they enter in and dwell there and the last state of that man is made worse in all respects by this means than the first Matth. 12.43 44 45. The man becomes a greater Sinner and a greater Sufferer than otherwise he ever would have been For if after men have once escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledg of Christ's Gospel they are again entangled therein and overcome by it then is the latter end worse with them than the beginning For it had really been by much the better for them not to have known the way of righteousness at all than after they have known and walked in it to put such a slur upon it and to revolt and turn from the holy Commandment which was delivered unto them and for some time embraced by them 2 Pet. 2.20 21. As for an obedience then which goes but half way and breaks off before it has got to the end so far is it from availing us unto pardon and life that in very deed it renders our present case more desperate and our future punishment more insupportable But that obedience which God will accept and in which alone we may safely place our confidence must be as of our whole man so of our whole time likewise We must persevere in it through all Seasons and take care both to live and dye in it For our reward will be dispensed out to us according to the nature of our service at the time of payment and he only as our Saviour says that endureth to the end shall be saved Matth. 10.22 CHAP. VI. Of the third sort of integrity viz. that of the Object or of obedience to all the particular Laws and parts of Duty The CONTENTS Of the partiality of mens obedience from their love of some particular sins Three pretences whereby they justifie the allowed practice of some sins whilst they are obedient in some other instances The first pretence is the preservation of their Religion and themselves in times of persecution A particular account of mens disobedience under this pretence The vanity of it shown from the following considerations Religion needs not to be rescued from persecution The freedom of outward means of Religion is restrained by it but the substance of Religion it self is not It is extended in some parts and ennobled in all by sufferings Where it needs to be defended disobedience is no fit means to preserve it because God cannot be honoured nor Religion served by it Religion and the love of God is only the colour but the true and real cause of such disobedience is a want of Religion and too great a love of mens own selves Men are liable to be deceived by this pretence from a wrong Notion of Religion for religious opinions and professions A true Notion of Religion for religious practice upon a religious belief as it implies both faith and obedience The danger of disobedience upon this pretence The practice of all religious men in this case Of Religion in the narrow acceptation for religious professions and opinions The commendable way of mens preserving it First By acting within their own sphere Secondly By the use only of lawful means Thirdly By a zeal in the first place for the practice of religious Laws and next to that for the free profession of religious opinions BUT to render our service perfectly intire and compleatly upright it is not enough that there be an integrity of the Subject by our obeying with all our powers or an integrity of time by our obeying in all Seasons of which two I have discoursed hitherto but it is further necessary that there be an integrity of the Object also or that what we do thus obey with our whole man and our whole time be nothing less than all the particular Laws of Duty and instances of Obedience nothing under the whole will of God We must not pick and chuse in the doing of our Duty for if we do not obey all we obey not right in any Because all the Laws of God are bound upon us by the same power and enjoyned by the same Authority so that if we fulfil any one upon this account of his having required it the same reason holds for our fulfilling all the rest This indeed is very hardly believed because it is so hard to practise For almost every man has some sin or other which he can as well dye as part with It has got his heart and is become the Master of his affections and since he loves it so dearly he hopes that God will bear with it too He will part with any thing else for Gods sake he will not stick at any other service nor repine at any other imposition all that he craves is only to be tolerated in his Darling Lust and to be allowed to serve him without cutting off what is as useful as his right hand or pulling out what is as dear to him as his own right eye to please him And when men are thus desirous of reconciling the service of God with the service of their lusts when they are resolved to hope and yet resolved to sin they have no other way but to perswade themselves that the keeping of some Precepts shall attone for the transgression of others and to bear up themselves with the delusive hopes and false confidences of a partial and a half obedience They presently forge new terms of life and pardon which God never made and which he will never stand to for finding that they do not perform all his Laws and yet resolving that what they do perform shall be sufficient for them they straightway fansie that if they do keep some for the rest they shall have a Dispensation It shall be enough for them to part with such lusts for Gods sake as they can best spare but some they will keep and them he must allow and so instead of a perfect and intire they put him off with a partial and a maimed service Now this partiality of obedience is in so many kinds as men have sins that are endeared to them which they will not leave for God's sake but join with him For every beloved sin can make an interest and Party and if it reign in us so far as to make us fulfil it and
fallibility of the means of knowledge and these do not destroy but consist with a state of Grace and Salvation They get not into mens understandings by means of an evil and disobedient heart For it is not any love which they have for the damning sins of pride ambition sensuality covetousness unpeaceableness faction or the like which makes them willing to believe those Opinions true that are in favour of them When they take up their prejudice they do not see so far as these ill effects nor discern how any of these sins is served by it and therefore they cannot be thought to admit it with this design to serve them in it Nay further what is the best sign of all that lust or disobedience which the prejudice happens to minister to in some instance is mortified and subdued in them and so cannot have any such influence upon them For sometimes those very men who in such instances as their prejudice avows it are irreverent and disrespectful pragmatical and disobedient to their Governours or the like in all other cases wherein their Opinion is unconcerned are most respectfull quiet and obedient Humility and modesty peaceableness and quietness submission and obedience are both their temper and their practice For they love and approve and in the ordinary course and constant tenour of their lives conscientiously observe them and nothing under such prejudicate Opinion as makes them believe them to be unlawfull in some cases could over-rule that love and obedience which they have for them and prevail upon them so far as to act against them So that with these men it is not the disobedient temper of their hearts which makes their conscience err but the errour and prejudice of their conscience which makes their practice disobedient In such men therefore as are thus qualified who do not see those sins which their prejudice ministers to when they admit it and in all the other actions of their lives except where by this prejudice they are over-ruled shew plainly that they have mortified and overcome it 't is clear that the prejudice did not get into their consciences by any influence of an evil and disobedient heart But that which made way for it was only their natural weakness of understanding or the fallibility of the means of knowledge They are not of an understanding sufficient to examine things exactly when they embrace their prejudice for their Reason then is dim and short-sighted weak and unexperienced unable throughly to search into the natures of things and to judge of the various weight and just force of reasons to sift and ransack separate and distinguish between solidity and show truth and falsehood But those arguments whereupon they believe and upon the credit whereof they take up Opinions are education and converse the instruction of spiritual guides the short reasonings of their neighbours and acquaintance or the authority of such books or persons as they are ordered to read and directed to submit to These are the motives to their belief and the arguments whereupon they are induced to think one Opinion right and another wrong and the only means which they have of discerning between truth and falsehood But now all these means are in no wise certain they are an argument of belief indeed and the best that such men have but yet they are far from being infallibly conclusive Sometimes they lead men right but at other times they lead them wrong for they are not at all determined one way but in several men and at several times according as it happens they minister both to truth and falsehood In matters that are primarily of belief and speculation in Religion they lead a hundred men to errour where they lead one to Truth For there are an hundred Religions in the world whereof one alone is true and every one has this to plead in its own behalf that it is the Religion of the Place and Party where it is believed The Professors of it are drawn to assent to it upon these Arguments viz. because they have been Bred up to it by the care of their Parents and Teachers and confirmed in it by long Vse and Converse It was Education and Custome the Authority of their Spiritual Guides and the common Perswasion of their Countrey which made them both at first to believe and still to adhere to it And every one in these points having these Arguments to plead for his own belief against the belief of every other man who differs from him since of all these different Beliefs one alone is true these Arguments must be allow'd indeed to minister to Truth in that but in all the rest to serve the Interest of Falsehood In matters of Duty and Practice 't is true there is infinitely more accord and good agreement For almost all the laws of nature w ch make up by far the greatest part of every Christians Duty are the Catholick Religion of all sober Sects and Parties in the world So that these Arguments of Custome and Education are tolerably good and right guides to mens Consciences how ill soever they are to their speculative Opinions because although they carry them into a wrong belief yet will they lead them into a righteous practice But although in these practical Notions and Opinions they are commonly a right yet sometimes and to several persons they prove a wrong instrument For even in matters of Duty and Practice men are no more secure from errour than they are from disobedience nor more certain that they shall have no mistakes about them than that they shall not go beyond them They have and till they come to Heaven ever will have erroneous Opinions as well as practices so that these motives Education and Custome and Authority will never be wanting in the world to instill into weak and undiscerning minds such Opinions as will in some instances and degrees evacuate and undermine some duties And since there will never be wanting in the world such fallible Arguments and means of knowing nor such weak and unexperienced understandings as must of necessity make use of them 't is plain that several disobedient prejudices will in all times get into mens minds not through any wickedness or disobedience of their hearts but only through the natural weakness of their minds and the fallibility of the means of knowledge And when any prejudices which lead to disobedience enter this way they do not put us out of Gods favour or destroy a state of Grace and Salvation but consist with it For in our whole action of disobedience upon them there is nothing that should provoke Gods wrath and punitive displeasure against us He will not be at enmity with us either for acting according to our erroneous Conscience or if the errour was thus innocent for having an erroneous conscience for our rule of action He will not be offended at us I say for acting according to our erroneous conscience for whether our conscience be true or