which Christ hath made for our pardon is in it self sufficient yea and effectual as to that end which he would have it attain before our believing But our actual pardon is no such end Nor can sin be forgiven before it be committed because it is no sin Christ never intended to justifie or sanctifie us perfectly at the first whatsoever many say to the contrary because they understand not what they say but to carry on both proportionably and by degrees that we may have daily use for his daily mediation and may daily pray Forgive us our trespasses There is no guilt on them that are in Christ so far as they walk not after the flesh but after the spirit nor no proper condemnation by sentence or execution at all because their pardon is renewed by Christ as they renew their sins of infirmity but not because he preventeth their need of any further pardon Therefore as God made advantage of the sins of the world for the honouring of his grace in Christ that grace might abound where sin abounded Rom. 5.12 16 17. So do you make advantage of your renewed sins for a renewed use of faith in Christ and let it drive you to him with renewed desires and expectations of pardon by his intercession That Satan may be a loser and Christ may have more honour by every sin that we commit Not that we should sin that grace may abound but that we may make use of abounding grace when we have sinned It is the true nature and use of Faith and Repentance to draw good out of sin it self or to make the remembrance of it to be a means of our hatred and mortification of it and of our love and gratitude to our Redeemer Not that sin it self doth formally or efficiently ever do any good But sin objectively is turned into good For so sin is no sin because to remember sin is not sin When David saith Psal 51.3 that his sin was ever before him he meaneth not only involuntarily to his grief but voluntarily as a meditation useful to his future duty and to stir him up to all that which afterward he promiseth Direct 13. In all the weaknesses and languishings of the new creature let Faith look up to Christ for strength For God hath put our life into his hand and he is our root and hath promised that we shall live because he liveth John 14.19 Do not think only of using Christ as you do a friend when you have need of him or as I do my pen to write and lay it down when I have done But as the branches use the Vine and as the members use the Head which they live by and from which when they are separated they die and wither John 15.1 2 3 c. Ephes 1.22 5.27 30. 4.4 5 12 15 16. Christ must even dwell in our hearts by Faith Ephes 3.17 that is 1. Faith must be the means of Christs dwelling in us by his Spirit and 2. Faith must so habituate the heart to a dependance upon Christ and to an improvement of him that objectively he must dwell in our hearts as our friend doth whom we most dearly love as that which we cannot chuse but alwaies think on Remember therefore that we live in Christ and that the life which we now live is by the faith of the Son of God who hath loved us and given himself for us Gal. 2.20 And his grace is sufficient for us and his strength most manifested in our weakness 2 Cor. 12.9 And that when Satan desireth to sift us he prayeth for us that our faith may not fail Luke 22.32 And that our life is hid with Christ in God even with Christ who is our life Col. 3.3 4. That he is the Head in whom all the members live by the communication of his appointed ligaments and joynts Ephes 4.14 15 16. Therefore when any grace is weak go to your Head for life and strength If faith be weak pray Lord increase our faith Luke 17.5 If you are ignorant pray him to open your understandings Luk. 24.45 If your hearts grow cold go to him by faith till he shed abroad the love of God upon your hearts Rom. 5.3 4. For oâ— his fulness it is that we must receive grace for grace Jâ—hn 1.16 Direct 14. Let the â—hief and most diligent work of your faith in Christ be to inflame your hearts with love to God as his Goodness and Love is revealed to us in Christ Faith kindling Love and working by it is the whole summ of Christianity of which before Direct 15. Let Faith keep the example of Christ continually before your eyes especially in those parts of it which he intended for the contradicting and healing of our greatest sins Above all others these things seem purposely and specially chosen in the life of Christ for the condemning and curing of our sins and therefore are principally to be observed by faith 1. His wonderful Love to God to his Elect and to his enemies expressed in so strange an undertaking and in his sufferings and in his abundant grace which must teach us what fervours of love to God and man to friends and enemies must dwell and have dominion in us 1 John 4.10 Rev. 1.5 Rom. 5.8 10. John 13.34 35. 15.13 1 John 3.14.23.17 4.7 8 20 21. 2. His full obedience to his Fathers will upon the dearest rates or terms To teach us that no labour or cost should seem too great to us in our obeying the will of God nor any thing seem to us of so much value as to be a price great enough to hire us to commit any wilful sin Rom. 5.19 Heb. 5 8. Phil. 2 8. 1 Sam. 15.22 2 Cor. 10.5 6. Heb. 5 9. John 14.15 15.10 1 John 2.3 3.22 5.2 3. Rev. 22.14 3. His wonderful contempt of all the Riches and Greatness of the world and all the pleasures of the flesh and all the honour which is of man which he shewed in his taking the form of a servant and making himself of no reputation and living a mean inferiour life He came not to be served or ministred to but to serve Not to live in state with abundance of attendants with provisions for every turn and use which pride curiosity or carnal imagination taketh for a conveniency or a decency no nor a necessity But he came to be as a servant unto others not as despising his liberty but as exercising his voluntary humility and love He that was Lord of all for our sakes became poor to make us rich He lived in lowliness and meekness He submitted to the greatest scorn of sinners and even to the false accusations and imputations of most odious sin in it self Phil. 2.6 7 8 9. Heb. 12.1 2 3. Matth. 26.55 60 61 63 66. 27 28 29 30 31. Matth. 11.29 30. 20.28 2 Cor. 8.9 which was to teach us to see the vanity of the wealth and honours of the world and
further than you have a present pawn or security in case he should deceive you you blaspheme him instead of taking him for your God Direct 14. Let your greatest mercy be shewed in the greatest things and let the good of mens souls be your end even in your mercy to their bodies And therefore do all in such a manner as tendeth most to promote the highest end Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy CHAP. XIX How to live by Faith in Adversity IF I should give you distinct Directions for the several cases of poverty wrongs persecutions unkindnesses contempt sickness c. it would swell this Treatise yet bigger than I intended I shall therefore take up with this general Advice Direct 1. In all Adversity remember the evil of sin which is the cause and the Holiness and Justice of God which is exercised and then the hatred of sin and the love of Gods Holiness and Justice will make you quietly submit You will then say when Repentance is serious I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him Micah 7.9 And why doth living man complain a man for the punishment of his sins Lam. 3.39 Let us search and try our waies and turn again unto the Lord for he hath smitten and he will heal c. v. 40 41. Object But doth not Job 's case tell us that some afflictions are only for tryal and not for sin Answ No it only telleth us that the reason why Job is chosen out at that time to suffer more than other men is not because he was worse than others or us bad but for his tryal and good But 1. Affliction as it is now existent in the world upon mankind is the fruit of Adams sin at first and contained in the peremptory unremitted sentence 2. And this general state of suffering mankind is now in the hand and power of Christ who sometimes indeed doth let out more on the best than upon others and that especially for their tryal and good but usually some sins of their own also have a hand in them and procure the evil though his mercy turn it to their benefit Direct 2. Deal closely and faithfully with your hearts and lives in a suffering time and rest not till your consciences are well assured that no special provocation is the cause or else do testifie that you have truly repented and resolved against it Otherwise you may lengthen your distress if you leave that thorn in your sore which causeth it Or else God may change it into a worse or may give you over to impenitency which is worst of all Or at least you will want that assured peace with God and solid peace of conscience which must be your support and comfort in affliction and so will sink under it as unable to bear it Direct 3. Remember that the sanctifying fruit of Adversity is first and more to be looked after than either the comfort or the deliverance And therefore that all men no nor all Christians must not use the same method in the same affliction when as their spiritual cases differ A cleared conscience and one that hath walked faithfully with God and fruitfully in the world and kept himself from his iniquity may bend most of his thoughts to the comforting promises and happy end But one man hath been bold with wilful sin and his work must be first to renew repentance and see that there be no root of bitterness left behind and to set upon true reformation of life and reparation of the hurt which he hath done Another is grown into love with the world and hath let out his heart to pleasant thoughts and hopes of prosperity and alienated his thoughts more than before from God This man must first perceive his errour and hear Gods voice which calleth him home and see the characters of vanity and vexation written on the face of that which he over-loved and then think of comfort when he hath got a cure Another is grown dull and careless of his soul and hath lost much of his sense of things eternal and is cold in love and cold in prayer and liveth as if he were grown weary of God and weary of well doing His work must be to feel the smart of Gods displeasure so far as to awaken him to repentance and set him again with former seriousness upon his duty And when he mendeth his pace he may desire to be eased of the rod and spur But to give unseasonable cordials to any of these is but to frustrate the affliction and to hurt them and prepare for worse Nay and when they are comforted in season it must be with due caution Go thy way and sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee It is pâ—rnicious unskilfulness in those comforters of the afflicted who have the same customary words of comfort for all and by their improper cordials unseasonably applyed delude poor souls and hinder that necessary repentance which God by so shâ—rp a means doth call them to Direct 4. Remember that your part in affliction is to do your duty and to get the benefit of it but to remove it is Gods part Therefore be you careful about that part which is your own and then make no question but God will do his part Let it be your first question therefore What is it that I am obliged to in this condition What is the special duty of one in this sickness this poverty imprisonment restraint contempt or slander which I undergo Be careful daily to do that duty and then never fear the issue of your suffering Nothing can go amiss to him that is found in the way of his duty And let it be your next question What spiritual good may be got by this affliction May not my repentance be renewed my self-denyal humility contempt of the world patience and confidence on God be exercised and increased by it and is not this the end of my heavenly Father Is not his rod an act of love and kindness to me Doth he not offer me by it all this good And let your next question be Have I yet got that good which God doth offer me Have I any considerable benefit to shâ—w which I have received by this affliction since it came If not why should you desire it to be taken away Play not the Hypocrite in speaking that good of an afflicting God which you do not seriously believe If you believe that God is wiser than you to know what is fittest for you and that he is better than you and therefore hath better ends than you can have and that really he offereth you far greater good by your sufferings than he taketh from you Let your affections then be agreeable to this belief Are you afraid of your own commodity Do you impatiently long to be delivered from your gain are you so childish as to pull off the plaister if you believe that it is curing the sore and that
have leave to be awake and to be in our wiâ—s to be Christians to be men to be creatures that have life and sense forgive us that we believe the living God that we cannot laugh at Heaven and Hell nor jest at the threatned wrath of the Almighty If these things must make us the object of the worlds reproach and malice let me rather be a reproached man than an honoured beast and a hated Christian than a beloved Infidel and rather let me live in the midst of malice and contempt than pass through honour unto shame through mirth to misery and a sensless to a feeling death Hate us when we are in Heaven and see who will be the sufferer by it If ever we should begin to nod and relapse towards your hypocritical formality and sensless indifferency our lively sight of the world invisible by a serious faith would presently awake us and force us confidently to conclude AVT SANCTVS AVT BRVTVS There is practically and predominantly no Mean He 'l prove a BRVIT that is not a SAINT CHAP. III. HAving done with this general conviction and exhortation to unbelieving Hypocrites I proceed to acquaint Believers with their Duty in several particulars 1. Worship God as Believers serve him with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12.28 29. A seeing faith if well excited would kindle love desire fear and all praying graces No man prayes well that doth not well know what he prayes for When it comes to seeing all men can cry loud and pray when praying will do no good They will not then speak sleepily or by rote Fides intuendo amorem recipit amorem susâ—â—tat Cor flagrans amore desideria gemitus orationes spirat Faith is the burning-glass which beholding God receiveth the beams of his communicated love and inflameth the heart with love to him again which mounteth up by groans and prayers till it reach its original and love for ever rest in love 2. Desire and use the creature as Believers Interpret all things as they receive their meaning from the things unseen understand them in no other sense It 's only God and the life to come that can tell you what 's good or bad for you in the world And therefore the ungodly that cannot go to Heaven for counsel are carryed about by meer deceits Take heed what you love and take heed of that you love God is very jealous of our love He sheds abroad his own love in our hearts that our hearts may be fruitful in love to him which is his chief delight By love he commandeth love that we may suitably move toward him and center in him He communicateth so much for the procuring of a little that we should endeavour to give him all that little and shed none of it inordinately upon the creature by the way Nothing is great or greatly to be admired while the great God is in sight And it is unsuitable for little things to have great affections and for low matters to have a high esteem It is the corruption and folly of the mind and the delusion of the affections to exalt a Shrub above a Cedar and magnifie a Mole-hill above a Mountain to embrace a shadow or spectrum of felicity which vanisheth into Nothing when you bring in the light The creature is nihil nullipotens Nothing should have no interest in us and be able to do Nothing with us as to the motions that are under the dominion of the will God is All and Almighty And he that is All should have All and command All And the Omnipotent should do All things with us by his Interest in Morals as he will do by his force in Naturals I deny not but we may love a friend One soul in two bodies will have one mind and will and love But as it is not the body of my friend that I love or converse with principally but the soul and therefore should have no mind of the case the corps the empty nest if the bird were flown so is it not the person but Christ in him or that of God which appeareth on him that must be the principal object of our love The man is mutable and must be loved as Plato did commend his friend to Dionysius Haec tibi scribo de homine viz. animante naturâ mutabili and therefore must be loved with a reserve But God is unchangeable and must be absolutely and unchangeably loved That life is best that 's likest Heaven There God will be All and yet even there it will be no dishonour or displeasure to the Deity that the glorified humanity of Christ and the New Jerusalem and our holy society are loved more dearly than we can love any creature here on earth So here God taketh not that affection as stoln from him that 's given to his servants for his sake but accepts it as sent to him by them Let the creature have it so God have it finally in and by the creature and then it is not so properly the creature that hath it as God If you chuse and love your friends for God you will use them for God not flattering them or desiring to be flattered by them but to kindle in each other the holy flame which will aspire and mount and know no bounds till it reach the boundless element of love You will not value them as friends qui omnia dicta facta vestra laudant sed qui errata delicta amice reprehendunt Not them that call you good but them that would make you better And you will let them know as Phocian did Antipater that they can never use you amiciâ— adulatoribus as friends and flatterers that differ as a wife and a harlot It 's hard to love the imperfect creature without mistakes and inordinacy in our love And therefore usually where we love most we sin most and our sin finds us out and then we suffer most and too much affection is the forerunner of much affliction which will be much prevented if Faith might be the guide of Love and Humane Love might be made Divine and all to be referred to the things unseen and animated by them Love where you can never love too much where you are sure to have no disappointments where there is no unkindness to ecclipse or interrupt where the only errour is that God hath not all and the only grief that we love no more Especially in the midst of your entising pleasures or entising employments and profits in the world foresee the end do all in Faith which telleth you The time is short it remaineth therefore that both they that have wives be as though they had none and they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoyce as though they rejoyced not and they that buy as though they possessed not and they that use this world as through they used it not or not abusing it for the fashion of this
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.
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
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
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
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
will not let man know it also and turn one sin against another and let the love of Reputation help to subdue the love of Lust Opening a sin yea or a strong temptation to a sin doth lay an engagement in point of common credit in the world upon them that were before under the divine engagements only It will be a double shame to sin when once it 's known And as Christ speaketh of a right hand or eye so may I of your honour in this case it is better go to Heaven with the shame of a penitent confession than to keep your honour till you are in Hell The loss of mens good opinion is an easie price to prevent the loss of your salvation Prov. 28.13 He that covereth his sins shall not prosper but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy So 1 John 1.9 10. James 5.15 16. Direct 14. Especially take heed of heinous sins called mortal because inconsistent with sincerity Direct 15. And take heed of those sins which your selves or others that fear God are in greatest danger of Of which I will speak a little more distinctly CHAP. XIII What sins the best should most watchfully avoid and wherein the infirmities of the upright dâ—ffer from mortal sins Qâ—est WHat sins are religious people who fear sin most in danger of and where must they set the strongest watch Answ 1. They are much in danger of those sins the temptations to which are neer and importunate and constant and for which they have the greatest opportunities They have senses and appetites as well as others And if the bait be great and alwaies as at their very mouths even a David a Solomon a Noah is not safe 2. They are in danger of those sins which they little think of for it is a sign that they are not forewarned and fortified nor have they overcome that sin for victory here is never got at so cheap a rate especially as to inward sins If it have not cost you many a groan and many a daies diligence to conquer selfishness pride and appetite it 's twenty to one they are not conquered 3. They are much in danger of those sins which they extenuate and count to be smaller than they are For indeed their hearts are infected already by those false and favourable thoughts And they are prepared to entertain a neerer familiarity with them Men are easily tempted upon a danger which seemeth small 4. They are much in danger of those sins which their constitutions and temperature of body doth encline them to and therefore must here keep a double watch No small part of the punishment of our Original sin both as from Adam and from our neerest Parents is found in the ill complexion of our bodies The temperature of some inclineth them vehemently to passion and of others unto lust and of others to sloth and dulness and of others to gulosity c. And grace doth not immediately change this distemper of the complexion but only watch over it and keep it under and abate it consequently by contrary actions and mental dispositions Therefore we shall have here uncessant work while we are in the body Though yet the power of grace by long and faithful use will bring the very sense and imagination and passions into so much calmness as to be far less raging and easily ruled As a well ridden horse will obey the Rider and even dogs and other bruits will strive but little against our government And then our work will grow more easie For as Seneca saith Maxima pars libertatis est bene moratus venter A good conditioned belly is a great part of a mans liberty meaning an ill conditioned belly is a great part of mens slavery And the same may be said of all the senses fantasie and passions in their respective places 5. We are much in danger of the sins which our callings trades and worldly interest do most and constantly tempt us to Every man hath a carnal interest which is his great temptation and every wise man will know it and there set a double watch The carnal interest of a Preacher is applause or preferment The carnal interest of Rulers and great men I shall pass by but they must not pass it by themselves The carnal interest of Lawyers and Tradesmen is their gain c. Here we must keep a constant watch 6. We are much in danger of those sins the matter of which is somewhat good or lawful and the danger lyeth only in the manner circumstances or degree For there the lawfulness of the matter occasioneth men to forget the accidental evil The whole Kingdom feeleth the mischief of this in instances which I will now pass by If eating such or such a meat were not lawful it self men would not be so easily drawn to gluttony If drinking wine were not a lawful thing the passage to drunkenness were not so open The apprehension that a lusory lot is a lawful thing as Cards Dâ—ce c. doth occasion the heinous sin of time-wasting and estate-wasting gamesters If apparel were not lawful excess would not be so easily endured Yea the goodness of Gods own Worship quieteth many in its great abuse 7. We are much in danger of those sins which are not in any great disgrace among those persons whom we most honour and esteem It is a great mercy to have sin lie under a common odium and disgrace As swearing and drunkenness and cursing and fornication and Popish errours and superstition is now amongst the forwardest Professors in England For here conscience is most awakened and helped by the opinion of men or if there be some carnal respect to our reputation in it sometimes yet it tendeth to suppress the sin And it is a great plague to live where any great sin is in little disgrace as the prophanation of the Lords day in most of the Reformed Churches beyond Sea and they say tipling if not drunkenness in Germany and as backbiting and evil speaking against those that differ from them is among the Professors in England for too great a part and also many superstitions of their own and dividing principles and practices 8. But especially if the greater number of godly people live in such a sin then is the temptation great indeed and it is but few of the weaker sort that are not carryed down that stream The Munster case and the Rebellion in which Munster perished in Germany and many other but especially abundance of Schisms from the Apostles daies till now are too great evidences of mens sociableness in sinning We all like sheep have gone astray and turned every one to his own way Isa 53 6. And like sheepâ—n â—n this that if one that is leading get over the hedge all the rest will follow after but especially if the greater part be gone And do not think that our Churches are infallible and that the greater part of the godly cannot erre or be in the wrong For that would
and sellers from Christs Temple their merchandize is exposed without shame and their signs set forth and the trade of getting preferments openly professed and it is enough to wipe off all the shame to put some venerable titles upon this Den of thieves But the Lord whom we wait for will once more come and cleanse his Temple But who may abide the day of his coming for he is like a refiners fire and like fullers sâ—pe and will throughly purge the Sons of Levi Mal. 3.1 2 3 4. If talking against worldliness would prove that the world is overcome and that God is dearest to the soul then Preachers will be the happiest men on earth But it 's easier to commend God than to love him above all and easier to cry out against the world than to have a heart that is truly weaned from it and set upon a better world Object 10. But all this belongeth only to them that are in prosperity but I am poor and therefore it is nothing to me Answ Many a one loveth prosperity that hath it not And such are doubly sinful that will love a world which loveth not them Even a world of poverty misery and distress Something you would have done if you had had a full estate and honour and fleshly delights to love Nay many poor men think better of riches and honour than those that have them because they never tryed how vain and vexatious they are and if they had tryed them perhaps would love them less The world is but a painted Strumpet admired afar off but the neerer you come to it and the more it 's known the worse you will like it Is it by your own desire that you are poor or is it against your wills Had you not rather be as great and rich as others Had you not rather live at ease and fulness And do you think God will love you ever the better for that which is against your wills Will he count that man to be no worldling that would fain have more of the world and cannot and that loveth God and Heaven no better than the rich Nay that will sin for a shilling when great ones do it for greater summs who can be more unfit for Heaven than he that loveth a life of labour and want and misery better Alas it is but little that the greatest worldlings have for their salvation But poor worldlings sell it for less than they and therefore do despise it more Direct 4. Let the true nature and aggravations of the sin of worldliness be still in your eye to make it odious to you As for instance 1. It is true and odious Idolatry Ephes 5.5 Col. 3.5 To have God for our God indeed is to love him as our God and to delight in him and be ruled by him Who then is an Idolater if he be not one who loveth the world and delighteth in it more than in God or esteemeth it fitter to be the matter of his delight and is ruled by it and seeketh it more Isa 55.1 2 3. 2. It is a blasphemous contempt of God and Heaven to prefer a dung hill world before him To set more by the provisions and pleasures of the flesh than by all the blessedness of Heaven It is called prophaneness in Esau to sell his birth-right for one morsel Heb. 12.16 What prophaneness is it then to say as worldlings hearts and lives do The satisfying of my flesh and fansie for a time is better than God and the Joyes of Heaven to all eternity 3. It is a sin of Interest and not only of Passion and therefore it possesseth the very Heart and Love which is the principal faculty of the soul and that which God most reserveth for himself No actual sin which is but little loved is so heinous and morâ—al as that which is most loved Because these do must exclude the Love of God Some other sins may do more hurt to others but this is worst to the sinner himself We justly pitty poor Heathenish Idolaters and pray for their conversion and I would we did it more But do not you not think that our hypocrite-worldlings do love their riches and their honours and pleasures better than the poor Heathens love their Idols They bow the knee to a creature and you entertain it in your heart 4. It is a sin of deliberation and contrivance which is much worse than a surprize by a sudden temptation You plot how you may compass your voluptuous covetous and ambitious ends Therefore it is a sin that standeth at the furthest distance from Repentance and is both voluntary and a settled habit 5. It is a continued sin Men be not alwaies lying though they be never so great lyars nor alwaies stealing if they be the most notorious thieves nor alwaies swearing if they be the profanest swearers But a worldly mind is alwaies worldly He is alwaies committing his Idolatry with the world and alwaies denying his Love to God 6. It is not only a sin about the means to a right end as mischosen waies of Religion may be but it is a sin against the End it self and a mischusing of a false pernicious End And so it is the perverting not only of one particular action but even of the bent and course of mens lives And consequently a mis-spending all their time 7. It is a perverting of Gods creatures to a use clean contrary to that which they are given us for and an unthankful turning of all his gifts against himself He gave us his creatures to lead us to him and by their loveliness to shew his greater loveliness and to taste in their sweetness the greater sweetness of his love And will you use them to turn your affections from him 8. It it a great debasing of the soul it self to fill that noble Spirit with nothing but dirt and smoak which was made to know and love its God 9. It is an irrational vice and signifieth not only much unbelief of the unseen things which should take up the soul but also a sottish inconsiderateness of the vanity and brevity of the things below It is an unmanning our selves and hiring out our reason to be a servant to our fleshly lusts 10. Lastly It is a pregnant multiplying sin which bringeth forth abundance more The love of money is the root of all evil 1 Tim. 6.9 10. Therefore Direct 5. Let the mischievous effects of this sin be still befâ—re your eyes As for instance 1. It keepeth the heart strange to God and Heaven The Love of God and of the world are contrary 1 John 2.15 3.17 James 4.4 So is an earthly and a heavenly conversation Phil. 3.18 19 20. And the laying up a treasure in Heaven and upon Earth Matth. 6.19 20 21. And the living after the flesh and after the Spirit Rom. 8.1 5 6 13. Ye cannot possibly serve God and Mammon nor travel two contrary waies at once nor have two contrary felicities till you have two hearts
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
fully shew so also shall the Saints And it is not likely that this is wholly deferred till the resurrection but as they have a Glory before that with Christ and his Angels so they have now their part in this Superintendency before though both will be greater at the Resurrection If any say what use will there be of our superiority after the world is destroyed I answer 1. The Apostle Peter plainly telleth us though some would force his words into the dark that we according to his promise expect a new Heaven and a new Earth in which dwelleth righteousness And the Creation groaneth to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God Rom. 8.21 And the Heavens must contain Christ till the times of Restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy Prophets since the world began Acts 3.21 2. And he that said the Saints shall judge the Angels seemeth so intimate that the Devils with the wicked will be in a state of subjection or servitude to them hereafter Certain it is that Michael and his Angels shall be the conquerours of the Dragon and his Angels Rev. 12.7 9. And that the Serpents head shall be bruised by all the womans seed though chiefly by the Captain of our salvation But this shall now suffice concerning their employment 3. Behold also by Faith what the departed Saints are now enjoying And what is said of their place and work will tell you that They enjoy the fight of their glorified Head Joh. 17.24 They are with him in Paradise and therefore also enjoy the sight of the Glory of God Being absent from the body they are present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.8 They see not as in a glass as here they did but with open face They enjoy the pleasures of a more perfect knowledge of God and all his wondrous works than this world affords They are happy in their works in the perfect Love and Praises of God and they are filled with the pleasures of his Love to them This is their fruition 4. Let Faith also behold what evils they are delivered from 1. From a heavy drossy body which since the fall hath been an enemy a prison and fetters to the soul and therefore they here groaned to be better cloathed 2 Cor. 5.4 5. Rom. 8.21 2. From the worlds temptations 3. From wicked mens malice and persecutions 4. From sickness pain necessities labours weariness and all the troublesome effects of sin 5. From all troublesome passions desires anger discontent disappointments griefs and cares and fears of evil 6. Specially from the fears of Hell and the doubts of their own sincerity and salvation and from the desertions of God and the terrible sense of his displeasure 7. From the troubles and errours of ignorance and all our natural imperfection 8. From the fears of death which now is more painful than death it self 9. From the suggestions of Satan and his malicious vexing disquieting temptations and from his flattering allurements which are much worse 10. From the company and the tempting or grieving examples of ungodly men 11. From all sin it self and all our moral imperfections and defects 12. And finally from all danger and fear of ever losing the felicity they possess These are the immunities of the blessed 2. When Faith hath seen the Saints in Glory look back and think next what they were lately here on earth that it may help you to compare your state and theirs And here you will see 1. That they were lately in flesh as we now are They had bodies as drossie as vile as frail as burdensome as ours are It cost them as dear not as it doth the sensual but as it doth the temperate person now to keep them up a while for the service to which they were appointed 2. They had pains and sicknesses as we have The souls in Heaven have escaped thither from bodies which have lain as long tormented with the Stone with Stranguries Collicks Gripes Convulsions Consumptions Feavers and other the most tedious painful and lothsome diseases as sober men on earth now feel 3. Satan was as malicious to them as he is to us and to many of them as troublesome he haunted them with as ugly temptations to the greatest sins to unbelief and pride and despair and self-murder and horrid blasphemy as he doth any of us Yea he did so by Christ himself Matth. 4. 4. They met with as many allurements to worldliness sensuality pride and lust in the worlds deceiving baits and flatteries as now we do and were fain to proceed every step towards Heaven by conflict and conquest as we must do 5. They were in as many wants and straits in as poor and low and despised a state as we are now They were tempted to cares and murmurings and discontents through their wants and crosses as well as we 6. They have been in dangers and in fears and many a time at the brink of death before it came and put to cry to God for deliverance in the terrours and anguish of their hearts Their flesh and heart and friends have failed them and all the creatures cast them off 7. They have gone through far greater persecutions for the sake of Christ and righteousness than ever we did So persecuted they the Prophets before you Mat. 5.11 12. Which of the Prophets did not your Fathers kill and persecute even of them for whom their posterity erected Monuments Matth. 23.36 37 38. We have not resisted unto blood as many of them did Heb. 11. The same and greater afflictions which we have undergone were accomplished on our brethren in this world 1 Pet. 5.9 We go through the same conflict as they did Phil. 1.30 We are no more falsly nor odiously slandered in any of our sufferings than they were Mat. 5.11 12. 8. They were men of like passions as we are for so James saith even of Elias that was carryed to Heaven without our kind of death They had their ignorances uncertainties doubts mistakes their dark thoughts of God and that world where they now are Many of them knew as little of it till they saw it as we do now Many a fearful trembling hour many a thought that God had forsaken them and that the day of grace was past have many of them had as well as we 9. Yea they were imperfect in all their graces they had an imperfect faith an imperfect hope an imperfect Love to God and man and many an hour in such groans as ours now are O when shall we be saved from our darkness and unbelief when shall we better love the Lord 10. They had their actual sins also Though none that were regnant after conversion their obedience was imperfect as ours now is Many of their faults and falls are left on record for our warning There is not one humane soul in Heaven besides our Saviours that was not once a sinner They all came thither
let me begin to plead it with your consciences Are you Believers Do you live the life of Faith or not Do you live upon things that are unseen or upon the present visible baits of sensuality That you may not turn away your ears or hear me with a sluggish sensless mind let me tell you first how nearly it concerneth you to get this Question soundly answered and then that you may not be deceived let me help you toward the true resolution 1. And for the first you may perceive by what is said that saving Faith is not so common as those that know not the nature of it do imagine All men have not faith 2 Thes 3.2 O what abundance do deceive themselves with Names and shews and a dead Opinion and customary Religion and take these for the life of faith 2. Till you have this faith you have no special interest in Christ It is only Believers that are united to him and are his living Members and it is by faith that he dwelleth in our hearts and that we live in him Ephes 3.17 Gal. 2.20 In vain do you boast of Christ if you are not true Believers You have no part or portion in him None of his special Benefits are yours till you have this living working Faith 3. You are still in the state of enmity to God and unreconciled to him while you are unbelievers For you can have no peace with God nor aâ—â—ess unto his favour but by Christ Rom. 5.1 2 3 4. Ephes 2.14 15 17. And therefore you must come by faith to Christ before you can come by Christ unto the Father as those that have a special interest in his love 4. Till you have this Faith you are under the guilt and load of all your sins and under the curse and condemnation of the Law For there is no Justification or forgiveness but by Faith Act. 26.18 Rom. 4 5 c. 5. Till you have this sound Belief of things unseen you will be carnal minded and have a carnal end to all your actions which will make those to be evil that materially are good and those to be fleshly that materially are holy Without Faith it is impossible to please God Rom. 8.5 8 9. Prov. 28.9 Heb. 11.6 6. Lastly Till you have this living Faith you have no right to Heaven nor could be saved if you die this hour Whoever believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not iâ— condemned already He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that bâ—lieveth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abidâ—th on him Joh. 3.16 18 36. You see if you love your selves it concerneth you to try whether you are true Believers Unless you take it for an indifferent thing whether you live for ever in Heaven or Hell it 's best for you to put the question close to your consciences betimes Have you that Faith that serves instead of sight Do you carry within you the evidence of things unseen and the substance of the things which you say you hope for Did you know in what manner this question must be put and determined at judgement and how all your comfort will then depend upon the answer and how near that day is when you must all be sentenced to Heaven or Hell as you are found to be Believers or Vnbelievers it would make you hearken to my counsel and presently try whether you have a saving Faith 2. But lest you be deceived in your trial and lest you mistake me as if I tryed the weak by the measure of the strong and laid all your comfort upon such strong affections and high degrees as fight it self would work within you I shall briefly tell you how you may know whether you have any faith that 's true and saving though in the least degree Though none of us are affected to that height as we should be if we had the sight of all that we do believe yet all that have any saving belief of invisible things will have these four signs of faith within them 1. A sound belief of things unseen will cause a practical estimation of them and that above all earthly things A glimpse of the heavenly glory as in a glass will cause the soul deliberately to say This is the chief desirable felicity this is the Crown the Pearl the Treasure nothing but this can serve my turn It will debase the greatest pleasures or riches or honours of the world in your esteem How contemptible will they seem while you see God stand by and Heaven as it were set open to your view you 'l see there 's little cause to envy the prosperous servants of the world you will pitty them as miserable in their mirth and bound in the fetters of their folly and concupiscence and as strangers to all solid joy and honour You will be moved with some compassion to them in their misery when they are braving it among men and domineering for a little while and you will think alas poor man Is this all thy glory Hast thou no better wealth no higher honour no sweeter pleasures than these husks With such a practical judgement as you value gold above dirt and jewels above common stones you will value Heaven above all the riches and pleasures of this world if you have indeed a living saving faith Phil. 3.7 8 9. 2. A sound belief of the things unseen will habitually incline your wills to embrace them with consent and complacence and resolution above and against those worldly things that would be set above them and preferred before them If you are true believers you have made your choice you have fixâ— your hopes you have taken up your resolutions that God must be your portion or you can have none that 's worth the having that Christ must be your Saviour or you cannot be saved and therefore you are at a point with all things else they may be your Helps but not your Happiness you are resolved on what Rock to build and where to cast anchor and at what port and prize your life shall aim You are resolved what to seek and trust to God or none Heaven or nothing Christ or none is the voice of your rooted stable resolutions Though you are full of fears sometimes whether you shall be accepted and have a part in Christ or no and whether ever you shall attain the Glory which you aim at yet you are off all other hopes having seen an end of all perfections and read vanity and vexation written upon all creatures even on the most flattering state on earth and are unchangeably resolved not to change your Master and your hopes and your holy course for any other life or hopes Whatever come of it you are resolved that here you will venture all Knowing that you have no other game to play at which you are not sure to lose and that you
Wisdom and that parts with Heaven for a few merry hours and hath not wit to save his soul When they see the end and are arrived at eternity let them boast of their Wisdom as they find cause We will take them then for more competent Judges Let the Eternal God be the portion of my soul let Heaven be my inheritance and hope let Christ be my Head and the promise my security let Faith be my Wisdom and Love be my very heart and will and patient persevering Obedience be my life and then I can spare the wisdom of the world because I can spare the trifles that it seeks and all that they are like to get by it What abundance of complaints and calamity would foresight prevent Had the events of this one year been conditionally foreseen the actions of thousands would have bâ—en otherwise ordered and much sin and shame have been prevented What a change would it make on the judgements of the world how many words would be otherwise spoken and how many deeds would be otherwise done and how many hours would be otherwise spent if the change that will be made by Judgement and Execution were well foreseen And why is it not foreseen when it is foreshewn When the omniscient God that will certainly perform his Word hath so plainly revealed it and so frequently and loudly warns you of it Is he wise that after all these warnings will lie down in everlasting woe and say I little thought of such a day I did not believe I should ever have seen so great a change Would the servants of Christ be used as they are if the malicious world foresaw the day when Christ shall come with ten thousands of his Saints to execute Judgement on all that are ungodly Jude 14 15. When he shall come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that do believe 2 Thes 1.10 When the Saâ—nts shall judge the world 1 Cor. 6.2 3. and when the ungodly seeing them on Christs right-hand must hear their sentence on this account Verily I say unto you in as mâ—ch as you did it or did it not to one of the least of these my Brethren you did it unto me Matth. 25. Yet a few daies and all this will be done before your eyes but the unbelieving world will not foresee it Would malignant Cain have slain his brother if he had foreseen the punishment which he calleth afterward intollerable Gen. 4.13 Would the world have despised the preaching of Noah if they had believed the deluge Would Sodom have been Sodom if they had foreseen that an Hell from Heaven would have consumed them Would Achan have medled with his prey if he had foreseen the stones that were his Executioners and his Tomb Would Gehezi have obeyed his covetous desire if he had foreseen the leprosie Or Judas have betrayed Christ if he had foreseen the hanging himself in his despair It is fore-seeing Faith that saves those that are saved and blind unbelief that causeth mens perdition Yea present things as well as future are unknown to foolish Unbelievers Do they know who seeth them in their sin and what many thousands are suffering for the like while they see no danger Whatever their tongues say the hearts and lives of fools deny that there is a God that seeth them and will be their Judge Psalm 14.1 You see then that you must live by Faith or perish by folly 4. Consider that things visible are so transitory and of so short continuance that they do but deserve the name of things being nothings and less than nothing and lighter than vanity it self compared to the necessary eternal Being whose name is IAM There is but a few daies difference between a Prince and no Prince a Lord and no Lord a man and no man a world and no world And if this be all let the time that is past inform you how small a difference this is Rational foresight may teach a Xerxes to weep over his numerous Army as knowing how soon they were all to be dead men Can you forget that death is ready to undress you and tell you that your sport and mirth is done and that now you have had all that the world can do for those that serve it and take it for their part How quickly can a feaver or the choice of an hundred Messengers of death beâ—eave you of all that earth afforded you and turn your sweetest pleasures into gall and turn a Lord into a lump of clay It is but as a wink an inch of time till you must quit the stage and speak and breath and see the face of man no more If you foresee this O live as men that do foresee it I never heard of any that stole his winding-sheet or fought for a Coffiâ— or went to Law for his grave And if you did but see as wise men should how near your Honours and Wealth and Pleasures do stand unto Eternity as well as your Winding sheets your Coffins and your Graves you would then value and desire and seek them regularly and moderately as you do these Oh what a fading flower is your strength How soon will all your gallantry shrink into the shell Si vestra sunt tollite â—a vobiscum Bern. Buâ— yet this is not the great part of the change The terminus ad quem doth make it greater It is great for persons of renown and honour to change their Palaces for graves and turn to noisom rottenness and dirt and their Power and Command into silent impotency unable to rebuke the poorest worm that sawcily feedeth on their hearts or faces But if you are Believers you can look further and foresee much more The largest and most capacious heart alive is unable fully to conceive what a change the stroak of death will make For the holy soul so suddenly to pass from prayer to Angelical praise from sorrow unto boundless joyes from the slanders and contempt and violence of men to the bosom of eternal Love from the clamours of a tumultuous world to the universal harmony and perfect uninterrupted Love and Peace O what a blessed change is this which believing now we shall shortly feel For an unholy unrenewed soul that yesterday was drowned in flesh and laught at threatnings and scorned reproofs to be suddenly snaâ—cht into another world and see the Heaven that he hath lost and feel the Hell which he would not believe to fall into the gulf of bottomless eternity and at once to find that Joy and Hope are both departed that horrour and grief must be his company and Desperation hath lockt up the door O what an amazing change is this If you think me troublesom for mentioning such ungrateful things what a trouble wil it be to feel them May it teach you to prevent that greater trouble you may well bear this Find but a medicine against death or any security for your continuance here or any prevention of the Change and I have
the nature and cause of light and heat the order course and harmony of the universal systeme of the world what joyful acclamations would this produce in the literal studious sort of men what joy then should it be to us to know by Faith the God that made us the Creation of the world the Laws and Promises of our Creatour the Mysteries of Redemption and Regeneration the frame of the new Creature the entertainment of the spirits of the just with Christ the Judgement which all the world must undergo the work and company which we shall have hereafter and the endless joyes which all the sanctified shall possess in the sight and Love of God for ever How blessed an invention would it be if all the world could be brought again to the use of one universal language Or if all the Churches could be perfectly reconciled how joyful would the Author of so great a work be should we not then rejoyce who foresee by Faith a far more perfect union and consent than ever must be expected here on earth Alas the ordinary lowness of our Comforts doth tell us that our Faith is very small I say not so much The sorrows of a doubting heart as the little joy which we have in the fore-thoughts of Heaven when our title seemeth not much doubtful to us For those sorrows shew that such esteem it a joyful place and would rejoyce if their title were but cleared But when we have neither the sorrow or solicitousness of the afflicted soul nor yet the joy which is any whit suitable to the belief of such everlasting joyes we may know what to judge of such an uneffectual belief at best it is very low and feeble It is a joy unspeakable and full of glory which unseen things should cause in a Believer 1 Pet. 1.6 7 8. Because it is an exceeding eternal weight of glory which he believeth 2 Cor. â— 17 18. 8. Finally Learn to Die also as Believers The life of Faith must bring you to the very entrance into glory where one doth end the other begins As our dark life in the womb by nutriment from the Mother continueth till our passage into the open world You would die in the womb if Faith should cease before it bring you to full intuition and fruition Heb. 11.22 By faith Joseph when he died made mention of the departing of the children of Israel Josephs faith did not die before him Heb. 11.3 These all died in faith confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth and declaring that they sought a better Country They that live by faith must die in faith yea and die by faith too Faith must fetch in their dying comforts And O how full and how near a treasure hath it to go to To die to this world is to be born into another Beggars are best when they are abroad The travail of the ungodly is better to them than their home But the Believers home is so much better than his travail that he hath little cause to be afraid of coming to his Journeys end but should rather every step cry out O when shall I be at home with Christ Is it Earth or Heaven that you have prayed for and laboured for and waited and suffered for till now And doth he indeed pray and labour and suffer for Heaven who would not come thither It is Faith which overcometh the world and the flesh which must also overcome the fears of death and can look with boldness into the loathsome grave and can triumph over both as victorious through Christ It is Faith which can say Go forth O my soul depart in peace Thy course is finished Thy warfare is accomplished The day of triumph is now at hand Thy patience hath no longer work Go forth with joy The morning of thy endless joyes is near and the night of fears and darkness at an end Thy terrible dreams are ending in eternal pleasures The glorious light will banish all thy dreadful specters and resolve all those doubts which were bred and cherished in the dark They whose employment is their weariness and toil do take the night of darkness and cessation for their rest But this is thy weariness Defect of action is thy toil and thy most grievous labour is to do too little work And thy uncessant Vision Love and Praise will be thy uncessant ease and pleasure and thy endless work will be thy endless rest Depart O my soul with peace and gladness Thou leavest not a world where Wisdom and Piety Justice and Sobriety Love and Peace and Order do prevail but a world of ignorance and folly of bruitish sensuality and rage of impiety and malignant enmity to good a world of injustice and oppression and of confusion and distracting strifes Thou goest not to a world of darkness and of wrath but of Light and Love From hellish malice to perfect amity from Bedlam rage to perfect wisdom from mad confusion to perfect order to sweetest unity and peace even to the spirits of the just made perfect and to the celestial glorious City of God! Thou goest not from Heaven to Earth from holiness to sin from the sight of God into an infernal dungeon but from Earth to Heaven from sin and imperfection unto perfect holiness and from palpable darkness into the vital splendour of the face of God! Thou goest not amongst enemies but to dearest friends nor amongst meer strangers but to many whom thou hast known by sight and to more whom thou hast known by faith and must know by the sweetest communion for ever Thou goest not to unsatisfied Justice nor to a condemning unreconciled God but to Love it self to infinite Goodness the fountain of all created and communicated good to the Maker Redeemer and Sanctifier of souls to him who prepared Heaven for thee and now hath prepared thee for Heaven Go forth then in triumph and not with terrour O my soul The prize is won Possess the things which thou hast so long prayed for and sought Make haste and enter into thy Masters joy Go view the glory which thou hast so long heard of and take thy place in the heavenly Chore and bear thy part in their celestial melody Sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God! And receive that which Christ in his Covenant did promise to give thee at the last Go boldly to that blessed God with whom thou hast so powerful a Mediatour and to the Throne of whose grace thou hast had so oft and sweet access If Heaven be thy fear or sorrow what can be thy joy and where wilt thou have refuge if thou fly from God If perfect endless pleasures be thy terrour where then dost thou expect content If grace have taught thee long ago to prefer the heavenly and durable felicity refuse it not now when thou art so near the port if it have taught thee long ago to be as a stranger in this Sodom and to renounce this
Nature and therefore if we have a Head who hath no such corruption there is no place for that objection And as it is not credible that God would make no communication of this Image of his Dominions in the world so it is certain that besides the Lord Jesus the world hath no other Universal Head whatever the Pope may pretend to be an Vniversal Vicarious Monarch under the Vniversal Vicarious Monarch Kingdoms have their Monarchs subordinate to Christ but the world hath none but Christ alone 11. And how meet was it that he who was the Monarch or Deputy of God should be also the Mediatour and that a polluted sinner dwelling in clay should not come immediately to God but by a Reconciler who is worthy to prevail 12. And when we had lost the knowledge of God and of the world to come and of the way thereto yea and of our selves too and our own immortality of soul how meet was it that a sure Revelation should settle us that we might know what to seek and whither to return and by what way seeing Light must be the guide of our Love and Power And who could so infallibly and satisfactorily do this as a Teacher sent from God of perfectest knowledge and veracity 13. And when God intended the free forgiveness of our sins how meet was it that he who would be the Mediatour of our pardon should yield to those terms which are consistent with the ends of Government and expose not the wisdom and veracity and justice and the Laws of God to the worlds contempt If no mark of odiousness should be put upon sin nor any demonstration of Justice been made the Devil would have triumphed and said Did not I say truer than God when he told you of dying and I told you that you should not die And if the grand penalty had been remitted to the world for four thousand years together successively without any sufficient demonstration of Gods Justice undertaken why should any sinner have feared Hell to the worlds end If you say that Repentance alone might be sufficient I answer 1. That is no vindication of the Justice and Truth of the Law-maker 2. Who should bring a sinner to Repentance whose heart is corrupted with the love of sin 3. It would hinder Repentance if men knew that God can forgive all the world upon bare Repentance without any reparation of the breaches made by sin in the order of the world For if he that threatneth future misery or death for sin can absolutely dispense with that commination they may think that he may do so as easily by his threatning of death to the impenitent If you say that Threatnings in a Law are not false when they are not fulfilled because they speak not de eventâ— but de debito poenae I answer they speak directly only de debito but withall he that maketh a Law doth thereby say This shall be the Rule of your lives and of my ordinary Judgement And therefore consequently they speak of an ordinary event also And they are the Rule of Just Judgement and therefore Justice must not be contemned by their contempt Or if any shall think that all this proveth not a demonstration of Justice on the Redeemer to be absolutely necessary but that God could have pardoned the penitent without it it is nevertheless manifest that this was a very wise and congruous way As he that cannot prove that God could not have illuminated and moved and quickened the inferiour sensitives without the Sun may yet prove that the Sun is a noble creature in whose operations Gods Wisdom and Power and Goodness do appear 14. And how agreeable is this doctrine of the Sacrifice of Christ to the common doctrine of Sacrificing which hath been received throughout almost all the world And who can imagine any other original of that practice so early and so universally obtaining than either divine revelation or somewhat even in nature which beareth witness to the necessity of a demonstration of Gods Justice and displeasure against sin 15. How wisely is it determined of God that he who undertakes all â—is should be Man and yet more than Man even God That the Monarch of Mankind and the Mediatour and the Teacher of Man and the Sacrifice for sin should not be only of another kind but that he be one that is fit to be familiar with man and to be interested naturally in his concerns and one that is by nature and nearness capable of these undertakings and relations And yet that he be so high and near the Father as may put a sufficient value on his works and make him most meet to mediate for us 16. How wisely is it ordered that with a perfect doctrine we should have the pattern of a perfect life as knowing how agreeable the way of imitation is to our natures and necessities 17. And as a pattern of all other vertue is still before us so how fit was it especially that we should have a lively example to teach us to contemn this deceitful world and to set little comparatively by reputation wealth preheminence grandeur pleasures yea and life it self which are the things which all that perish prefer before God and immortality 18. And how needful is it that they that must be overtaken with renewed faults should have a daily remedy and refuge and a plaister for their wounds and a more acceptable name than their own to plead with God for pardon 19. How meet was it that our Saviour should rise from the dead and consequently that he should die to shew us that his Sacrifice was accepted and that there is indeed another life for man and that death and the grave shall not still detain us 20. And how meet was it that our Saviour should ascend into Heaven and therein our natures be glorified with God that he might have all power to finish the work of mans salvation and his possession might be a pledge of our future possession 21. Most wisely also is it ordered of God that man might not be left under the Covenant of Works or of entire nature which after it was broken could never justifie him and which was now unsuitable to his lapsed state and that God should make a New Covenant with him as his Redeemer as he made the first as his Creatour and that an Act of general pardon and oblivion might secure us of forgiveness and everlasting life And that as we had a Rule to live by for preventing sin and misery we might have a Rule for our duty in order to our recovery 22. And what more convenient conditions could this Covenant have had than a believing and thankful Acceptance of the mercy and a penitent and obedient following of our Redeemer unto everlasting life 23. And how convenient is it that when our King is to depart from earth and keep his residence in the Court of Heaven he should appoint his Officers to manage the humane part of his remaining
more fully revealed for the next two thousand years by Moses first in a typical Gospel the adumbration of the grace to come and then by the Prophets especially Isaiah Micah Daniel and Malachi in plainer predictions And then came John Baptist the fore-runner and Christ the Messiah and the Spirit upon the Apostles and finished the Revelation So that it may appear to be all one frame contrived and indicted by one Spirit And the effects of it have been according to these degrees of the Revelation And the end of the world whether at the end of the last two thousand years or when else God pleaseth will shortly shew the unbelieving themselves that the period shall fulfill what is yet unfulfilled to the least jot and tittle CHAP. V. The Image of Gods Goodness II. THE second part of Gods Image on our Religion is that of his matchless GOODNESS The whole systeme of it is the harmonious expression of GODS HOLINESS and LOVE The particulars I must but name lest I be too long 1. The Author of it Jesus Christ was perfectly Good himself being God and man sinless in nature and in life living and dying and rising to do good and making it his office and his work even in Heaven to do mankind the greatest good 2. The Matter of the Christian Religion is GOD himself the infinite Good The use of it is to teach men to know God and to bring us to him To which end it maketh a fuller discovery of his blessed nature attributes and works than is any where else to be found in this world 3. The utmost End of it is the highest imaginable the pleasing and glorifying of God For he that is the Beginning of all must needs be the End of all 4. It leadeth man to the highest state of felicity for himself which is an End conjunct in subordination to the highest There can be no greater happiness imaginable than the Christian Religion directeth us to attain 5. It placeth our happiness so certainly and clearly in that which is happiness indeed that it directeth mans intentions and desires and leaveth them no longer to the old variety of opinions about the chiefest good Nature perfected and working by its perfectest acts upon the most perfect object and receiving the most full communications from him and this for ever must needs be the most perfect felicity of man To have all our faculties fully perfect and to live for ever in the perfect light and love of God and to be accordingly beloved of him this is the end of Christianity 6. To this end the whole design of the Christian Religion is to make man good and to cure him of all evil and to prepare him justly for that blessed state 7. To that end the great work of Jesus Christ is to send down the sanctifying Spirit of God to make men new creatures and to regenerate them to the Nature of God himself and to a heavenly mind and life That they may not only have precepts which are good but the power of God to make them good and a heavenly principle to fit them for Heaven 8. To that end the principal means is the fullest revelation of the love of God to man that ever was made and more than is any where else revealed All the design of Christianity is but to shew God to man in the fullest prospect of his Goodness and unmeasurable Love that so he may appear more amiable to us and may be more beloved by us that Loving Goodness may make us good and make us happy 9. To encourage us to Love and Goodness God doth in the Gospel give us the pardon of all our sins as soon as ever we turn to him by Faith and Repentance Though we have deserved Hell he declareth that he will forgive us that desert If we had come to Hell before we had been redeemed I think we should have taken that Religion to be good indeed which would have brought us the tydings of forgiveness and shewed us so ready a way to escape 10. And this mercy is given by an Vniversal Covenant offered to all without exception And the Conditions are so reasonable that no one can have any just pretence against them It is but to accept the mercy offered with a believing thankfull mind as a condemned man would do a pardon And what can be more suitable to our miserable state 11. And to bring us to all this and make us holy Christ hath given us a most holy word and doctrine perfectly holy in its precepts and in its prohibitions and all the subservient histories and narratives And he hath added the perfect pattern of his holy life that our Rule and Example might agree 12. So good is this word that it calleth us to the highest degree of Goodness and maketh Perfection it self our duty that our duty and happiness may agree and we may not have liberty to be bad and miserable but may be every way bound to our own felicity And yet so good is this Covenant of Grace that it taketh not advantage of our infirmities to ruine us but noteth them to humble us in order to our cure And iâ— accepteth sincerity though it command perfection And Christ looketh not at our failings as a severe Judge but as a Physician and a tender Father 13. So good is our Religion that the great thing which it requireth of us is to prefer the greatest good before the lesser and not to be like children who take it for their riches to fill their pin-box or like foolish Merchants who had rather trade for truth thâ—n for gold The great businesâ— of Christian preceptâ— is to make us know that we are capable of better things than meat and drink and lust and sports and wealth and worldly honours that the Love of God and the felicity of the soul in Grace and Glory may be preferred before the pleasure of a Swine And is not that good which calleth us up to the greatest good and will not allow us to be such enemies to our selves as to take up with the lesser 14. Yea when we have most it still engageth us to seek more And will not allow us to take up with a low degree of grace or with a little measure of the greatest good But to shew that God would have us to be still better and to have more it is made our duty still to ask more and still to press higher and labour to be better Asking in prayer is made our daily work and Gods giving and our receiving may be our daily blessedness 15. The mercies here provided for us extend both to soul and body For though we may not prefer the less before the greater yet we shall have it in its place If we seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness and labour first for the food which never perisheth all other things shall be added to us We shall have then to do us good but not to do us hurt For
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
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
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
in with the heavenly Spirit in his own way when we set our selves to be most heavenly Heavenly thoughts are the work which he would set you on and the Love of God is the thing which he works you to thereby And nothing will so powerfully inflame the soul with the Love of God as to think that we shall live in his Love and Glory for ever more Set your selves therefore to this work and it will be a sign that the Spirit sets you on it and you may be sure that he will not be behind with you in a work which both he and you must do To this sense the Apostle bids us pray in the Holy Ghost Jude 20. Because though prayer must be from the Spirit which is not in our power yet when we set our selves to pray it is both a sign that the Spirit exciteth and a certain proof that he will not be behind with us but will afford us his assistance Direct 29. Conveâ—se with those who have most of the Spirit as far as you can attain it And that is not those that are most for revelations or visions or that pretend to extraordinary illuminations or that set the Spirit against the Word or that boast most of the Spirit in contempt of others But those who are most humble most holy and most heavenly who love God most and hate sin most Converse with such as have most of the Spirit of love and heavenliness is the way to make you more spiritual as converse with learned men is the way to learning For the Spirit giveth his graces in the use of suitable means as well as he doth his common gifts Jude 20 21. Heb. 10.24 25. 3.13 Ephes 4.12 15 16. Direct 30. Lastly The right ordering of the body it self is a help to our spirituality A clean and a chearful body is a fitter instrument for the Spirit to make use of than one that is opprest with crudities or dejected with heavy melancholy Therefore especially avoid two extreams 1. The satisfying the lusts of the flesh and clogging the body with excess of meat or drink or corrupting the fantasie with foolish pleasures 2. And the addicting your selves to distracting melancholy or to any disconsolate or discontented thoughts And from hence you may both take notice of the sense of all that fasting and abstinence which God commandeth us and of the true measure of it viz. as it either fitteth or unfitteth the body for our duty and for our ready obedience to the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 9.27 I keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest by any means when I have preached to others I myself should be a cast away Rom. 13.12 13 14. Let us walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkâ—nness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh for lust Pampering the body and addicting our selves to the pleasing of it turneth a man from spirituality into bruitishness and savouring or minding the things of the flâ—sh destroyeth both the relish and minding of the things of the Spirit Rom. 8.5 6 7 8. And a sowre discontented melancholy temper is contrary to that alacrity requisite in Gods service and to those which the Comforter is to work in us So much for living by Faith on the Holy Ghost CHAP. IV. Directions how to exercise Faith upon Gods Commandments for Duty IT being presupposed that your Faith is settled about the truth of the Scriptures in general by the means here before and elsewhere more at large described you are next to learn how to exercise the Life of Faith about the Precepts of God in particular and herein take these helps Direct 1. Observe well how suitable Gods Commands are to reason and humanity and natural revelation it self and so how Nature and Scripture do fully agree in all the precepts for primitive holiness This is the cause why Divines have thought it so useful to read Heathen Moralists themselves that in a Cicero a Plutarch a Seneca an Antonius an Epictetus c. they might see what testimony nature it self yieldeth against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men See Rom. 19 20 c. But of this I have been larger in my Reasons of the Christian Religion Direct 2. Observe well how suitable all Gods Commandments are to your own good and how necessary to your own felicity All that God commandeth you is 1. To be active and use the faculties of your souls in opposition to Idleness 2. To use them rightly and on the highest objects and not to debase them by preferring vanity and sordid things nor to pervert them by ill doing And are not both these suitable to your natural perfection and necessary to your good 1. If there were one Law made that men should lie or stand still all the day with their eyes shut and their ears stopped and their mouths closed and that they should not stir nor see nor hear nor taste and another Law that man should use their eyes and ears and limbs c. which of these were more suitable to humanity and more easie for a â—ound man to obey though the first might best suit with the lame and blind and sick and why should not the goodness of Gods Law be discerned which requireth men to use the higher faculties the Reason and Elective and Executive Powers which God hath given them If men should make a Law that no one should use his Reason to get Learning or for his Trade or business in the world you would think that it were an institution of a Kingdom of Bedlams or a herd of beasts And should not you then be required to use your Reason faithfully and diligently in greater things 2. And if one Law were made that every man that traveleth shall stumble and wallow in the dirt and wander up and down out of his way and that every man that eateth and drinketh should feed on dirt and ditch-water or poyson c. And another Law that all men should keep their right way and live soberly and feed healthfully which of these would fit a wise man best and be easiest to obey or if one Law were made that all Scholars shall learn nothing but lies and errours and another that they shall learn nothing but truth and wisdom which of them would be more easie and suitable to humanity Though the first might be more pleasing to some fools Why then should not the goodness of Gods Laws be confessed who doth but forbid men learning the most pernicious errours and wandering in the maze of folly and wallowing in the dirt of sensuality and feeding on the dung and poyson of sin Is the love of a harlot or of gluttony drunkennenss rioting or gaming more suitable to humanity than the Love of God and Heaven and Holiness of Wisdom Temperance and doing good To a Swine or a Bedlam it may be more suitable but not
reward of obedience and the beauties of holiness and the merciful conditions of filial obedience when we have a pardon of our infirmities and are accepted in Christ that so we may feel that Christs yoak is easie and his burden light and his Commandments are not grievous Mat. 11.28 29. 1 John 5.3 And when Faith hath taught you to hunger and thirst after righteousness and to delight to do the will of God Love which is the end of Faith will satisfie you Mat. 5.6 Psal 40.8 Direct 5. Take special notice how suitable a holy Law is to the nature of a most holy God and how much he is honoured in that demonstration of his holiness and how odious a thing it would be to wish that the most holy one would have made for us an unholy Law Would you draw the picture of your friend like an Ape or a Monkey or a Monster Or would you have the King pictured like a fool Or would you have his Laws written like the words of a Bedlam or the Laws of Barbarians or Cannibals How much more intollerable were it to wish that an unholy or unrighteous Law should be the product and impress of the most great most wise and holy God This thought should make every Believer exceedingly in love with the Holiness of Gods Commands because they are the Appearance or Image of his Holiness and necessary to his honour as he is the Governour of the world Rom. 7.6 7 12. When Paul confesseth that he could no more perfectly keep the Law without sin than a fettered prisoner can walk at liberty for that is the sense of the text yet doth he give the Law this honour that it is holy just and good and therefore he loveth it and fain would perfectly obey it if he could See Psal 19.7 12. c. 119.72 37.31 1.2 Isa 5.24 c. Direct 6. Remember that both Promises and Threatnings and Gods Mercies and his Judgements are appointed means to bring us to obey the Precepts and therefore obedience which is their end is highly to be esteemed It seemeth a great difficulty whether the Precept be for 〈◊〉 Promise or the Promise for the Precept which is the End and which is the Means whether obedience be a means to attain the reward or the reward be a means to procure obedience And the answer is as pleasant to our consideration viz. that as the works of the Trinity of persons and of Gods Power and Wisdom and Goodness ad extra are undivided so are the effects of the one in Gods Laws the effects also of the other and they are harmoniously and inseparably conjunct so that we must obey the Command that we may attain the blessing of the Promise and be assured of it And we must believe the Promise and the Reward that we may be moved to obey the Precept And when all is done we find that all comes to one and in the end the duty and the reward will be the same when duty cometh to perfection And that the reward which is promised is our perfection in that Holiness and Love and Conformity to the Will of God in which God doth take that complacency which is our ultimate end But if you look at the matter of obedience rather than the form it sometime consisteth in troublesome things as suffering persecution c. which is less desirable than the promised reward which is but pleasing God and obeying him in a more desirable and grateful matter even in perfect Love for ever And therefore the more desirable must be considered to draw us to the less desirable and that consideration of the reward and not the possessing of it is the means to our obedience not for the sake of the ungrateful matter but of the form and end Mat. 5.10 11 12 6.1 4. 10.41 42. 1 Cor. 9.17 18. 1 Tim. 5.18 Heb. 11.6 10.35 11.26 Col. 3.24 Direct 7. Remember how much Christ himself hath condescended to be made a Means or Mediatour to procure our obedience to God And surely that must be an excellent end which Christ himself became a means to He came to save his people from their sins Mat. 1.21 And to call sinners to repentance Luke 5.32 Mat. 9.13 Is Christ the Minister of sin God forbid Gal. 2.17 For this end was he revealed that he might destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3.8 And he died to redeem and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Titus 2.14 Christ came as much to kill sin as to pardon it Judge therefore of the worth of obedience by the nobleness and dignity of the means Direct 8. Remember still that the same Law which governeth us must judge us Let Faith see the sure and close connexion between obedience and judgement If Faith do but speak aloud to a sluggish soul Thou must be judged by the same word which commandeth thee to watch and pray and to walk in holiness with God it will much awaken the soul to duty And if Faith do but say aloud to a tempted sinner The Judge is at the door and thou must hear of this again and review sin when it will have another countenance it will do much to kill the force of the temptation Rom. 14.12 Phil. 4.17 Heb. 13.17 Mat. 12.36 2 Pet. 3.11 12. Direct 9. Be sure that your heart-subjection to God be fixed that you may live under the sense of his Authority For as Gods Veracity is the formal object of all Faith so Gods Authority is the formal object of all obedience And therefore the deep â—enewed apprehensions of his Majesty his Wisdom and absolute Authority will make us perceive that all things and persons must give place to him and he to none and will be a constant spring within us to move the will to a ready obedience in particular cases Mal. 1.6 Matth. 23.8 10. Jer. 5.22 Direct 10. Keep in memory some plain texts of Scripture for every particular duty and against every particular sin which I would willingly here write down but that the book swelleth too big and it is so plentifully done already in most Catechisms where they confirm all such commands with the texts of Scripture cited to that use As you may see in the Assemblies Catechism with the proofs and more briefly in Mr. Tobias Ellis his English School where a text or more for every Article of Faith and every duty is recited for the use of children Gods Word which is the object and Rule of Faith should be before 〈◊〉 eye of Faith in this great work of causing our obedience Direct 11. Vnderstand well the different nature and use of Scripture examples how some of them have the nature of a divine Revelation and a Law and others are only motives to obedience and others of them are evils to be avoided by us 1. To Moses and the Apostles of Christ a special Commission was granted to one to settle the Tabernacle and its worship
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
3 4. 1 Cor. 13. Heb. 11. Mat. 6.20 21. 3. It is the turning away from and refusing all other seeming felicity or ends and casting all our happiness and hopes upon God alone 4. It is the chusing Jesus Christ as the only way and Mediator to this end with the refusing of all other Job 14.6 and trusting all that we are or hope for upon his Mediation III. In the Vital Power it is the casting away all inconsistent fears and the inward resolved delivering up the soul to the Father Son and Holy Spirit in this Covenant entering our selves into a resolved war with the Devil the World and the Flesh which in the performance will resist us And thus Faith or Trust is constituted and completed in the true Baptismal Covenant Direct 28. In all this be sure that you observe the difference between the truth of Faith and the high degrees The truth of it is most certainly discerned by as consisting in THE ABSOLVTE CASTING or VENTVRING not part but ALL YOVR HAPPINESS and HOPES VPON GOD and the MEDIATOR ONLY and LETTING GO ALL WHICH IS INCONSISTENT WITH THIS CHOICE and TRVST This is true and saving Faith and Trust Pardon me that I sometime use the word VENTVRING ALL as if there were any uncertainty in the matter I intend not by it to express the least uncertainty or fallibility in Gods Promise For Heaven and Earth shall pass away but one jot or tittle of his Word shall not pass till all be fulfilled But I shall here add 1. True Faith or Trust may consist with uncertainty in the person who believeth if he believe and trust Christ but so far that he can cast away all his worldly treasures and hopes even life it self upon that trust Every one is not an Infidel nor an Hypocrite who must say if he speak his heart I am not certain past all doubts that the soul is immortal or the Gospel true but I am certain that immortal happiness is most desirable and endless misery most terrible and that this world is vanity and nothing in it worthy to be compared with the hopes which Christ hath given us of a better life And therefore upon just deliberation I am resolved to let go all my sinful pleasures profits and worldly reputation and life it self when it is inconsistent with those hopes And to take Gods Love for my felicity and end and to trust and venture absolutely all my happiness and hopes on the favour of God the mediation of Christ and the Promises which he hath given us in the Gospel I know I shall meet with abundance of Teachers and people that will shake the head at this doctrine as dangerous and cry out of it as favouring unbelief that any one should have true saving Faith who doubteth or is uncertain of the immortality of the soul or the trâ—th of the Gospel But I see so much in hot-brained proud persons to be pittied and so much of their work in the Church to be with tears lamented that I will not by speech or silence favour their brainsick bold assertions nor will I fear their phrenetick furious censures If it be not a mark of a wise and good Minister of Christ to be utterly ignorant of the state of souls both his own and all the peoples then I will not concur to the advancement of the reputation of such ignorance It is enough to pardon the great injury which such do to the Church of God without countenancing it Though this one instance only now mind me of it abundance more do second it and tell us that there are in the Churches through the world abundance of Divines who are first taught by a party which they most esteem what is to be held and said as orthodox and then make it their work to contend for that orthodoxness which they were taught so to honour even with the most unmanly and unchristian scorns and censures when as if they had not been dolefully ignorant both of the Scriptures and themselves and the souls of men they would have known that it is the fool that rageth and is confident and that it was not their knowing more than others but their knowing less which made them so presumptuous and that they are themselves as far from certainty as others when they condemn themselves to defend their opinions Even like our late Perfectionists who all lived more imperfectly than others but wrote and railed for sinless perfection as soon as they did but take up the opinion As if turning to that opinion had made them perfect So men may pass the censure of hypocrisie and damnation upon themselves when they please by damning all as hypocrites whose faith is thus far imperfect but they shall never make any wise man believe by it that their own faith is ever the more certain or perfect As far as I can judge by acquaintance with persons most religious though there be many who are afraid to speak it out yet the far greater number of the most faithful Christians have but such a faith which I described and their hearts say I am not certain or past all doubt of the truth of our immortality or of the Gospel but I will venture all my hopes and happiness though to the parting with life it self upâ—n it And I will venture to say it as the truth of Christ that he that truly can do this hath a sincere and saving faith whatsoever Opinionists may say against it For Christ hath promised that he that loseth his life for his sake and the Gospels shall have life everlasting Mat. 10.37 38 39 42. 16.25 19.29 Luke 18.30 And he hath appointed no higher expressions of faith as necessary to salvation than denying our selves and taking up the Cross and forsaking all that we have or in one word than Martyrdom and this as proceeding from the Love of God Luke 14.26 27 29 33 Rom. 8.17 18 28 29 3O 35 36 37 38 39. And it is most evident that the sincere have been weak in faith Luke 17.5 And the Apostles said unto the Lord Increase our faith Mark 9.24 Lord I believe help thou my unbelief Luke 7.9 I have not found so great faith no not in Israel The weak faith was the more common 2. And as true Faith or Trust may consist with doubts and uncertainty in the subject so may it with much anxiety care disquietment and sinful fear which sheweth the imperfection of our Faith Shall â—e not much more clothe you O ye of little faith Mat. 16.8 O ye of little faith why reason you among your selves c. Mat. 8. â—6 Why are ye fearful O ye of little faith Mat. 14.31 Peter had a faith that could venture his life on the waters to come to Christ as confident of a miracle upon his command But yet it was not without fear v. 30. When he saw the wind boisterous he was afraid which caused Christ to say O thou of little faith wherefore didst
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
moved with fear prepared an Ark to the saving of his house by the which be condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith Note here how much the belief of Gods threatnings doth to the constitution of that faith which is justifying and saving Direct 2. Judge not of Gods threatnings by the evil which is threatned but by the obedience to which the threatnings should drive us and the evil from which they would preserve us and the order of the world which they preserve and the wisdom and holiness and justice of God which they demonstrate When men think how dreadful a misery Hell is they are ready to think hardly of God both for his threatning and execution as if it were long of him and not of themselves that they are miserable And as it is a very hard thing to think of the punishment it self with approbation so is it also to think of the threatning or Law which binds men over to it or of the Judgement which will pass the sentence on them But think of the true nature use and benefits of these threats or penaâ— Laws and true reason and faith will not only be reconciled to them but see that they are to be loved and honoured as well as feared 1. They are of great use to drive us to obedience And it is easier to see the amiableness of Gods commands than of his threats And obedience to these commands is the holy rectitude health and beauty of the soul And therefore that which is a suitable and needful means to promote obedience is amiable and beneficial to us Though Love must be the principle or chief spring of our obedience yet he that knoweth not that Fear must drive as Love must draw and is necessary in its place to joyn with Love or to do that which the weaknesses of Love leave undone doth neither know what a man is nor what Gods Word is nor what his Government is nor what either Magistracy or any civil or domestical Government is and therefore should spend many years at School before he turneth a disputer 2. They are of use to keep up order in the world which could not be expected if it were not for Gods threatnings If the world be so full of wickedness rapine and oppressions notwithstanding all the threatnings of Hell what could we expect it should be if there were none such but even as the suburbs of Hell it self When Princes and Lords and Rich men and all those thieves and rebels that can but get strength enough to defend themselves and all that can but hide their faults would be under no restraints considerable but would do all the evil that they have a mind to do Men would be worse to one another than Bears and Tygers 3. Gods threatnings in their primary intention or use are made to keep us from the punishment threatned Punishment is naturally due to evil doers And God declareth it to give us warning that we may take heed avoid it and escape 4. That which doth so clearly demonstrate the Holiness of God in his righteous Government his Wisdom and his Justice is certainly good and amiable in it self But we must not expect that the same thing should be good and amiable to the wicked who run themselves into it which is good to the world or to the just about them or to the honour of God Assizes Prisons and Gallows are good to the Country and to all the innocent to preserve their peace and to the honour of the King and his Government but not to murderers thieves or rebels Isa 26.7 8 9. Psal 48.11 9.16 89.14 97.2 149.9 146.7 37.6 28. Jude 6. 15. Rev. 4.7 15.4 16.7 19.2 Eccles 12.14 Direct 3. Judge of the severity of Gods threatnings partly by the greatness of himself whom we offend and partly by the necessity of them for the Government of the world 1. Remember that sinning wilfully against the infinite Majesty of Heaven and refusing his healing mercy to the last deserveth worse than any thing against a man can do 1 Sam. 2.25 2. And remember that even the threatning of Hell doth not serve turn with most of the world to keep them from sinning and despising God and therefore you cannot say that they are too great For that plaister draweth not too strongly which will not draw out the thorn If Hell be not terrible enough to perswade you from sin it is not too terrible to be threatned and executed He that should say Why will God make so terrible a Law and withall should say As terrible as it is I will venture on it rather than leave my pleasures and rather than live a holy life doth contradict himself and telleth us that the Law is not terrible enough to attain its chief and primary end with such as he that will not be moved by it from the most sordid base or bruitish pleasure Direct 4. Remember how Christ himself even when he came to deliver us from Gods Law did yet come to verifie his threatning in the matter of it and to be a sacrifice for sin and publick demonstration of Gods Justice For this end was Christ manifested to destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3.5 8. And the first and great work of the Devil was to represent God as a lyar and to perswade Eve not to believe his threatnings and to tell her that though she sinned she should not die And though God so far dispensed with it as to forgive man the greatest part of the penalty it was by laying it on his Redeemer and making him a sacrifice to his Justice that his Cross might openly confute the Tempter and assure the world that God is just and that the wages of sin is death Rom. 6.23 though eternal life be the gift of God through Jesus Christ And he that well considereth this that the Son of God would rather stoop to sufferings and death than the Dâ—vils reproach of Gods threatnings should be made true and than the Justice of God against sin should not be manifested will sure never think that this Justice is any dishonour to the Almighty Direct 5. Let this be your use of the threatnings of God to drive you from sin to more careful obedience and to help you against the defects of love and to set them against every temptation when you are assaulted by it When a tempting bait is set before you set Hell against it as well as Heaven and say Can I take this cup this whore this preferment this gain of Judas with Hell for my part instead of Heaven If men threaten death imprisonment or any other penalty or if losses or reproaches be like by men to be made your reward remember that God threatneth Hell and ask whether this be not the most intollerable suffering And if any Antinomian revile you for thus doing and say You should set only Free Grace before you to keep you
from sinning and not hell and damnation Tell him that it is Christ the Mediatour of Free Grace which hath set Hell before you in the Scripture and not you And that you do but consider of that which Christ hath set there before you to be considered of Ask them whether it be not God that prepared hell for the Devil and his Angels and Christ himself that will adjudge all impenitent sinners to it Matth. 25. And ask them why Christ doth so often talk of it in the Gospel Matth. 13. of the worm that never dyeth and the fire that never shall be quenched Luke 19.27 Mark 16.16 John 3.36 2 Thes 1.8 9. c. And whether they know why Fear was given to man and whether Christ mistook in all such commands Luke 12.4 Heb. 11.7 Heb. 4.1 And whether God hath made any part of his Laws in vain If they say that the Law was not made for a righteous man 1 Tim. 1.9 Tell them that the words are expounded Gal. 5.23 Against such there is no Law The Law was not made to condemn and punish a righteous man because he feared the threatning of it and so fell not under the condemnation If you speak of the Law of Christ or any Law which supposeth the subject righteous There is no Law can be pleaded against such to their damnation That there is no Law against them is but as Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to them And we grant also that in that measure as mens souls are habituated with love to God and duty and hatred of sin they need no Law to urge and threaten them no more than a loving wife need to have a Law to forbid her murdernig her husband or abusing him But withall we know that no man on earth is perfect in the degrees of Love and therefore all need Laws and fear Use all Gods penal Laws to the ends that he appointed them to quicken you in your obedience and restrain you from yielding to temptations and from sinning and then your own benefit will reconcile you to the Wisdom Holiness and Justice of the Laws Direct 6. Remember that all Christians have solemnly professed their own consent to the threats and punishments of the Gospel Though God will punish sinners whether they consent or not and though none consent to the execution upon themselves when it comes to it yet all that profess Christianity do profess their consent to the condemning as well as to the justifying part of Gods Word For every Christian professeth his consent to be governed by Christ and therefore he professeth his consent to be governed by Christs Laws For if Christ be a King he must have Laws and if he govern us at all he governeth us by Laws And this is Christs Law He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 He that professeth to be governed by Christ professeth his consent to be governed by this very Law and therefore he professeth his consent to be damned if he believe not Christ told you that you must consent to both parts or to neither and will you grudge at the severity of that Law which you have professed your consent to The curses of the Covenant Deut. 29.21 were to be repeated to the people of Israel and they were expresly to say Amen to each of them For life and death were set before them blessings and cursings Deut. 30.1 19. and not life and blessings alone And so the Gospel which we are to believe containeth though principally and eminently the Promises yet secondarily also the threatnings of Hell to impenitent unbelievers And our consent doth speak our approbation Direct 7. Observe that the belief of Christs threatnings of damnation to impenitent unbelievers is a real part of the Christian saving Faith and that when ever it is joyned with a true love and desire after holiness it certainly proveth that the Promises also are believed though the party think that he doth not believe them Note here 1. That I do not say that all belief or fear of Gods threatnings is saving Faith But 2. That all saving Faith containeth such a belief of the threatnings 3. And that many times poor Christians who believe and tremble at the threatnings do truly believe the Promises and yet mistake and verily think that they do not believe them 4. But their mistake may certainly be manifested if their Faith do but work by a love and desire after holiness and the fruition of God For 1. It is evident that the same Gospel which saith He that believeth shall be saved doth say He that believeth not shall be damned Therefore the same faith believeth both 2. It is plain that the same formal object of faith which is Gods Veracity will bring a man to believe one as well as the other if he equally know it to be a divine revelation He that believeth that All that God saith is true and then believeth that God saith that All true Believers shall be saved must needs believe that this Promise is true And he that understandeth that Christ saith Vnbelievers shall be damned cannot but find also that he saith True Believers shall be saved And if he believe the one because it is the word of Christ he doth sure believe the other because it is the word of Christ 3. Yea it is in many respects harder to believe Gods threatnings than his promises partly because sinners are more unwilling that they should be true and they have more enmity to the threatning than to the promise and partly because they commonly feign God to be such as they would have him be Psal 50. Thou thoughtest I was such a one as thy self c. And partly because Gods Goodness being known to be his very essence and all men being apt to judge of Goodness by the measure of their own interest it is far more obvious and facil to mans understanding to conclude that some are saved than that some are damned and that the penitent believers are saved than that the impenitent unbelievers are damned We hear daily how easily almost all men are brought to believe that God is merciful and how hard it is to perswade them of his damning Justice and severity Therefore he that can do the harder is not unlike to do the easier And indeed it is meer ignorance of the true nature of faith which maketh those whom I am now describing to think that they do not believe Gods Promises when they believe his Threatnings They think that because they believe not that they themselves are pardoned justified and shall be saved that therefore they believe not the promise of God But this is not the reason but it is because you find not the condition of the promise yet in your selves and therefore think that you have no part in the benefits But its one thing to doubt of your own sincerity and another thing to doubt whether the promise of God be
true Suppose that the Law do pardon a fellon if he can read as a Clerk and one that is a fellon be in doubt whether his reading will serve or not this is not to deny belief to the pardoning act of the Law Suppose one promise a yearly stipend to all that are of full one and twenty years of age in the Town or Country To doubt of my age is not to doubt of the truth of the promise Object But do not Protestant Divines conclude against the Papists that saving Faith must be a particular application of Christ and the Promise to ourselves and not only a general assent Answ It is very true and the closer that application is the better But the application which all sound Divines in this point require as necessary in saving Faith is neither an assurance nor perswasion that your own sins are already pardoned or that they ever will be But it is 1. A belief that the Promise of pardon to all believers is so universal as that it includeth you as well as others and promiseth and offereth you pardon and life if you will believe in Christ 2. And it is a consent or willingness of heart that Christ be yours and you be his to the ends proposed in the Gospel 3. And it is a practical Trust in his sufficiency as chusing him for the only Mediatour resolving to venture your souls and all your hopes upon him Though yet through your ignorance of your selves you may think that you do not this thing in sincerity which indeed you do yea and much fear through melancholy or temptation that you never shall do it and consequently never shall be saved He that doubteth of his own salvation not because he doubteth of the truth of the Gospel but because he doubteth of the sincerity of his own heart may be mistaken in himself but is not therefore an unbeliever as is said before If you would know whether you believe the Promises truly answer me these particular questions 1. Do you believe that God hath promised that all true Believers shall be saved 2. Do you believe that if you are or shall be a true Believer you shall be saved 3. Do you chuse or desire God as your only happiness and end to be enjoyed in Heaven and Christ as the only Mediatour to procure it and his holy Spirit as his Agent in your souls to sanctifie you fully to the Image of God Are you truly willing that thus it should be And if God be willing will not you refuse it 4. Do you turn away from all other waies of felicity and chuse this alone to venture all your hopes upon and resolve to seek for none but this and to venture all on God and Christ though yet you are uncertain of your sincerity and salvation why this makes up true saving faith 5. And I would further ask you Do you fear damnation and Gods wrath or not If not what troubleth you and why complain you If you do tell me then whether you do believe Gods threatning that he that believeth not shall be damned or not If you do not what maketh you fear damnation Do you fear it and not believe that there is any such thing If you do believe it how can you chuse but believe also that every true Believer shall be saved Is God true in his Threatnings and not in his Promises This must force you plainly to confess that you do believe Gods Promises but only doubt of your own sincerity and consequently of your salvation which is more a weakness in your hope than in your faith or rather chiefly in your acquaintance with your self Direct 8. Yet still dwell most upon Gods Promises in the exercise of love desire and thankfulness and use all your fear about the threatnings but in a second place to further and not to hinder the work of love Direct 9. Let faith interpret all Gods Judgements meerly by the light of the threatnings of his Word and do not gather any conclusions from them which the Word affordeth not or alloweth not Gods Judgements may be dangerously misunderstood CHAP. VII How to exercise Faith about Pardon of sin and Justification THE practice of Faith about our Justification is hindered by so many unhappy controversies and heresies that what to do with them here in our way is not very easie to determine Should I omit the mention of them I leave most that I write for either under that disease it self or the danger of it which may frustrate all the rest which I must say For the errours hereabout are swarming in most quarters of the Land and are like to come to the caâ—s of most that are studious of these matters so that an antidote to most and a vomit to the rest is become a matter of necessity to the success of all our practical Directions And yet many cannot endure to be troubled with difficulties who are slothful and must have nothing set before them that will cost them much study and many peaceable Christians love not any thing that soundeth like controversie or strife As others that are Sons of contention relish nothing else But averseness must give place to necessity If the Leprosie arise the Priest must search it and the Physician must do his best to cure it notwithstanding their natural averseness to it Though I may be as averse to write against errours as the Reader is to read what I write we must both blame that which causeth the necessity but not therefore deny our necessary duty But yet I will so far gratifie them that need no more as to put the more practical Directions first that they may pass by the heap of errours â—â—ter if their own judgements prevail not against their unwillingness Direct 1. Vnderstand well what need you have of pardon of sin and Justification by reason of your guilt and of Gods Law and Justice and the everlasting punishment which is legally your due 1. It must be a sensible awakening practical knowledge of our own great necessity which must teach us to value Christ as a Saviour and to come to him in that empty sick and weary plight as is necessary in those who will make use of him for their supply and cure Matth. 9.12 11.28 29. A superficial speculative knowledge of our sin and misery will prepare us but for a superficial opinionative faith in Christ as the remedy But a true sense of both will teach us to think of him as a Saviour indeed 2. Original sin and actual the wickedness both of the heart and life even all our particular sins of omission and commission and all their circumstances and aggravations are the first reason of our great necessity of pardon And therefore it cannot but be a duty to lay them to heart as particularly as we can to make that necessity and Christs redemption the better understood Acts 2.37 Acts 2â— 8 9 c. 3. The wrath of God and the miseries of this life
satisfaction forgive all our sins and adopt us for his Sons and give us his holy Spirit and glorifie us for ever so that Christs Righteousness both obediential and satisfactory is ours in the effects of it in themselves and ours relatively for those effects so far as to be purposely given for us to that end but not ours in it self simply or as if we were reputed the legal performers our selves or might be said in Law sense or by divine estimation or imputation to have our selves in and by Christ fulfilled the Law and suffered for our not fulfilling it which is a contradiction As he that both by a price and by some meritorious act doth redeem a captive or purchase pardon for a traitor doth give the money and merit in it self to the Prince and not to the Captive or Traitor himself He never saw it nor ever had propriety in the thing it self But the deliverance is the Prisâ—ners and not the Princes and therefore it is given to the Prisoner as to the effects though not in it self in that it was given for him And because Christ suffered what we should have suffered as to the value to save us from suffering and our sins were the cause of our guilt of punishment and so the remote cause of the sufferings of Christ his own sponsion being the nearer cause therefore it may be said truly that Christ did not only suffer for our benefit but in our stead or place and in a larger and less strict and proper sense that he suffered in the person of a sinner and as one to whom our sins were imputed meaning no more but that he suffered as one that by his own consent undertook to suffer for the persons of sinners and that as such an undertaker only he suffered and that thus our sins were imputed to him not in themselves as if he were in Law sense the committer of them or polluted by them or by God esteemed so to have been but as to the effects that is his suffering in that they were the occasion and the remote or assumed cause of his sufferings as his Righteousness is imputed to us as the meritorious cause of our Pardon and Justification But he could not be said no not in so large a sense as this to have obeyed in our stead considering it as obedience or holiness but only as merit because he did it not that we might not obey but that we might not suffer for disobeying More of this will follow in the next Chapter Direct 4. Vnderstand well what guilt it is that Christ doth remit in our Justification not the guilt of the fact nor of the fault in it self but the guilt of punishment and of the fault only so far as it is the cause of wrath and punishment 1. The guilt of fact is in the reality or truth of this charge that such a fact we did or omitted so far it is but Physically considered and would not come into legal consideration were it not for the following relation of it 2. The guilt of fault reatus culpae is the reality of this charge or the foundation of it in us that we are the committers or omitters of such an action contrary to the Law or that our act or omission was really a crime or fault 3. The guilt of punishment reatus poenae vel ad poenam is the foundation of this charge that we are by that Law which must judge us condemnable or obliged to punishment or it is our right for the sins so committed Now Christ doth not by justifying us or pardoning us make us either to be such as really did not do the fact or such as did not a culpable fact no nor such as did not deserve damnation or to whom it was not due by the first Law alone but to be such who are not now at all condemnable for it because the new Law which we must be judged by doth absolve us by forgiving us not making the fault no fault nor causing God to think that Christ committed it and not we or to esteem us to be such as never did commit it but remitting the punishment and that dueness of punishment and obligation to it which did before result from the fault and Law together and so the fault it self is remitted as it is the foundation from whence that obligation to punishment resulteth respectively but not simply nor as a fault in it self at all When I say the punishment and the dueness of it to us is forgiven I mean not only the punishment of sense but of loss also nor only the outward part which is executed by creatures but especially the first and great penalty of Gods own displeasure with the person and the withdrawing of his Spirit and complacential love and that which we may improperly call his obligation in Justice to condemn the sinner There was upon God before Christs satisfaction and our title to him that which we may so call a legal or relative obligation on God to punish us because else he should have done contrary to the due ends of Government and so contrary to the Wisdom and Justice of a Governour which is not consistent with his perfection But now the ends of Government are so answered and provided for that there is no such obligation on God to punish us but he may remit it without any dishonour at all nay with the honour of his Wisdom and Justice We are now non condemnandi not condemnable though we are sinners In Judgement we must confess the latter and deny the former only Direct 5. Vnderstand well what sins Christ justifieth men from or forgiveth to them and what not All sins which consist with true faith and repentance or true conversion to God in love by faith in Christ and all that went before But he forgiveth no man in a state of impenitency and unbelief nor any mans final impenitency and unbelief at all nor any other sins when those are final except it be with the common conditional forgiveness before mentioned or that absolute particular forgiveness of some present penalties which saveth no man from damnation Matth. 12.31 Acts 26.18 Rom. 8.1 30. Acts 5.31 Acts 2.38 39. Mark 16.16 John 3.16 18 36. 1 John 5.11 12. Mark 4 1â— Matth. 18.27 32. Direct 6. Vnderstand well the true nature of that Faith and Repentance which God hath made the condition of our Justification This is sufficiently opened before and the consulation of all the cavils against it would be tedious and unsavoury here Direct 7. Vnderstand well the Covenant and Promise of Justification and measure your belief and expectations by that Promise Expect no other pardon nor on any other conditions or terms than the Promise doth contain For it is Gods pardoning act or instrument and by it we must be justified or condemned And we know not but by it whom God will justifie Direct 8. Keep alwaies the assuring grounds of faith before your eyes when you look
be doth the Scripture say that all men believe or only some If some doth it name them or notifie them by any thing but the marks by which they must find it in themselves Object But he that believeth may be as sure that he believeth as that the Scripture is true Answ But not that he is sincere and exceedeth all hypocrites and common believers At least there are but few that get so full an assurance hereof Object The Spirit witnesseth that we are Gods children And to believe the Spirit is to believe God Answ The Spirit is oft called in Scripture the witness and pledge and earnest in the same sense that is it is the evidâ—nce of our right to Christ and life If any man have not his Spirit he is none of his Rom. 8.9 And hereby we know that he dweleth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us As the Spirits Miracles were the witness of Christ Heb. 2.3 c. objectively as evidence is called witness 2. And withall the Spirit by illumination and excitation helpeth us to see it self as our evidence 3. And to rejoyce in this discovery And thus the Spirit witnesseth our adoption But none of these are the proper objects of a Divine Belief 1. The objective evidence of holiness in us is the object of our rational self-acquaintance or conscience only 2. The illuminating grace by which we see this is not a new Divine Testimony or proper Revelation or Word of God but the same help of grace by which all other divine things are known And all the Spirits grace for our understanding of divine Revelations are not new objective Revelations themselves requiring a new act of Faith for them A word or proper Revelation from God is the object of divine belief otherwise every illuminating act of the Spirit for our understanding Gods Word would be it self a new word to be believed and so in infinitum Errour 33. Doubting of the life to come or of the truth of the Gospel will not stand with saving Faith Contr. It will not stand with a confirmed Faith but it will with a sincere Faith He that doubteth of the truth of the promise so far as that he will not venture life and soul and all his hopes and happiness temporal and eternal upon it hath no true Faith But he that doubteth but yet so far belâ—eveth the Gospel as to take God for his only God and portion and Christ for his only Saviour and the Spirit for his Sanctifier and will cast away life or all that stand in competition hath a true and saving Faith as is before proved Errour 34. That Repentance is no condition of Pardon or Justification for then it would be equal therein with Faith Contr. I have elsewhere at large proved the contrary from Scripture Repentance hath many acts as Faith hath To repent as it is the change of the mind of our Atheism Idolatry and not loving God and obeying him is the same motion of the soul denominated from the terminus à quo as Faith in God and Love to God is denominated from the terminus ad quem This is Repentance towards God Repenting of our Infidelity against Christ is the same motion of the soul as believing in Christ only one is denominated from the object-turned from and the other from the object-turned to By which you may see that some Repentance is the same with Faith in Christ and some is the same with Faith in God and some is the same with Love to God and some is but the same with the leaving of some particular sin or turning to some particular fore-neglected duty And so you may easily resolve the case how far it is the condition of Pardon Repentance aâ— it is a return to the Love of God as he is our God and End and All is made the final condition of further blessings as necessary in and of it self as the end of Faith in Christ And Repentance of Infidelity and Faith in Christ is made the Mediate or Medicinal Condition As consenting to be friends with your Father or King after a rebellion and consenting to the Mediation of a friend to reconcile you are both conditions one the more noble de fine and the other de mediis or as consenting to be cured and consenting to take Physick They that will or must live in the darkness of confusion were best at least hold their tongues there till they come into distinguishing light Errour 35. That all other acts of Faith in Christ as our Lord or Teacher or Judge or of Faith in God or the Holy Ghost all confessing sin and praying for pardon and repenting and forgiving others and receiving Baptism c. are the works which Paul excludeth from Justification And one act of faith only being the Justifying Instrument he that looketh to be justified by any of all these besides that one act doth look for Justification by Works and consequently is fallen from grace Contr. This is not only an addition to Gods Word and Covenant not to be used by them that judge it unlawful to add a form or ceremony in his worship but it is a most dangerous invention to wrack mens consciences and keep all men under certain desperation For whilest the world standeth the subtilest of these Inventers of new doctrines will never be able to tell the world which is that one sole act of Faith by which they are justified that they may escape looking for a legal Justification by the rest whether it be believing in Christs Divinity or Humanity or both or in his Divine or Humane or Habitual Righteousness or his Obedience as a subjâ—ct or his Sacrifice or his Priest-hood offering that Sacrifice or his Covenant and Promise of Pardon and Justification or in God that giveth him and them or in his Resurrections or in Gods present sentential or executive Justification or in his final sentential Justification c. No man to the end of the world shall know which of these or any other is the sole justifying act and so no man can scape being a legal adversary to grace Unhappy Papists who by the contrary extream have frightened or disputed us into such wild and scandalous inventions Of this see fully my Disput of Justification against the worthy and excellent Mr. Anthony Burgess Errour 36. That our own Faith is not at all imputed to us for Righteousness but only Christs Righteousness received by it Contr. The Scripture no where saith that Christ or his Righteousness or his Obedience or his Satisfaction is imputed to us And yet we justly defend it as is before explained and as Mr. Bradshaw and Grotius de satisfact have explained it And on the other side the Scripture often saith that Faith is imputed for Righteousness and shall be so to all that believe in God that raised Christ Rom. 4. And this these objectors peremptorily deny But expounding Scripture amiss is a much cleanlier pretence for errour than a flat
his due And that every good man and every good action deserveth praise that is to be esteemed such as it is And that there is also a comparative merit and a not meriting evil As a Believer may be said not to deserve damnation by the Covenant of Grace but only by or according to the Law of Nature or Works But to pass from the word merit which I had rather were quite disused because the danger is greater than the benefit the thing signified thus by it is past all dispute viz. that whatever duty God hath promised a Reward to that duty or work is Rewardable according to the tenour of that promise And they that deny this deny Gods Laws and Government and Judgement and his Covenant of Grace and leave not themselves one promise for faith to rest upon So certainly would all these persons be damned if God in mercy did not keep them from digesting their own errours and bringing them into practice Errour 47. God is pleased with us only for the righteousness of Christ and not for any thing in our selves Contr. This is sufficiently answered before He blasphemeth God who thinketh that he is no better pleased with holiness than with wickedness with well doing than with ill doing They that are in the flesh cannot please God Rom. 8.6 7. but the spiritual and obedient may Without faith it is impossible to please him because unbelievers think not that he is a Rewarder and therefore will not seek his reward aright But they that will please him must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11.6 They forget not to do good and distribute because with such sacrifices God is well pleased Heb. 13. And in a word it is the work of all their lives to labour that whether living or dying they may be accepted of him 2 Cor. 5.8 9. and to 〈◊〉 â—uch and to do those things as are pleasing in his sight Nay 〈◊〉 add that as the glory of God that is the glorious demonstâ—â—â—ion or appearance of himself in his works is materially the ultimate end of man so the pleasing of himself in this his glory shining in his Image and Works is the very apex or highest formal notion of this ultimate end of God and of man as far as is within our reach No mans works please God out of Christ both because they are unsound and bad in the spring and end and because their faultiness is not pardoned But in Christ the persons and duties of the godly are pleasing to God because they have his Image and are sincerely good and because their former sins and present imperfections are forgiven for the sake of Christ who never reconciled God to wickedness Errour 48. It is mâ—rcenary to work for a reward and legal to set men on doing for salvation Contr. It is legal or foolish to think of working for any reward by such meritorious works as make the reward to be not of grace but of debt Rom. 4.4 But he that maketh God himself and his everlasting love to be his reward and trusteth in Christ the only reconciler as knowing his guilt and enmity by sin and laboureth for the food which perisheth not but endureth to everlasting life and layeth up a treasure in Heaven and maketh himself friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness and layeth up a good foundation for the time to come laying hold upon eternal life and striverh to enter in at the strait gate and fighteth a good fight and finisheth his course for the Crown of Righteousness and suffereth persecution for a reward in Heaven and prayeth in secret that God may reward him and alwaies aboundeth in the work of the Lord because his labour is not in vain in the Lord and endureth to the end that he may be saved and is faithful to the death and overcometh that he may receive the Crown of Life this man taketh Gods way and the only way to Heaven and they that thus seek not the reward being at the use of reason are never like to have it Errour 49. It is not lawful for the justified to pray for the pardon of any penalties but temporal Contr. The ground of this is before overthrown Errour 50. It is not lawful to pray twice for the pardon of the same sin because it implieth unbelief as if it were not pardoned already Contr. It is a duty to pray oft and continuedly for the pardon of former sins 1. Because pardon once granted must be continued and therefore the continuance must be prayed for If you say It is certain to be continued I answer then it is as certain that you will continue to pray for it and to live a holy life 2. Because the evils deserved are such as we are not perfectly delivered from and are in danger of more daily And therefore we must pray for daily executive pardon that is impunity and that God will give us more of his Spirit and save us from the fruit of former sin Because our right to future impunity is given before all the impunity it self 3 And the compleat Justification from all past sins is yet to come at the day of Judgement And all this besides that some that have pardon know it not may and must be daily prayed for Errour 51. The Justified must not pray again for the pardon of the sins before conversion Contr. What was last said confuteth this Errour 52. No man at all may pray for pardon but only for assurance For the sins of the Elect are all pardoned before they were born and the non-elect have no satisfaction made for their sins and therefore their pardon is impossible Contr. Matth. 6. Forgive us our trespasses c. These consequences do but shew the falshood of the antecedents Errour 53. No man can know that he is under the guilt of any sin because no man can know but that he is elect and consequently justified already Contr. No infidel or impenitent person is justified Errour 54. Christ only is covenanted with by the Father and he is the only Promiser as for us and not we for our selves Contr. Christ only hath undertaken to do the work of Christ but man must undertake and promise and covenant even to Christ himself that by the help of his grace he will do his own part Or else no man should be baptized What a Baptism and Sacramental Communion do these men make He that doth not covenant with the Father Son and Holy Spirit hath no right to the benefits of Gods part of the Covenant And no man at age can be saved that doth not both promise and perform Errour 55. We are not only freed from the condemning sentence of the Law but freed also from its commands Contr. We are not under Moses Judaical Law which was proper to their Nation and their Proselites Nor are we under a necessity or duty of labouring after perfect obedience in our selves as the condition of our
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
greater than heart duties only because in the outward duty it is to be supposed that both parts concur both soul and body And the operations of both is more than of one alone and also because the nobler ends are attained by both together more than by one only For God is loved and man is benefited by them As when the Sun shineth upon a tree or on the earth it is a more noble effect to have a return of its influences in ripe and pleasant fruits than in a meer sudden reflexion of the heat alone 18. All outward duties must begin at the heart and it must animate them all and they are valued in the sight of God no further than they come from a rectified will even from the Love of God and Goodness However without this they are good works materially in respect to the Receiver He may do good to the Church or Common-wealth or Poor who doth none to himself thereby 19. As the motion is circular from God to man and from man to God again Mercies received and Duties and Love returned so is the motion circular between the heart and the outward man The heart moving the tongue and hand c. and these moving the heart again partly of their own nature and partly by divine reward The Love of God and Goodness produceth holy thoughts and words and actions and these again increase the Love which did produce them Gal. 5.6.13 Heb. 6.10 Heb. 10.24 2 John 6. Jude 21. 20. The Judgment must be well informed before the Will resolve 21. Yet when God hath given us plain instruction it is a sin to cherish causless doubts and scruples 22. And when we see our duty before us it is not every scruple that will excuse us from doing it But when we have more conviction that it is a duty then that it is none or that it is a sin we must do it notwithstanding those mistaking doubts As if in Prayer or Alms-deeds you should scruple the lawfulness of them you ought not to forbear till your scruples be resolved because you so long neglect a duty Else folly might justifie men in ungodliness and disobedience 23. But in things meerly indifferent it is a sin to do them doubtingly because you may be sure it is no sin to forbear them Rom. 14.23 1 Cor. 8.13 14. 24. An erring Judgment intangleth a man in a necessity of sinning till it be reformed whether he act or not according to it Therefore if an erring person ask What am I bound to the true answer is to lay by your errour or reform your Judgment first and then to do accordingly and if he ask an hundred times over But what must I do in case I cannot change my Judgment the same answer must be given him God still bindeth you to change your Judgment and hath given you the necessary means of information and therefore he will not take up with your supposition that you cannot His Law is a fixed Rule which telleth you what you must believe and chuse and do And this Rule will not change though you be blind and say I cannot change my mind Your mind must come to the Rule for the Rule will not come to your perverted mind Say what you will the Law of God will be still the same and will still bind you to believe according to its meaning 25. Yet supposing that a mans errour so entangleth him in a necessity of sinning it is a double sin to prefer a greater sin before a lesser For though no sin is an object of our choice yet the greater sin is the object of our greater hatred and refusal and must be with the greater fear and care avoided 26. An erring Conscience then is never the voice or messenger of God nor are we ever bound to follow it because it is neither our God nor his Law but only our own Judgment which should discern his Law And mis-reading or misunderstanding the Law will not make a bad cause good though it may excuse it from a greater degree of evil 27. The judicious fixing of the Wills Resolutions and especially the increasing of its Love or complacency and delight in good is the chief thing to be done in all our duties as being the heart and life of all Prov. 23.26.12 4.23 7.3 22.17 3.1 2 3. 4.4 21. Deut. 30.6 Psal 37.4 40.8 119.16 35 70 47. 1.2 Isa 58.14 28. The grand motives to duty must ever be before our eyes and set upon our hearts as the poise of all our motions and endeavours As the travelers home and business is deepest in his mind as the cause of every step which he goeth 29. No price imaginable must seem great enough to hire us to commit the least known sin Luke 12.4 14.26 28 33. Mat. 10.39 16.26 30. The second great means next to the right forming of the heart for the avoiding of sin is to get away from the temptations baits and occasions of it And he that hath most grace must take himself to be still in great danger while he is under strong temptations and allurements and when sin is brought to his hands and alluring objects are close to the appetite and senses 31. The keeping clean our Imaginations and commanding our Thoughts is the next great means for the avoiding sin and a polluted fantasie and ungoverned thoughts are the nest where all iniquity is hatched and the instruments that bring it forth into act 32. The governing of the senses is the first means to keep clean the Imagination When Achaâ— seeth the wedge of gold he desireth it and then he taketh it When men wilfully fill their eyes with the objects which entice them to lust to covetousness to wrath the impression is presently made upon the fantasie and then the Devil hath abundance more power to renew such imaginations a thousand times than if such impressions had been never made And it is a very hard thing to cleanse the fantasie which is once polluted 33. And the next notable means of keeping out all evil Imaginations and curing lust and vanity of mind is constant laborious diligence in a lawful calling which shall allow the mind no leisure for vain and sinful thoughts as the great nourisher of all foul and wicked thoughts is Idleness and Vacancy which inviteth the tempter and giveth him time and opportunity 34. Watchfulness over our selves and thankful accepting the watchfulness fault-findings and reproofs of others is a great part of the safety of our souls Mat. 26.41 25 13. Mark 13.37 Luke 21.36 1 Cor. 16.13 1 Thes 5.6.2 Tim. 4.5 Heb. 12.17 1 Pet. 4.7 35. Affirmative Precepts bind not to all times that is no positive duty is a duty at all times As to preach to pray to speak of God to think of holy things c. it is not alwaies a sin to intermit them 36. All that God commandeth us to do is both a Duty and a Means it
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
be but to do as the Papists when we have sinned by fallibility to keep off repentance by the conceit of infallibility 9. We are in great danger of sinning in cases where we are ignorant For who can avoid the danger which he seeth not And who can walk safely in the dark Therefore we see that it is the ignor anter sort of Christians and such as Paul calleth Novices that most erre especially when Pride accompanyeth Ignorance for then they fall into the special condemnation of the Devil 1 Tim. 3.6 Study therefore painfully and patiently till you understand the truth 10. But above all we are in danger of those sins which are masked with a pretence of the greatest truths and duties and use to be fathered on God and Scripture and so under the specious titles of Holiness and of Free Grace For here it is the understanding chiefly that resisteth while the very names and pretences secretly steal in and bring them into love and reverence with the Will And the poor honest Christian is afraid of resisting them lest it should prove a resisting God What can be so false that a man will not plead for if he take it to be a necessary truth of God And what can be so bad that a man will not do if he take it once to be of Gods commanding The foresaid instances of the Munster and Germane actions with those of the followers of David George in Holland who took himself to be the Holy Ghost or the immediate Prophet of his Kingdom and Hacket and his Grundletonians and the Familists the Ranters the Seekers the Quakers the Church-dividers and the Kingdom and State-overturners in England have given so great a demonstration of this that it is not lawful to overlook it or forget it The time cometh that they that kill you shall think that they do God service Joh. 16.2 And then who can expect that their consciences should avoid it Why did Paul persecute the Christians and compel them to blaspheme Because he verily thought that he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus Acts 26.9 O it is religious sins which we are in danger of such as come to us as in the Name of God and Christ and the Spirit such as pretend that we cannot be saved without them and such as plead the holy Scriptures such as James 3. is written against when a wisdom from beneath which is earthly sensual and devilish working by envy and strife unto confusion and every evil work pretendeth to be the wisdom from above when Zeal consumeth Love and Vnity under pretence of consuming sin which made Paul and John require us not to believe every spirit but to try the spirits whether they be of God 2 Thes 2.2 1 Thes 5.20 21. 1 Joh. 4.1 2 3. And made Paul say If an Angel from Heaven bring you another Gospel let him be accursed Gal. 1.7 8. And more plainly 2 Cor. 11.13 14. Such are false Apostles deceitful workers transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of light therefore it is no great thing if his Ministers also be transformed as the Ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according to their works And Acts 20.30 Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them And what need any Disciple of Christ greater warning than to remember that their Saviour himself was thus assaulted by the Devil in his temptation with It is written Yet let no Papist hence take occasion to vilifie the Scripture because it is made a plea for sin For so he might as well vilifie humane Reason which is pleaded for all the errours in the world and vilifie the Law because Lawyers plead it for ill Causes yea and vilifie God himself because the same and other sinners plead his will and authority for their sins when contrarily it is a great proof of the Scripture Authority and Honour that Satan himself and his subtilest instruments do place their greatest hope of prevailing by perverting and misapplying it which could be of no use to them if its authority were not acknowledged 11. We are in constant danger of those sins which we think we can conceal from men Therefore suppose still that all that you do will be made known and do all as in the open streets It 's written by two in the life of holy Ephrem Syrus that when a Harlot tempted him to uncleanness he desired but that he might chuse the place which she consenting to he chose the open market-place among all the people and when she told him that there they should be shamed for all would see he told her such a lesson of sinning in the sight of God who is every where as was the means of her conversion Conceit of secrecy emboldeneth to sin 12. We are in constant danger of sins of sudden passion and irruption which allow us not season to deliberate and surprize us before our reason can consider 13. We are in danger of sins that come on by insensible degrees and from small beginnings creep upon us and come not by any sudden wakening assaults Thus pride and covetousness and ambition do infect men And thus our zeal and deligence for God doth usually decay 14. Lastly We are in much danger of all sins which require a constant vigorous diligence to resist them and of omitting those duties or that part or mode of duty which must have a constant vigorous diligence to perform it Because feeble souls are hardly kept as is aforesaid to constant vigorous diligence Quest 2. Wherein differeth the sins of a sanctified person from other mens that are unsanctified Answ 1. In a sanctified man the habitual bent of his will is ever more against sin than for it however he be tempted into that particular act 2. And as to the Act also it is ever contrary to the scope and tenour of his life which is for God and sincere obedience 3. He hath no sin which is inconsistent with the true Love of God in the predominant habit It never turneth his heart to another End or Happiness or Master 4. Therefore it is more a sin of passion than of settled interest and choice He is more liable to a hasty passion or word or unruly thoughts than to any prevalent covetousness or ambition or any sin which is a possessing of the heart instead of God 1 John 2.15 James 3.2 Though some remainders of these are in him they prevail not so far as sudden passions 5. There are some sins which are more easily in the power of the will so that a man that is but truly willing may forbear them as a drunkard may pass by the Tavern or Ale-house or forbear to touch the cup and the fornicator to come neer or commit the sin if they be truly willing But there be other sins which a man can hardly forbear though he be willing because
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
But it is the lively belief of endless Glory and the Love of God prevailing in the soul that must work the cure Nothing below a Life of Faith and a heavenly mind and conversation and the Love of God will ever well cure a sensual life and an earthly mind and conversation and the love of the world Direct 9. Turn away from the bait desire not to have your estate your dwelling c. too pleasing to your flesh and fancy Remember that it killeth by pleasing rather than by seeming unlovely and displeasing Direct 10. Turn Satans temptations to worldliness against himself When he tempteth you to covetousness give more to the poor than else you would have done When he tempteth you to pride and ambition let your conversation shew more aversation to pride than you did before If he tempt you to waste your time in fleshly vanities or sports work harder in your calling and spend more time in better things and thus try to weary out the tempter Direct 11. Take heed of the Hypocrites designs which is to unite Religion and worldliness and to reconcile God and Mammon and to secure the flesh and its prosperity here and yet to save the soul hereafter For all such hopes are meer deceits Direct 12. Improve your prosperity to its proper ends Devore all entirely and absolutely to God and so it will be saved from loss and you from deceit and condemnation CHAP. XV. How to be poor in spirit And how to escape the pride of Prosperity THough no man is saved or condemned for being either rich or poor yet it is not for nothing that Christ hath so often set before us the danger of the rich and the extraordinary difficulty of their salvation And that he began his Sermon Mat. 5.3 with Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven The sense of which words is not as is commonly imagined Blessed are they that find their want of grace For 1. So may a despairing person 2. The text compared with Luke 16. where simply the poor and rich are opposed doth plainly shew another sense agreeing with the usual doctrine of Christ And whereas Expositors doubt whether Christ spake that Sermon to his Disciples or to the multitude the text maketh it plain that he spake it to both viz. that he called his Disciples to him and as it were pointed the finger at them and made them his text on which he preached to the multitude and the sense is contained in these Propositions as if he had said See you these followers of me You take them to be contemptible or unhappy because they are poor in the world but I tell you 1. That poverty maketh not Believers miserable 2. Yea they are the truly belssed men because they shall have the heavenly riches 3. And the evidence of their right to that is that they are poor in spirit that is their hearts are suited to a low estate and are saved from the destructive vices of riches and prosperity 1. And their outward poverty is better suited and conducible to this deliverance and this poverty of spirit than a state of wealth and prosperity is All these four Propositions are the true meaning of the text That we may see here what is the special work of Faith we must know which are the special sins of prosperity which riches and honours occasion in the world And though the Apostle tell us 1 Tim. 6.10 that the love of money is the root of all evil I will confine my discourse to that narrower compass in the enumeration of the sins of Sodom in Ezâ—k 16.49 PRIDE FVLNESS of bread IDLENESS And of these but briefly because I have spoken more largely of them elsewhere in my Christian Directory And first of the Pride of the rich and prosperous PRIDE is a sin of so deep radication and so powerful in the hearts of carnal men that it will take advantage of any condition but Riches and Prosperity are its most notable advantage As the boat riseth with the water so do such hearts rise with their estates Therefore saith the Apostle 1 Tim. 6.17 Charge the rich that they be not high minded High-mindedness is the sin that you are first here to avoid In order whereunto I shall give you now but these three general Directions Direct 1. Observe the masks or covers of High-mindedness or Pride lest it reign in you unknown For it hath many covers by which it is concealed from the souls that are infected if not undone and miserable by it For instance 1. Some think that they are not Proud because that their parts and worth will bear out all the estimation which they have of themselves And he that thinketh of himself but as he really is being in the right is not to be accounted proud But remember that the first act of Pride is the overvaluing of our selves And he that is once guilty of this first act will justifie himself both in it and all that follow So that Pride is a sin which blindeth the understanding and defendeth it self by it self and powerfully keepeth off repentance When once a man hath entertained a conceit that he is wiser or better than indeed he is he then thinketh that all his thoughts and words and actions which are of that signification are just and sober because the thing is so indeed And for a man to deny Gods graces or gifts and make himself seem worse than he is is not true humility but dissimulation or ingratitude But herein you have great cause to be very careful lest you should prove mistaken Therefore 1. Judge not of your selves by the by as of self-love but if it be possible lay by partiality and judge of your selves as you do by others upon the like evidences 2. Hearken what other men judge of you who are impartial and wise and are neer you and throughly acquainted with your lives It 's possible they may think better or worse of you than you are but if they judge worse of you than you do of your selves it should stop your confidence and make you the more suspicious and careful to try left you should be mistaken 2. And remember also that you are obliged to a greater modesty in judging of your own vertues and to a greater severity in judging of your own faults than of other mens though you must not wilfully erre about your selves or any others yet you are not bound to search out the truth about the faults of another as you are about your own We are commanded to prefer one another in honour Rom. 10.21 And vers 3. For I say through the grace given to me to every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than be ought to think but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of Faith 2 Another cloak for Pride is the Reputation of our Religion Profession or Party which will seem to be disgraced by
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
it your Faith Repentance Prayer c. in and for its own office and part and do not foolishly blaspheme Christ by ascribing the part and office of your duty unto him and his office under pretence of giving him the honour of them It is Christs office and honour to be a sacrifice for sin and a propitiation for us and a perfect Saviour and Intercessor and to give us the Spirit by which we believe repent pray obey hope love c. But not to be a penitent believing sinner nor to accept of an offered Saviour nor to be a consenting Covenanter with God the Father Son and Holy Spirit nor to be washed from sin in his blood reconciled adopted nor to pray for pardon in the name of another nor to trust upon a Saviour nor to be a Disciple a Subject a Member of a Saviour c. Nor yet that his blood or merits or righteousness should be to you instead of these No these are to be done by you Direct 8. In this case also take heed of those ignorant guides who know not the errours of fancy melancholy or disturbed passions from the proper works of the Spirit of God For they wrong the Spirit when they ascribe mens sinful weaknesses to him And they greatly wrong the troubled sinner many waies 1. They puff up men with conceits that they are under some great and excellent workings of the Spirit when they are the works of Satan and their own infirmity or sin 2. They teach them hereby to magnifie and cherish those distempers and passions and thoughts which they should resist and lament and cast away 3. And they set them in an Enthusiastick or truly Fanatical way of Religion to look for Revelations or live still upon their own fancies and passions and distempers and Satans temptations conceiting that they live upon the incomes of God and are actuated in all this by the Holy Ghost And of what mischievous importance and consequence all this is and how much hurt such zealous ignorance doth both in the Teachers and the people the thing it self doth plainly shew and the sad experience of this age doth shew it more plainly in Ranters Quakers and other true Fanaticks and in many women and other weak persons of better principles than theirs And it is an unsafe course which many such weak persons use to think in their troubles that every text of Scripture which cometh into their mind or every conceit of their own is a special suggestion of the Spirit of God You shall ordinarily hear them say Such a text was brought to me or was set upon my heart and such a thing was set upon my mind when two to one it was no otherwise brought unto them nor set upon them than any other ordinary thoughts are and had no special or extraordinary operation of God in it at all Though it is certain that every good thought which cometh into our minds is some effect of the working of Gods Spirit as every good word and every good work is and it is certain that sometimes Gods Spirit doth guide and comfort Christians as a remembrancer by bringing informing and comforting texts and doctrines to their remembrance yet it is a dangerous thing to think that all such suggestions or thoughts are from some special or extraordinary work of the Spirit or that every text that cometh into our minds is brought thither by the Spirit of God at all The reasons are these 1. Satan can bring a text or truth to our remembrance for his own ends as he did to Christ Matth. 4. in his temptations 2. Our own passions or running thoughts may light upon some text or truth accidentally as they do on other things which so come in 3. When the Spirit doth in an ordinary way help us in remembring or meditating on any text or holy doctrine he doth it according to our capacity and disposition and not in the way of infallible inspiration and therefore there is much of our weakness and errour usually mixt with the Spirits help in the product As when you hold the hand of a child in writing you write not so well by his hand as by your own alone but your skill and his weakness and unskilfulness do both appear in the letters which are made so is it in the ordinary assistance of the Spirit in our studies meditations prayers c. otherwise all that we do would be perfect in which we have the Spirits help which Scripture and all Christians experience do contradict 4. And to ascribe that to the Spirit which is not at all his work or that which is partly our own work so far as it is our own and savoureth of our weaknesses and errour is a heinous injury to the Spirit 5. And it tosseth such mistaken Christians up and down in uncertainties while they think all such thoughts are the suggestions of the Spirit they meet with many contrary thoughts and so are carryed like the waves of the Sea sometimes up and sometimes down and they have sometimes a humbling terrible text and the next day perhaps a comforting text cometh into their minds and so are between terrours and comforts distracted by their own fantasies and think it is all done by the Spirit of God 6. And it is a perverse abusing of the holy Scripture to make such remembrances the Rule of your application of it to your selves that text which you remember had the same sense before you remembred it and your spiritual state was the same before If that text agree with your state and either the terrour or the comfort of it belong to you this must be proved by solid reason drawn from the true meaning of the text and the true state of your souls and not supposed meerly because it cometh into your thoughts or because it is set upon your hearts Do you think that your remembring it will prove that it specially belongs to you Do not many comfortable texts come into the minds of Hypocrites who are unfit for comfort And many terrible texts come into the minds of humble souls that have right to comfort and should not be more terrified You may as well think that your money or estate is another mans because he thinketh on it Or that another mans dangers and miseries are yours because you think of them Or that you are either Kings or Lords or beggars or thieves or whatever cometh into your minds Or that another mans Leases or Deeds by which he holdeth his Lands are all yours because they are put into your hands to read 7. And if you go this way to work you are in danger to be carryed into many other errours and sins and think that all is of the Spirit of God because you feel it set upon your hearts And so you will feign the sanctifying Spirit to be the author of sin and the lying Spirit shall be honoured and called by his name Mark well these following texts of Scripture 2 Thes 2.1 2
are guilty of more disorders tautologies unmeet expressions and manifold defects than any that I ever yet heard from those Ministers that pray either by habit or book Direct 9. Take heed both of carelesness and curiosity in the worshipping of God Avoid carelesness because it is prophaneness and contempt Therefore watch against idleness of mind and wandering thoughts and remember how great a work it is to speak to God or to hear from him about your everlasting state And yet curiosity is a heinous sin When men are so nice that unless there be quaint phrases and fine cadencies and jingles or at least a very laudable style they nauseate all and are weary of hearing a homely style or common things when every unmeet expression or tautology of the speaker doth turn their stomachs against the wholesomest food This curiosity cometh from a weak and an unhealthful state of soul Direct 10. Lastly Let your eye of Faith be all the while upon the heavenly Host or Church triumphant I remember how they worship God with what wisdom and purity and fervour of Love and sacred pleasure and with what unity and peace and concord And let your Worship be as much composed to the imitation of them as is agreeable to the likeness of our condition unto theirs There is no hypocrisie dulness darkness errours self-conceitedness pride division section or uncharitable contention Oh how they burn in Love to God and how sweet that Love is to themselves and how those souls work up in heavenly Joyes to the face of God in all his praises Labour as it were to joyn your selves by faith with them and as far as standeth with your different case to imitate them They are more imitable and amiable than the purest Churches upon earth Their love and blessed concord is more lovely than our uncharitable animosities and odious factions and divisions are And remember also the time when you must meet all those upright souls in Heaven whose manner of Worship you vilified and spake reproachfully of on earth and from whose communion you turned away And only consider how far they should be disowned who must be dear to Christ and you for ever The open disowning and avoiding the ungodly and scandalous is a great duty in due season when it is regularly done and is necessary to cast shame on sin and sinners and to vindicate the honour of Christianity before the world But otherwise it is but made an instrument of pernicious pride and of divisions in the Church and of hindering the successes of the Gospel of Christ CHAP. XXII How to pray in Faith PAssing by all the other particular parts of Worship as handled elsewhere in my Christian Directory I shall only briefly touch the duty of prayer especially as in private Direct 1. Let your heart lead your tongue and be the fountain of your words and suffer not your tongues in a customary volubility to over-run your hearts Desire first and pray next and remember that desire is the soul of prayer and that the heart-searching God doth hate hypocrisie and will not be mocked Matth. 6.1 3 4. Direct 2. Yet do not forbear prayer because your desires are not so earnest as you would have them For 1. Even good desires are to be begged of God 2. And such desires as you have towards God must be exercised and expressed 3. And this is the way of their usual increase 4. And a prophane turning away from God will kill those weak desires which you have when drawing near him in prayer may revive and cherish them Direct 3. Remember still that you pray to a heavenly Father who is readier to give than you are to receive or ask If you knew his Fulness and Goodness how joyfully would you run to him and cry Abba Father John 20.17 Luke 12.30 32. Mark 11.25 Matth. 6.8 32. Direct 4. Go boldly to him in the Name of Christ alone Remember that he is the only Way and Mediatour When guilt and conscience would drive you back believe the sufficiency of his sacrifice and attonement When your weakness and unworthiness would discourage you remember that no one is so worthy as to be accepted by God on any other terms than Christs Mediation Come boldly then to the Throne of Grace by the new and living way and put your prayers into his hand and remember that he still liveth to make intercession for you and that he appeareth before God in the highest in your cause Heb. 10.19 Ephes 3.12 Rom. 5.2 Heb. 9.24 7.25 26. Direct 5. Desire nothing in your hearts which you dare not pray for or which is unmeet for prayer Let the Rule of Prayer be the Rule of your Desires And undertake no business in the world which you may not lawfully pray for a blessing on Direct 6. Desire and pray to God first for God himself and nothing lower and next for all those spiritual blessings in Christ which may fit you for communion with him And lastly for corporal mercies as the means to these Matth. 6.33 Psal 42.1 2 3 c. Psal 73.25 26. Direct 7. Pray only for what is promised you or you are commanded to pray for And make not promises to your selves and then look that God should fulfil them because you confidently believe that he will do it and do not so reproach God as to call such self-conceits and expectations by the name of a particular Faith For where there is no word there is no faith Direct 8. What God hath promised confidently expect though you feel no answer at the present For most of our prayers are to be granted or the things desired to be given at the harvest time when we shall have all at once Whether you find your selves the better at present for prayer or not believe that a word is not in vain but you shall reap the fruit of all in season Luke 18.1 7 8. James 5.7 8. Direct 9. Let the Lords Prayer be the Rule for the matter and method of your desires and prayers But with this difference It must alwaies be the Rule which your desires must be formed to both in matter and method You must alwaies first and most desire the hallowing of Gods Name the coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his will on Earth as it is in Heaven before your own being or well-being But this is only a Rule for your General Prayers which take in all the parts For when you either intend to pray only or chiefly for some one particular thing you may begin with that or be most upon it Therefore all Christians should specially labour to understand the true sense and method of the Lords Prayer which God willing I hope elsewhere to open Direct 10. Be more careful in secret of your affections than of the order of your words yet chusing such as are aptest to the matter and fittest to excite your hearts But in your families or with others be very careful to speak to God in
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
a word or two or none at all in the daily prayers of most Professors And it is rare to hear any to pray with any importunity for their conversion Is this mens love to mankind Is this their love to the Kingdom of Christ or to God and Godliness Is God of as narrow a mind as you Are you and your party all the world or all the Church or all that is to be regarded and prayed for Direct 2. Do not only pray for them but study what is within the reach of your power to do for their conversion For though private men can do little in comparison of what Christian Princes might do who must not be told their duty by such as I. Yet somewhat might be done by Merchants and their Chaplains if skill and zeal were well united and somewhat might be done by writing and translating such books as are fittest for this use And greater matters might be done by training up some Scholars in the Persian Indostan Tartarian and such other languages who are for mind and body fitted for that work and willing with due encouragement to give up themselves thereto Were such a Colledge erected natives might be got to teach the languages and no doubt but God would put into the hearts of many young men to devote themselves to so excellent a service and of many rich men to settle Lands sufficient to maintain them and many Merchants would help them in their expedition But whether those that God will so much honour be yet born I know not Direct 3. Pray and labour for the Reformation and Concord of all the Christian Churches as the most probable means to win to Christ the world of Heathens and Vnbelievers If the Protestant Churches were more pure and peaceable more holy and more unanimous and charitable to each other it would do much to win the Papists that are near them And if the Papists and Greeks and Armenians and Abassines were more reformed wise and holy it would do much to win the Heathens and Mahometanes round about them They would be the salt of the earth and the lights of the world and the leaven which must leaven the whole lump The neighbouring Mahometanes and Heathens would see their good works and glorifie God Matth. 5.16 A holy harmless loving conversation is a Sermon which men of all languages can understand Thus as Apostles we might preach to men of several tongues though we have but one O that the sanctifying Spirit would teach Christians this art and reform and unite the Churches of Christ that they might be no longer a scandal to hinder the saving of the world about them It is the sense of Christs prayer before his death John 17.21 22 23 25. that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that the world may believe that thou hast sent me I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in One and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me Direct 4. Be sure at least that your holy loving and blameless loves be an example to these that are about you If you cannot convert Kingdoms nor get other men to do their duty towards it be sure that you do your part within your reach And believe that your lives must be the best part of your labours and that good works and love and good example must be the first part of your doctrine Direct 5. When you see that the world lyeth still in wickedness and there seemeth to be no possibility of a cure yet search the Scripture and so far as you can find any Prophecy or Promise of their conversion believe that God in his time will make it good Direct 6. But take heed that on this pretence you plunge not your selves into any inordinate studies or conceited expositions of the Revelations and other Scripture Prophecies as many have done to the great wrong of themselves and the Church of God By inordinate studies I mean 1. When you begin there where you should end and before you have digested the necessary greater truths in Theology you go to those that should come after them 2. When an undue proportion of your zeal and time and study and talk is bestowed upon these Prophecies in comparison of other things 3. When you are proudly and causlesly conceited of your singular expositions That when of ten of the learnedest and hardest studied Expositors of the Revelation perhaps in many things scarce two are of a mind yet when you differ from them all or all save one you can be as peremptory and confident in your opinion as if you were far wiser or more infallible than they 4. When you place a greater necessity in it than there is as if salvation or Church-communion lay upon your conceits Whereas God hath made the points that are of necessity to salvation to be few and plain Direct 7. When you look on the sin and misery of the world and see small hope of its recovery look up by Faith to that better world where all is Light and Love and Peace And pray for that coming of Christ when all this sin shall be brought to Judgment and wisdom and godliness be fully justified before all the world Let the badness of this world drive up your hearts to that above where all is better than you can wish Direct 8. When you are ready to stumble at the consideration of Gods desertion of so great a part of the world quiet your minds in the implicite submission to his infinite wisdom and goodness Dare you think that you are more gracious and merciful than God Or that it is meet you should know all the secrets of his providence who must not know the mysteries oâ— Government in the State or Kingdom where you live He that cannot rest in the wisdom will and mercies of infinite Goodness it self but must have all his own expectations satisfied shall have no rest And think withall how little a spot of Gods Creation this earthly world is and how incomprehensibly vast the superiour Regions are in comparison of it And if all the upper parts of the world be possessed with none but holy Spirits and even this lower earth have also many millions of Saints prepared here for the things above we have no more reason to judge God to be unmerciful because this lower world is so bad than we have to judge the King unmerciful when we look into the common Jayle nor to judge of his government by the Rogues in a Jayle but by his Court and all the subjects of his Kingdom If God should forsake no place but Hell of all his Creation you could not grudge at him as unmerciful And it is a very hard question whether this earth and the air about it be not the place of Hell when you consider that the Devils are cast down from Heaven and yet that they dwell and rule in
them as to all others or as to the most Direct 9. Love is our spiritual health and Selfishness is our sickness sin and death When we fell from the Love of God to our selves we fell also from the Love of others to our selves The individuate creature was contracted in himself and all together set upon Propriety and forgot his relations to God and man And when grace destroyeth this selfish privateness of spirit it setteth us again in love with God and man together and the better any man is the more publick spirit he is of and the less dâ—fference he maketh between his neighbours interest and his own when God and his interest make not a difference And this is to Love our neighbour as our selves that is without the vice of partial selfishness not setting up our own interest against his but equally measuring both by Gods and referring them thereunto Levit. 19.18 34. Matth. 19.19 Gal. 15.4 Direct 10. Remember that loving others as our selves is our own interest and benefit as well as our duty And a notable instance it is how much our duty is our own interest and good and how merciful God is in his strictest Laws As the Love of God is Heaven it self and sinners that love him not do damn themselves and put themselves from Heaven and happiness and to pardon them is to sanctifie them even so it is an unspeakable loss and misery which sinners draw upon themselves by not loving their neighbours as themselves but only in a subordination to themselves and for their proper private ends I pray you mark but these few particular instances 1. If I love my neighbour as my self my very love is my delight and ease The form of Love consisteth in complacency or pleasedness and therefore it must needs be pleasant to every one that useth it However bad Love hath bitter fruits And whenever wrath or envy or hatred comes instead of Love it is my sickness I feel my self diseased by it 2. If I love others others will love me They are scarce free to do otherwise You may almost constrain any man to love you if you love him heartily and shew it plainly and were within his view to make him see it All men love a loving nature but especially if they be loved by such themselves 3. If I love my neighbour as my self to do good to him will be as easie and pleasant as to my self I can ride and run and labour contentedly for my self I can sloop to the most sordid employment for my self And so I should as easily do for others Whereas want of Love doth make all tedious that I do and maketh my duty a continual burden and too often tempts me to omit it Love made both Christ and his Apostles to do so much for souls with ease and pleasure which else they could not have undergone John 15.13.9 2 Cor. 12.15 Ephes 3.17 5.2 Col. 2.2 4. If I love my neighbour as my self I can as easily suffer any thing from him as from my self I can easily bear that in my self as to sight or smell the loathsomest sores or ulcers which others cannot bear I am easily brought to forgive my self and to forbear self-hurting and self-revenge and so should I do to others if I thus loved them And then how easie would my life be among all the injuries of the world 5. If I loved my neighbour as my self if my flesh did want my mind which is my self could never be in want Because all that my neighbours have is mine as to my comfort and content My house is homely but my neighbours is comely and convenient and to my mind that is as comfortable as if it were my own My Land is small but my neighbours is large my grounds are barren but my neighbours fruitful my corn is bad but his proves good my cattel die or prosper not but his do well I am low and despicable and no man careth for me but others are Lords and Princes and honourable and if I love them as my self their corn their cattel their houses and lands their Kingdoms and honours are as much my comfort as if they were my own I know these are Paradoxes to dapraved selfish nature but thus it would be if Love were perfect and thus it is in that measure that we love And should that duty be taken for a burden which as to my comfort maketh all the wealth and honour and Kingdoms of others to be my own Obj. If you love your neighbours as your selves you must mourn with them that mourn and all the calamities and sorrows of the world must be yours which will overcome your joyes Ans 1. I am not to sorrow as much as they do sorrow but as much as they rationally ought to do And men are not to think that a loving correction which worketh for their good and salvation is worse than the snares of prosperity The brother of high degree must rejoyce when he is made low as well as the brother of low degree must rejoyce when he is exalted Jam 19.10 And why should that be my sorrow which is his benefit and should be his joy If Paul and Silas sing in the stocks why should not I sing with them Patience and rejoycing are the duty of all Believers in affliction 2. The mercies and happiness of every one that feareth God is far more than his misery Therefore his joy and gratitude should be more than his sorrows and complaints If a mans tooth do ach and all the rest of his body be well should not he and I be more thankful for the health of all the rest than troubled for a tooth A Believer hath alwaies the Spirit of God and a part in Christ and the pardon of sin and a right to Heaven And then how much greater should his joy be than his sorrows and mine also on his behalf 3. The Goodness and Love of God is manifested to the world more abundantly than his justice and severity We know of no afflicted Saints but on this spot of earth And we know of no damned ones but Devils and wicked men But we know that the worlds above us are incomparably more vast than this and that the glory of the celestial Spirits is far greater than our sufferings and sorrows here Therefore our joy which Love procureth should be a thousand-fold greater than our sorrows 4. And as for the wicked as the consequent Will of God layeth by compassion so consequently considering them as the obstinate final refusers of grace they are not those neighbours whom we are bound to love as our selves For they are enemies to God and deprived of his Image and therefore our obligations to mourn for them are abated as Samuels for Saul when he knew that God had rejected him 1 Sam. 15.35 16.1 And we are obliged to rejoyce in the declarations of the Justice and Holiness of God and the universal benefit which redoundeth from his Judgments Rev. 18.20
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-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-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-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
made universally to mankind in Adam Those after the flood were under the same Covenant renewed universally to mankind in Noah The Israelites were under the same Covenant renewed to them specially in Abraham with special additions and after under that Covenant seconded with the Law which was given to Moses And all Christians after Christs Resurrection are under the perfected Covenant of Grace and have the same word of salvation for their rule even the Gospel of Christ which is the power of God to the salvation of every one that believeth Rom. 1.16 5. They had but the same Promises in this Covenant to believe and to assure them of the salvation which they now possess They had no other charter from God to shew nor any but this universal act of oblivion to trust to for the pardon of all their sins which we have to trust to for the pardon of ours John 3.16.18 Mark 16.16 The promise which was made to the Jews and to their children was made also to them that are afar off and to as many as the Lord shall call Acts 2.39 For the promise that he should be heir of the world was not to Abraham or his seed through the Law but through the righteousness of faith Rom. 4.13 And therefore it was of faith that it might be by grace to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed not only to that which is of the Law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all v. 16. That it might appear that God justified not Abraham for any peculiar carnal priviledge but as a Believer which is a reason common to him with all Believers To whom also their faith shall be imputed for righteousness v. 24. Godliness still is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 Yea what difference there is in both these forementioned respects it is to our advantage we have the most perfected Rule and the fullest Promises and we have many Promises fulfilled to us which were not fulfilled to them in their daies Heb. 11. last And we are nearer the final accomplishment of all the promises 6. They had the same Motives to faith and patience and godliness as we have They could have no greater happiness offered them nor any greater punishment threatned to drive them from sin by fear They could have no higher ends than ours nor any nobler reasons to be religious The same reasons and ends did bring them through all temptations and difficulties to everlasting life which we have also to satisfie us and to carry us on 2 Tim. 4.8 7. The same spirit did illuminate sanctifie and quicken them which is illuminating sanctifying and quickening us All the most excellent and heavenly endowments and workings of their souls were wrought by the same operator who is still at work in all the Saints Rom. 8.9 There are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit 1 Cor. 12.4 We have the same Spirit of Faith 2 Cor. 4.13 All that are Sons have the same Spirit of the Son even the Spirit of Adoption Gal. 4.6 Rom. 8.16.26 which is the Spirit of Power of Love and of a sound mind 2 Tim. 1.7 We have the same Almighty Power within us to destroy our sins to raise up our sluggish hearts to God to keep us in his Love to overcome the flesh which did all these excellent works in them We are sealed with the same seal and are known by the same mark 1 John 3.24 and are actuated by the same heavenly principle as they were 8. We are members of the same universal Church which is the body of Christ For there is but one body whatever diversity of the members there be Ephes 4.4 5 6 7 12. 1 Cor. 12. We are members of the same City and Family of God Ephes 2.19 We are in the same Ship which conveyed them to the Haven We are Disciples in the same School where they learnt the way to life eternal We are workmen in the same Vineyard where they procured their reward 9. They had the same work to do as we have the same God to love and serve the same Christ to believe in the same Spirit to obey the same things to believe in the main the same things to desire and pray for the same things to love and the same to hate the same things in the main which are sin to us were sin to them and the same life of holiness temperance and righteousness which is commanded us was commanded them They had the same temptations to resist and the same fleshly mind to overcome and the same senses and appetites and passions to rule the same enemies to overcome and the same or greater sufferings to bear as is said before 10. They had but the same means and helps as we have except some Prophets and Apostles and extraordinary persons in one age And what they received of the Lord they have delivered unto us 1 Cor. 11.23 We have the same Gospel to to teach us the same Sacraments to initiate and confirm us the same Pastors and Teachers for office to instruct us Ephes 4.12 13 14 16. Matth. 28.20 Fasting and Prayer and Thanksgiving and Church-communion and mutual Exhortation which are our helps and means were theirs 11. The same method of Providence which carryed them on is still on foot for all the Saints Psal 145.9 18. 86.5 He broke them and bound them up he cast them down and raised them as he doth us now He made them contrite and then did comfort them He led them through as rude a wilderness and they had as many wild beasts to assault them and as many dangers round about them as we have They had seasons of adversity and seasons of prosperity their stormy and their sunshine daies their troubles which quickened their cryes to God and the gracious answer of those cryes and were led to Heaven in the same course of providence as we are 12. And to conclude the same Heaven is prepared for us and offered yea given to us which they possess It is ours in right though our title be not absolutely perfect till we have finally presevered and overcome We are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ having his seal and earnest if so be that we suffer with him that we may be glorified with him Rom. 15.16.17 The Kingdom is prepared for all them that love him Christ prayed for all that the Father had given him and for all that should believe by his Word John 17.2 20 27. even that they may have eternal life and may be with him where he is to see his glory Whosoever believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life John 3.16 In all this you may see how like their condition in this world was unto ours and that our way is the same which all those have gone that are now past all these snares and dangers
the interest of the Gospel and Kingdom of Christ and to promote the Gospel by silencing or prohibiting the most able zealous faithful Preachers of it and to go with a drawn sword among the people and say Love us or we will kill you Love Christ and us or the inquisition and wrack shall reach you love To see them take the terrifying of men by corporal penalties to be their chiefest work and the way of Love to be but such popularity as destroyeth the Church Will not now and then a walk in Heaven be a great refreshing to the mind that hath been long haunted with such hideous and ugly specters as all these Will not some converse with the most wises and holy and peaceable Society whose Life is Love be a great recreation to your minds when such sights as these have made them sad Moreover you have many burdens of your own to bear your own ignorance your own temptations your passions your wants and worst of all the relicks of your sin which you cannot bear with that hope and support which is needful to you without oft looking to the happiness of those that have overcome all these and are now at rest And you have many excellent duties to perform which will not be so well done without looking oft on such a Copy Yea you have the fears of death to overcome which will not be so easily done as by looking to all the world of souls that have already gone that way before you Yea in your converse with God himself though you have one only sufficient Mediator you will cast your selves upon great disadvantages if your thoughts leave out the blessed society of Saints and Angels who are nearest to him You cast away your stepping-stones or stairs of ascent and you will but tempt your selves to look at God as through the great interposing gulf and hinder the needful familiarity of your thoughts above Neglect not then a help so needful to you in your present state 12. Lastly The remembrance and observation of the heavenly inhabitants is the way that is commended and commanded to all Believers and that as part of their ordinary duty in their prayers to God He hath not only minded us that Abraham Isaac and Jacob are still living to prove the resurrection Matth. 12.27 but hath also comforted the expectants of Heaven by describing the joy of Lazarus as in Abrahams bosome Luke 16.22 23. and introduced Abraham as pleading Lazarus's cause v. 25 26. And hath made it a part of the comfortable description of his Kingdom that we shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in it Matth. 8.11 And when he would appear transfigured in a glimpse of his glory to Peter James and John he would not do it alone but with Moses and Elias talking with him Matth. 17. And the comfort which Paul giveth to the suffering Thessalonians is Rest with us 2 Thes 1.6 not only Rest with Christ but with his servants And when he describeth the glory of Christs appearing it is that He shall come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that do believe vers 11 12. As himself describeth his appearing as with his glorious Angels Mat. 25.31 All the holy Angels with him Whether it be all the blessed Spirits of the higher worlds or only all those of them who were deputed to the service of the Church on earth Matth. 18.10 and so were made Angels to man I pass over And Henoch the seventh from Adam prophesied saying Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints c Jude v. 14. Many other Scriptures tell us that we must not leave out the Saints and Angels when we look towards Heaven by faith and when we converse and walk above But this is but as on the by That which I intend for your special observation is the third Petition of the Lords Prayer where the annexed clause which seemeth to referr to all the three first Petitions doth set the heavenly Church before us as the Pattern of that obedience to the will of God which both we and all the world must imitate and pray to God that we may imitate Thy Will be done on Earth as it is done in Heaven Here Christ requireth all Christians in Prayer to look up to the Heavenly Society and to consider how they do the Will of God and to make it their Pattern and in their daily Prayers as men that long for their celestial perfection to pray that they may become their imitators even as the Scholars in the lowest form in the school must look at those in the highest form and desire and endeavour to attain to their degree You see them that this is a commanded ordinary duty Direct 7. Consider next wherein it is that your converse with Angels and the perfected spirits of the just consisteth that you may neither by your mistake neglect it nor carry it too far I. Negatively 1. It is not a Deifying them as the Heathen did their Hero's and their Divi They are still but Gods Ministers and must have nothing ascribed to them of the Divine Prerogative 2. Nor doth it consist in building Temples and Altars to their honour which savoureth at least of a compliance with Idolatry 3. Nor doth it at all consist in praying to them 1. Because as we know that they are not omnipresent or omniscient so 2. We know not at all when they are present and when they do hear us and when not 3. Nor do we know which of them it is that is at any time present with us 4. Nor have we any precept president promise or other encouragement to such prayers in Gods Word but rather much to keep us from it 4. Nor yet is it in desiring them to pray for us For that which is their duty they better know than we and it is little that we know of their capacities or opportunities And we have no Word of God neither to encourage us to this 5. Nor doth it consist in chusing any one of them above the rest for our guardian and protector and so committing our selves to their care For we have no reason to be so presumptuous as to think that we have the choice of our own Protector or that it is a matter at all referred to us or that they will undertake it ever the more for our choice 6. Nor yet may we pretend to know what particular Saint or Angel is deputed of God to our protection For there is not the least discovery of it in Nature or in the Word of God And he that pretendeth extraordinary revelation of it must be sure to prove it 7. Nor may we pray for them as if they were in purgatory or in any misery or danger which did need our prayers for them For we have neither reason to believe the thing nor any precept or encouragement to the work And as all these seven are unlawful things so these also that follow must be medled
of the soul in God and the highest praises and thanksgivings with the readiest and chearfullest obedience And what kind of Religious performances are most excellent which we must principally intend Groans and tears and penitent confessions and moans are very suitable to our present state while we have sin and suffering But surely they are duties of the lower rank For Heaven more aboundeth with praises and thanksgiving and therefore we must labour to be fitter for them and more abundant in them not casting off any needful humiliations and penitent complaints but growing as fast as we can above the necessity of them by conquering the sin which is the cause So ask what is it that would make the Church on Earth to be likest to that part which is in Heaven Is it striving what Pastors shall be greatest or have precedency or be called gracious Lords or Benefactors Luke 22.24 25 26. 1 Pet. 5.3 4 5. Or is it in making the flock of Christ to dread the secular power of the Shepherds and tremble before them as they do before the Wolf Or is it in a proud conceit of the peoples power to ordain their Pastors and to rule them and themselves by a major vote Or in a supercilious condemning the members of Christ and a proud contempt of others as too unholy for our communion when we never had authority to try or judge them Is it in the multitude of Sects and divisions every one saying Our party and our way is best Surely all this is unlike to Heaven It is rather in the Wisdom and Holiness and Vnity of all the members When they all know God especially in his Love and Goodness and when they fervently love him and chearfully and universally obey him and when they love each other fervently and with a pure heart and without divisions do hold the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and with one heart and mind and mouth do glorifie God and our Redeemer Leaving that Church-Judgment to the Pastors which Christ hath put into their hands and leaving Gods part of Judgment unto himself This is to be like to our heavenly exemplar and to do Gods Will on Earth as it is done in Heaven Ephes 4.2 3 4 11 12 16. 9. And we must also look back to the examples of their lives while they were on earth and see wherein they are to be imitated as the imitators of Jesus Christ which way went they to Heaven before us 10. Lastly We must give God thanks on their behalf for making them so perfect and bringing them so near him and saving them from sin and Satan and the world and bringing them safe to Heaven through so many temptations difficulties and sufferings For making them such instruments of his glory in their times and shewing his glory upon them and to them in the Heavens For making them such blessings to the world in their generations and for giving us in them such patterns of faith obedience and patience and making them so great encouragements to us who may the more boldly follow them in faith duty and sufferings who have conquered all and sped so well For shewing us by faith their present state of glory with Christ for our confirmation and consolation Thus far in all these ten particulars we must have a heavenly conversation with the glorified by Faith Direct 8. Consider next wherein your imitation of the example of their lives on earth consisteth And it is 1. Not in committing any of their sins nor indulging any such weaknesses in our selves as any of them were guilty of 2. Nor in extenuating a sin or thinking ever the better of it because it was theirs 3. Nor in doing as they did in exempted cases wherein their Law and ours differed as in the marriage of Adams children in the Jews Polygamy c. 4. Nor in imitating them in things indifferent or accidental that were never intended for imitation nor done as morally good or evil 5. Nor in pretending to or expecting of their extraordinary Revelations Inspirations or Miracles 6. Nor in pretending the high attainments of the more excellent to be the necessary measure of all that shall be saved or the Rule of our Church-Communion Our imitation of them consisteth in no such things as these But it consisteth in these 1. That you fix upon the same ultimate Ends as they did That you aim at the same Glory of God and chuse the same everlasting felicity 2. That you chuse the same Guide and Captain of your salvation the same Mediator between God and man the same Teacher and Ruler of the Church and the same sacrifice for sin and Intercessor with the Father 3. That you believe the same Gospel and build upon the same Promises and live by the same Rule the Word of God 4. That you obey the same Spirit and trust to the same Sanctifier and Comforter and Illuminater to illuminate sanctifie and comfort your souls 5. That you exercise all the same graces of Faith Hope Love Repentance Obedience Patience as they did 6. That you live upon the same Truths and be moved by the same Motives as they lived upon and were moved by 7. That you avoid the same sins as they avoided and see what they feared and fled from and made conscience of that you may do the same 8. That you chuse and use the same kind of company helps and means of grace so far as yours and theirs are the same as they have done And think not to find a nearer or another way to that state of happiness which they are come â—o Phil. 3.16 Walk by the same Rule and mind the same things and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded God shall reveal even this unto you If any preach another Gospel let him be accursed Gal. 1.7 8. Mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them Rom. 16.17 Heb. 6.11 We desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end that you be not slothful but followers of them c. 9. That you avoid resist and overcome the same temptations as they did who now are crowned 10. That you bear the same cross and exercise the same faith and hope and patience unto the end 1 Pet. 4.1 Arm your selves with the same mind c. In brief this is the true imitation of the Saints Direct 9. Never suffer your life of sense to engage you so deeply in sensible converse with men on earth as to forget your heavenly relations and society but live as men that unfeignedly believe that you have a more high and noble converse every day to mind If you are Believers indeed let your faith go along with the souls of your departed friends into glory And if you have forgot them by an unfriendly negligence renew your acquaintance with them Think not that those only that live on earth are fit for our
converse and our comfort Will you converse with none but ignorant selfish worldly sinners Are you more contemptuous of the heavenly inhabitants than the Gentleman in hell torments was Luke 16.26 27. that thought one from the dead though it had been but a beggar would have been reverenced even by his sensual brethren on earth so far as to have perswaded them unto saving Repentance I tell you a dead mans skull is oft-times a more profitable companion than most that you shall converse with in the common world The dust of your departed friends and the clay that corps are turned into is a good medicine for those eyes that are blinded with the dust of worldly vanities Much more should you keep your acquaintance with the soul which may for all the distance be perhaps more useful to you than it was in the flesh Alas how carnally and coldly or seldom do most Professors look at their Brethren and at the Angelical hosts that are above They long for our conversion and mind our great concernments and rejoyce in our felicity and shall we be so swinishly ungrateful as seldom to look up and remember their high and blessed state Many think that they have no more business with their deceased friends than to see them decently interred and to mourn over them as if their removal were their loss or to grieve for our own loss when we perceive their places empty but we scarce look up after them with an eye of faith much less do we daily maintain our communion with them in Heaven When Christ was taken up his Disciples gazed after him Act. 1.10 Stephen looked up stedfastly into Heaven and saw Christ sitting at the right hand of God Acts 7.55 And how seldome how slightly do we look up either to Jesus his Angels or his Saints I tell you Sirs you have not done with your friends when you have buryed their flesh They have left you their holy examples They are entered before you into rest You are hastening after them and must be quickly with them if you are true Believers You must see them every day by faith When you look to Christ you must look to them as his beloved friends entertained by him in his family of glory When you look up to Heaven remember that they are there When you think of coming thither remember that you must there meet them You must honour their memories more than you did on earth because they are more honourable being more honoured of God You must love them better than you did when they were on earth because they are better and so more lovely You must rejoyce much more for their felicity than you did whilest they were on earth because they are incomparably more happy than they were Either you believe this or you do not If you do not believe that the dead are blessed that die in the Lord and rest from their labours and are with Christ in Paradise why do you seem Christians If you do believe it why do you not more rejoyce with your glorified friends than you would have done if they had been advanced to the greatest honours in the world It is the natural duty of friends to mourn with them that mourn and to rejoyce with them that rejoyce and if one member be honoured or dishonoured the rest of the body are accordingly affected Do not your sorrows then instead of joyes tell all men that you believe that your friends are gone to sorrow and not to joy If not you are very selfish or inconsiderate Direct 10. Lastly Let not your aversation to Popery turn to a factiâ—us partial forsaking of Gods Truth and your own duty and consolation in this point Abundance of Christians have taken up opinions in Religion upon the love and honour of the parties that they took them of and being possessed with a just dislike of Popery in the main they suspect and cast away not a few great truths and duties upon a false information that they are parts of Popery It hath grieved 〈…〉 â—han once to hear religious persons come from heariâ—g 〈◊〉 Ministers with disdain and censure saying that they prayed for the dead and all their proof was that Thanksgiving is a part of prayer but they gave God thanks for the glorification of the spirits of the Just therefore they prayed for them And so have they argued because they have read the 1 Cor. 15. at the grave or because they have preached a Funeral Sermon while the Corpse was present or because they prayed then for themselves or for the Church Alas for the childish ignorance and pievishness and foolish wranglings of many Christians who think they are better than their neighbours How much is Christs family dishonoured by his silly froward children And they will not be instructed by their friends and therefore they are posted up and openly reproached by their enemies Have Angels or heavenly Saints deserved so ill of God or us that we should be so shy of their communion Are they nothing to us Have we nothing to do with them Have we cause to be ashamed of them Is their honour any dishonour to God or us if it be no more than what is their due Can we give so much love respect and honour to Magistrates Ministers and Friends on earth imperfect sinful troublesome mortals and shall we think that all is idolatrous or cast away which is given to them that so far excel us Is it your design to make Heaven either contemptible or strange to men on earth Or would you perswade the world that the souls of the Saints are not immortal but perish as the bruits Or that there is no Heaven Or that God is there alone without any company Are so many fond of the opinion of a Personal Reign on Earth for Christ with his holy ones and yet is it Popery so much as to speak honourably and joyfully of the Saints in Heaven My Brethren these things declare you yet to be too dark too factious and too carnal and to hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect to parties sides and persons Christ taketh not his Saints as strangers to him He that judgeth men as they love and use him in the least of his Brethren upon Earth will not so soon censure and quarrel with us as the Sectary will do for loving and honouring him in his Saints in Heaven for it is his will and prayer that they be with him where he is to behold his glory John 12.26 17.24 And he will come with his holy Angels to be glorified in his Saints who shall judge the world and Angels and to be admired in all them that do now believe 2 Thes 1.10 11 12. CHAP. XXVII How to receive the Sentence of Death and how to die by Faith HAving said so much of this elsewhere in my Books called A Believers last work The last Enemy My Christian Directory Treatise of Self-denyal c. I shall be here but
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
thoughts of dying that methinks you should quietly resign it to the grave which hath been so long calling for it Especially considering what it hath done by the temptations of a vitiated appetite and sense against your souls into how many sins it hath drawn you and what grief and shame it hath procured you and what assurance and heavenly pleasures it hath hindered and how many repentings and purposes and promises it hath frustrated or undone Methinks we should conceive that we have long enough dwelt in such an habitation Direct 4. Foresee by Faith the resurrection of the body when it shall be raised a spiritual body unto Glory and shall be no more an enemy to the soul Direct 5. Renew your familiarity with the blessed ones above Remember that the great Army of God the souls of the just from Adam till now are all got safe through this Red Sea and are triumphing in Heaven already and that it is but a few straglers in the end of the world that are left behind And which part then should you desire to be with And remember how ready those Angels which rejoyced at your conversion are to be your Convoy unto Christ Luke 16.23 Direct 6. But especially think with greatest confidence and delight that Jesus your Head is entred into the Heavens before you and is making intercession for you and is preparing you a place and loveth your company and will not lose it You shall find him ready to receive your souls and present them spotless unto God as the fruit of his mediation He will have you be with him to behold his glory and none shall take you out of his hands Let his Love therefore draw up your desires and stablish your hearts in confidence and rest Direct 7. Remember that all that are living must come after you and how quickly their turn will come and would you wish to be exempt from death alone which the whole world below must needs submit to Direct 8. Think still of the Resurrection of Christ your Head that you may see that death is a conquered thing and what a pledge you have of a life to come Direct 9. Dwell still in the believing fore thoughts of the blessedness of the life to which you go as it is your personal perfection and the perfect Love and fruition of God with his perfect joyous praise Remember still what it is to see and know the Lord and all things else in him which are fit for us to know And labour to revive your Love to God and then you revive your desires and preparations Direct 10. Give up your selves wholly to the Will of God and think how much better it is for upright Souls to be in Gods hand than in your own The Will of God is the first and last the Original and End of all the creatures Besides the Will of Infinite Goodness there is no final Rest for humane souls But mans will is the Alpha and Omega the beginning or first efficient and the ultimate end of all obliquity and sin Be bold then and thankful in your approach to God remembring how much more safe and comfortable it is to be for life and death at Gods disposal than our own Bâ—sides these read the Directions against the fear of death in my Book of Self-denyal and what is said in my Saints Rest and other the Treatises before mentioned CHAP. XXVIII How by Faith to look aright to the Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory BEcause I have said so much of this also in my Saints Rest and in many other Treatises I will now pass it over with these brief Directions Direct 1. Delude not your souls nor corrupt your faith and hope by placing Christs Kingdom in things too low or that are utterly uncertain Think not so carnally of the second coming of Christ as the Jews did of the first who looked for an earthly Kingdom and despised the spiritual and heavenly And make not the unknown time or other circumstances of his coming to be to you as the certain and necessary things lest you do as many of those called Millenaries or Fifth-Monarchy men among us who have turned the doctrine of Christian hope into an outragious fury to bring Christ down before his time and to make themselves Rulers in the world that they might presently reign under the name of the Reign of Christ and have by seditious rebellious railing at Christs Ministers and hating those that are not of their mind done much to promote the Kingdom of Satan while they cryed up nothing but the Kingdom of Christ Direct 2. Do all that you can in this day of grace to promote Christs present Kingdom in the world and that will prove your best preparation for his glorious coming To that end labour with all your might to set up Life and Light and Love abhorring Hypocrisie Ignorance and Vncharitableness turn not Religion into a ceremony carkass or dead Imagery or Form Nor yet into Darkness Errour or a humane wandering distracting maze Nor into selfish proud censorious faction Build not Christs Kingdom as the Devil would do by hypocritical dead shews or by putting out his Lights or by schism division hatred and strife Read James 3. Direct 3. Yet leave not out of your faith and hope any certain part of Christs glorious Kingdom We know that we shall for ever be with the Lord and in the presence of the Father in heavenly glory and withall that we shall be in the New Jerusalem and that there shall be a new Heaven and a new Earth in which shall dwell righteousness and that we shall judge the Angels and the world And if we know not the circumstances of all these parts let not therefore any of them be denyed 1 Thes 4.11 2 Cor. 5.1 3 8. Rev. 20. 22. 2 Pet. 3.13 Direct 4. Think what a day of Glory it will be to Jesus Christ Matth. 25.31 O how different from his state of humiliation He will not come again to be despised spit on buffeted blasphemed and crucified Pilate and Herod must be arraigned at his bar it is the marriage-day of the Lamb a day appointed for his glory Rev. 21 22. Direct 5. Think what a day of honour it will be to God the Father how his Truth will be vindicated his Love and Justice gloriously demonstrated Matth. 25. 2 Thes 1.8 9. Direct 6. Think what a day it will be to all the children of God to see their Lord when he purposely cometh to be admired and glorified in them 2 Thes 1.11 12. To see him in whom they have believed whom they loved and longed for 2 Pet. 3.11 12 13. 1 Pet. 1.8 To see him who is their dearest Head and Lord who will justifie them before all the world and sentence them to life eternal To see the day in which they must receive the end of all their faith and hope their prayers labours and patience to the full 1 Pet. 1.8 9. Rev. 2 3.
Matth. 25. 2 Pet. 4.13 Direct 7. Thinks what a day it will be to the shame of sin when it shall be the reproach and terrour of the world and to the Honour of Holiness when faith obedience and love shall be the approved honour of all the Saints And what a day of admirable Justice it will be when all that seems crooked here shall be set strait O the difference that there will then be in the thoughts of sin and holiness in comparison of those that men have of them now Direct 8. Think what a confounding day it will be to the infernal Serpent and all his seed Matth. 25.41 16. When impudent boasters shall then be speechless and all iniquity shall stop her mouth Matth. 25.44 22.12 Psal 107.42 And when Lazarus shall be seen in Abraham's bosome and the enemies of the Saints shall see them advanced as Haman did Mâ—rdecai and rejoycing when the Glory of Christ is revealed 1 Pet. 4.13 When every scorners mouth shall be stopped and all stand guilty before their Judge Rom. 3.4.19 and the wretched unprepared souls must for departing from God be sentenced to depart into misery for ever Matth. 25.41 46. Jude v. 6. Direct 9. And think what a change that day beginneth both with the Saints and with the world What a glory is it that we must immediately possess in body and soul and how we must partake of the Kingdom of our Lord Saints shall be scorned and persecuted no more The threatnings and promises of Christ shall be no more denyed by unbelievers Sin will be no more in honour nor pride and sensuality bear sway The Church will be no more ecclipsed either by its lamentable imperfections and diseased members or by the divisions of sects or the scatterings of the cruel or the slanders of the lying tongue Ephes 5.17 Satan will no more tempt or trouble us Rev. 12.9 Matth. 25.41 Sin and death will be excluded and all the fears and horrours of both For the face of Infinite Love will perfectly and perpetually shine upon us and shine us into perfect perpetual Glory Love and Joy and will feed these and the thankful and praâ—seful expressions of them to all eternity Matth. 5.46 2 Cor. 4.17 Rev. 2 3. Direct 10. Lastly Think how neer all this must needs be If the day of the Lord was near in the times of the Apostles it cannot be far off to us If the worlds duration be to six thousand years the time which arrogant presumption most plausibly guesseth at it will be less than 350 years to it Though we know not the time we know it cannot be long And let me conclude with a warning to both sorts of Readers And 1. To the ungodly unprepared sinner Poor soul dost thou believe this dreadful day or not if not why dost thou dissemble by professing it in thy Creed if thou do how 〈◊〉 thou live so merrily or quietly in a careless unprepared state Canst thou possibly forget so great so sure so near a day Alas it will be another kind of meeting than Christ had with sinners upon earth when he came in meekness and humiliation not to judge and condemn the world bâ—t to be falsly judged and condemned by them John 3.17 12.47 Nor will it be such a meeting as Christ had with thee either by his Ministers that called thee to repent who were men whom thou couldest easily despise or by his Spirit which thou couldest resist and quench or by his afflicting Rod which did but say to thee Go sin no more lest worse befall thee Joh. 5.14 Heb. 12.10 12. 1 Tim. 5.24 Nor as the Judgment of mans Assize which passeth sentence only against a temporal life Luke 12.4 Nor like the treaty of a Judas with his new awakened conscience here O no! It will be a more glorious but more dreadful day It will be the meeting not only of a creature with his Creatour but of a sinner with a just and holy God and of a despiser of grace with the God whom he despised O terrible day to the unbelieving ungodly carnal and impenitent Heb. 10.31 2.3 10.12 Luke 19.27 There must thou appear to receive thy final doom to hear the last word that ever thou must hear from Jesus Christ unless his everlasting wrath be called his Word And O how different will it be from the words which thou wast wont to hear Thou wast wont to hear the calls of grace Mercy did intreat thee to return to God Christ by his Ministers did beseech thee to be reconciled But if thou intreat him for pardon and peace with the loudest cryes it would be all in vain Matth. 7.21 22 23. Prev 1.27 28. Now the voice is Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world John 1.29 But then it will be Behold he cometh with clouds end every eye shall see him and they also which pierced him and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him Rev. 1.7 And behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints to execute Judgment upâ—n all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him Jude 14 15. Now he entreateth you to come to him that you may have life John 5 40. But then you will cry to the Mountains to fall upon you and the hills to cover you from his presence Luke 23.30 Rev. 6.16 Now he saith Behold I stand at the door and knock If any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me Rev. 3.20 But when once you hear that midnight cry Behold the Bridegroom cometh go ye forth and meet him then they that are ready shall go in and the door shall be shut against the rest Matth. 25.9 10. The door of mercy shall be shut Your Reprobation will be then made sure Rom. 9.22 2.5 The day of thy visitation is then past Luke 19.41 42. No more offers of Christ and mercy No more intreaties to accept them No more calls to turn and live Minâ—sters must no more preach and perswade and intreat in vain Friends must no more warn thee and pray for thee All is done already that they can do for thy soul for ever No more strivings of the Spirit with thy conscience and no more patience health or time to be abused upon fleshly lusts and pleasures All these things are past away 1 Cor. 7.31 2 Cor. 4.17 And the door of Hope will be also shut No more hope of a part in Christ No more hope of the success of Sermons of Prayers or of any other means No hopes of pardon of justification of salvation or of any abatement of thy woe Luke 16.25.26 Behold this is the accepted time behold this is the day of salvation 2 Cor. 6.2 Heb. 6.4 5 6 8
sufferers it will cause us to possess our souls in patience and to let it have its perfect work 8. It will much overcome the fears of death It is no small abatement of them that Cicero and such honest Heathens had to think of the thousands of their worthiest Ancestors and that they were to go the common way of all mankind But how much more may it encourage a Believer to think that he is not only to go the way of all the world through the gate of mortality but the way also which all Gods Saints have gone save Henoch and Elias who are now in Heaven Thus died all the Prophets and the holy men of God yea Jesus Christ himself before us that death might be conquered when it seemed to have conquered Heb. 2.14 9. It will do much to raise us from hypocritical reserves and temporizings and from lukewarmness and resting in low degrees When our conversation is with the holy ones above we shall have upon our minds an ambition to attain to their degrees and to do Gods will on Earth as it is done in Heaven It will much encline us to the highest and noblest sort of duty which the spirits of the just made perfect do perform He that converseth only with his own sad tempted sinful heart and with tempted faulty mourning Christians may learn to confess and mourn and weep and pray But he that also converseth with glorified spirits will be so rapt up with their heavenly melody that he will learn and long to love God more fervently to praise him more chearfully and to give him thanks more abundantly for his mercies Heaven-work is learnt by a heavenly mind in the use of a heavenly conversation 10. And to look much at our Brethren that are now in glory will also fill our lives with pleasures and make our Religion our continual joy and will help us to a foretaste of Heaven on Earth For we shall as it were take our selves to be almost with then and their melodies will be our delight and love to them will make their joyes to be our own And though it is the sight of God and our Mediatour by faith which must be our chiefest hope and joy yet while we are here men in flesh yea more when we have laid by flesh and blood the presence of all the blessed spirits and heavenly host will be a great though subordinate part of our heavenly felicity and delight Direct 6. When you have gone thus far consider what obligations lie upon you to converse by Faith with your Brethren in Heaven and to look up frequently to their state and work 1. Your necessary Love to God requireth it For as your Love to him must be shewed by your loving his Image in your Brethren so it requireth you to love them most that are likest God or else you love them not for his likeness And it requireth you to love them most whom God loveth most and that is those that are likest him and nearest him And he that loveth God in his creatures and loveth any one truly for God must love the Angels and perfected Spirits best because they love him best and are nearest him and likest to him and are also most beloved by him 2. The common nature of Love and Humanity requireth it For it requireth us to love that best which is best as is said But the blessed ones in Heaven are better than any here on Earth and therefore should be better loved 3. The nature of our Love to the Saints requireth it For if we love them as Saints and Godly we shall love those most that are most holy and that is the blessed ones above And if we love them most we shall certainly mind them and converse with them by Faith and not be voluntary strangers to them 4. It is part of that heavenly conversation which is commended to us Phil. 3.20 21. When it is said that our conversation is in Heaven it signifieth that our Burgeship is there and our interest and great concerns are there and our dwelling is there and our trading and thriving business is there and for it and our friends and fellow-citizens and those that we daily trade and converse with in love and familiarity are there even as our God and our Head and our Inheritance is there He never knew a heavenly conversation that pretending there to know God alone hath no converse with his holy ones that attend him and doth not live as a member of their society in the City of God that doth not with some delight behold their holiness unity and order c. 5. The honouring of God and our Redeemer doth require it that we daily converse with the Saints in Heaven Because it is in them that God is seen in the greatest glory of his Love and it is in them that the Power and Efficacy and Love of our dear Redeemer most appeareth You judge now of the Father by his Children and of the Physician by his Patients and of the Builder by the House and of the Captain by his Victories And if you see no better children of God than such childish crying feeble froward diseased burdensome ones as we are you will rob him of the chief of this his honour And if you look at none of the Patients of our Saviour but such lame and languid pained groaning diseased half-cured ones as we you will rob him of the glory of his skill and cures And if you look but to such an imperfect broken fabrick as the Church on Earth you will dishonour the Builder And if you look to no other Victories of Christ and his Spirit but what is made in this confused dark and bedlam world you will be tempted to dishonour his conduct and his conquests But if you will look to his Children in Heaven who are perfected in his Love and Likeness and to Christs Patients which are there perfectly cured and to his Building in the heavenly unity and glory and to all his Victories as there compleat then you will give him the glory which is his due Rev. 21. 22. 2 Thes 1.10 11 12. 6. So also you will dishonour Religion and the Church if you converse not with the Saints above For the reasons last given For you will judge of the Church and of Religion by such imperfect things as here you see where men turn Religion to the service of their worldly interests and ends and fight for ambition faction tyranny usurpation and worldly lusts under the sacred names of Religion and the Church and for the pretended Love of Christ and one another do tear the Church into shreds and worry and hunt and devour one another You will be tempted to be Infidels if you do not here converse with the sincere humble holy charitable Christians and look up to Heaven to perfect souls And then you will see a Church that is truly amiable holy unanimous and glorious in perfect Love 7. If you look not up to
those in Heaven you will quite misunderstand the providences of God in the prosperity of the wicked and the sufferings of the Saints and the changes that are usually made on Earth You will begin to think that sin is safe and the wicked are not so miserable as they are nor godly diligence so profitable a thing you will not know the reasons of providence unless you can see unto the end And the ultimate end is not on Earth But go into the Sanctuary and take the prospective of the promise and look to the blessed souls with Christ and all the riddle will be expounded to you and you will be reconciled to all the providences of God You are strange to truth if you are strange to the triumphing Saints in Heaven 8. The progressive nature of your faith and godliness requireth it You are travelling to Heaven where the blessed are and are nearer to them than when you first believed And the nearer you are to them the more you should mind them and by Faith and Love be familiar with them And when you are almost at home you should be even ready to embrace your friends at the meeting 9. Your Relation to the blessed Spirits doth require it and your Christian and ingenuous disposition towards them 1. Are they not such as were latety near you in the flesh some of them your dearest companions and friends and should you causlesly forget them 2. Are they not not now your friends who love you better than they could do on earth Doubtless their knowledge and memory is not grown less to forget you if once they knew you but they are like to know much more And their Goodness being increased their Love is increased and not diminished 3. And you belong to the same Society with them even to the Body or Church of Christ whose nobler part above and inferiour part on Earth do make up the whole Is it not expresly said Heb. 12.22 23. that we are come unto Mount Zion and unto the City of the Living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels and to the general Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven that is to those which as the first born are most noble and possessed of the heavenly inheritance and are there entered inhabitants already And to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediatour of the New Covenant c. And what is it to come to them but to come or be joyned to that Society of which they are the nobler part Will you be Fellow-Citizens with them and have no communion with them nor seriously remember them How can you remember God himself and not remember those that are his Courtiers and nearer to him than you are And how can you think of Christ and not think of his Body Or how can you think of his Body and forget the most excellent and honourable parts Or how can you remember your selves and forget your chiefest Friends and Lovers 10. The very nature of the Life of Faith requireth us to look much to the departed Saints The Life of Faith consisteth in our conversing with the things unseen as the life of sight or sense is our conversing with things seen If you love and think on none of the Saints but those that are within your sight you live so far but as by sight Though Faith live not upon Saints properly but on God and our Redeemer yet it liveth and converseth with the Saints If it work aright it will as it were set you among them and make you live on Earth as if you heard their songs of praise and saw their Thrones of Glory 11. The present necessities of your condition in this world do require you to look much to the Saints above as is before shewed in the benefits recited We live here among such persons and things as are objects of continual sorrow to us And have we not need of some more comfortable company If you had nothing at home but chiding and discontent and poverty you will be willing of so much recreation as to be invited to feast sometimes where there is plenty pleasure and content If you lived among groaning sick or melancholy persons in an Hospital you would be glad sometimes of merryer company a little to refresh your minds Alas what a deal of sin do we daily see or hear of and what a deal of sorrow is round about us What are our News-books filled with or the daily reports which come to our ears but sin and sorrow vanity and vexation what is the employment of most of the world what is it that Court and Country City and all Societies ring of but vanity and vexation sin and sorrow And is not a walk in Heaven with better company a pleasure desirable in such a case What grief must needs dwell on the minds of sober Catholick Christians to see the Church on earth so torn so worryed so reproached as it is throughout the earth so torn in pieces by its zealous ignorant self-conceited Pastors and Members so worryed by its open and secret enemies even by the usurping tyrannizing Wolves in Sheeps cloathing who spare not the flock Matth. 7.15 10.16 Acts 20.29 so reproached by the world of Infidels and Heathens who fly from it as from an infected City and say Christians are drunkards and deceivers and lyars they are all in pieces among themselves they revile and persecute one another we will therefore be no Christians How sad is it to see the one part of the world professing Christianity to make it odious by their wickedness and their divisions and the rest of the world abhorring it because these have made it seem odious to them How sad is it to hear all Christians speak of love and Concord Unity and Peace while few of them know the way of Peace or how to hold their own hands from tearing the Church into more pieces while these peaceable words are in their mouths To see the Pastors and People as if it were for Unity and Peace contriving the ruine of all that are not of their Party and Way and studying how to extirpate one another and multiplyjng snares and stumbling blocks as necessary means to heal the Church How sad is it to see so great a faction as the Roman Kingdom for it is more properly a Kingdom than a Church to lay the necessary Vnity and Communion of all the Churches upon so many forgeries of their own upon the supposed certainty of the falseness of all mens senses in the point of Transubstantiation and upon the subjection of the Church to an universal usurpes and to keep up ignorance lest knowledge by reading the translated Scriptures and such Books as do detect their frauds should mart their markets and spoil their trade To see their Prelates take their own domination wealth and greatness to be really the prosperity of the Church and