his faith eyes the soveraignty of it naturally we would be Gods to our selves and set up our wills as supream and therefore we make war upon God and his Law But when faith comes God is God and the Law a royal Law and all the commands in Power and Majesty by them saith David is thy sorvant warned or as it is in the Hebrew illustrated Psal 19.11 the command to the believer is as if a light shone from heaven and a voice came from the excellent glory saying Do this or that Gods will rides in triumph and mans falls to the earth as not able to stand before the Lord The voice of a superior if perceived puts an awe upon the inferior nature so doth the voice of man upon beasts so doth the voice of Angels upon men and which is the greatest awe because from the highest nature so doth the voice of God upon the believer After this manner doth faith yield up the soul to the command and in it to God and Christ Thus far of the fourth thing resignation for a holy government Fifthly Faith resigns up the soul for the gracious reward of eternal life And here to keep the old Method First This resignation is made to Jesus Christ the Mediator Faith cannot be satisfied with earth that 's but the Paradise of sense no nor with present graces these are but the pawns and earnest-pennies of eternal life faith aspires after heaven Oh! let me go over and see the good Land where the Mountains are all spices the Rivers pleasures the Mountains are all spices the Rivers pleasures the Air pure holiness the Eternal light God himself saith faith and for a title thereunto faith yields up the soul to Christ who as a Priest hath merited heaven for us and as a King is able to give it out to us The Plebeian saith Epictetus looks for his gain from things without the Philosopher looks for it from himself but which is a strain higher the Believer looks for his reward from Christ Evagrius the Philosopher gave as the story goes three hundred pounds to Synesius for the poor to be repaid him by Christ in another world the believer doth all at the same rate hears and reads and prays and gives alms and all to be paid in another world Worldly men wonder at his hot pursuits after grace and holiness but he knows what these will go for in another world that 's the reason he follows hard after them but in the pursuit still his eyes are upon Christ as the great purchasor and pay-master Secondly This resignation in and through the Mediator is made to God It is he that glorifieth eternal life is Gods gift our heavenly Fathers meer pleasure faith therefore yields up the soul to him for it and herein it climbs up to him by his free-grace the pure river of life flows out of the throne of God and of the Lamb Rev. 22.1 out of the regnant grace of God and merit of Christ as out of a fountain the believer expects no eternal life but what issues out from thence Thus the Reverend Soknius on his death bed expressed himself Pendeo totus à Dei miserieordiâ I wholly depend on Gods mercy Thirdly This resignation is made to the Word There is the promise of eternal life extant and there the way to eternal life is chalked out there is the promise of eternal life mapped out a mercy above all the sphear of nature Hence the antient believers were as pilgrims here Heb. 11.13 as if the world were too little for them they were altogether for the heavenly country which faith sees at a distance in the promise There also the way to eternal life is chalked out the world passes away but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever 1 Joh. 2.17 Riches and pleasures are but the way of time but holiness and righteousness are the way everlasting Psal 139.24 the good acts may pass but their record is in heaven the good men must dye but the holiness shall never see corruption the repentant tears which fall to the earth are bottled with God the charity which seems lost as bread cast on the waters will come to hand again Polycrates when he cast his ring into the sea little thought to have met it again in his fish but the believer doing good works expects to meet them again in another world sowing to the spirit he looks for a crop in eternal life Dorcas may leave her coats and garments behind her but the charity will follow her into another world the commandement is eternal life saith our Saviour Joh. 12.50 the very way to it The believer obeying may in some sense say as dying Pollio jam ingredior in vitam aeternam now I am entring into eternal life into that which will survive the world and live in glory Faith resigns to the word not only as it is the charter of eternal life in the promise but as it is the director to it in the command Thus far of the second thing for what things and purposes this resignation is made But to proceed to the third thing Thirdly What are the Adjuncts and Properties of this resignation Vnto which I shall answer in the following particulars First This resignation is made in the way of God Believers wait upon God for very great things Since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear neither hath the eye seen O God besides these what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him saith the Prophet Isa 64.4 But where do they wait for these great things where but in Gods own way Thus it follows those that remember thee in thy ways v. 5. Look in what way or method God gives out a mercy in the same way or method doth faith wait to receive it Would a man have a pardon faith waits for it in Gods way free-grace as immense a sea as it is in God doth not flow out every way upon sinners but through the bleeding wounds of Christ We are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ saith the Apostle Rom. 3.24 Mark free-grace issues out through redemption and in that way faith waits for it Thus St. Peter We believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved Act. 15.11 he calls the grace of God the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ as being merited by him The believer waits for pardoning mercy but it must be the mercy of David coming through the Messiah the true David Whether God might not per potentiam suam absolutam remit sin without a satisfaction is a question may be spared Gods will is declared the Scripture is definitive there is no other name given among men but the name of Jesus no other remission but through his blood the glory of the Lord that is his free-grace comes into the Temple of the Church by the way of the East Ezek. 43.2 that
but the believer for the Paradise of God The Sensualist swills in brutish pleasures and sports himself with the volatile joyes of the flesh but the believer is upon the wing after the joyes of the spirit and the pure rivers of pleasure above In a word faith is virtually all the resignations which are in intellectual humiliations inward mortifications and outward martyrdomes In intellectual humiliations faith makes reason though a Queen in her own dominions come down and sit at the foot of revelation In inward mortifications faith makes the regnant lust come off from the throne of the heart and bids the believer as Joshua his Captains put his feet on the neck of his lust In outward martyrdomes faith hath empowred men to kiss the stake and embrace the flames and cry out as the blessed Martyr did welcome sweet cross of Christ and which is the crown of all the rest in all these resignations faith ventures all upon the bare word of God and desires no better security then that for all its expectations Sixthly That faith stands in resignation may appear from the scope of Religion It is the very center of all Divinity and grand axiom therein that the creature is to be abased and God exalted no flesh must glory in it self but in the Lord all pride must be stained and boasting cut off that God may be all in all and the creature nothing Now nothing is nor can be more accommodate to this Central Divinity then faith considered under the notion of resignation which I shall shew in the following particulars First This doth exceedingly abase the creature Resignation is the lowest posture of a creature and so the fittest to take in all those graces which the Gospel hath entailed on believers Would you have adoption from God leave thine own kindred and thy fathers house stand not upon thy birth-right or parentage which in a child of wrath such as thou art by nature is as base and low as hell it self go forth to Christ the natural son of God that thou mayest be an adopted one Would you have pardon and justification stay not at home in thine own righteousness and repentant tears these will not be habitable when God comes in the pure glory of his justice and holiness go out and put on the glorious righteousness of Christ go out and lye down at the door of the pardon-office I I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake saith God Isa 43.25 Would you have sanctifying graces thine own Will cannot teem them out thine own power cannot form them Albertus Magnus the Philosopher spent fifty years in making the Statue of a man so as that with Engines it could speak articulately but when all was done it was but a poor dead thing Shouldest thou live the age of Methuselah and all the while in the artifice of thy reason and power of thy will labour to forge out true holinss it would be at last but an umbra a dead shadow of grace though it might speak fairly in the way of notions and gifts yet it would be without the heavenly life and vitality thou must therefore yield up thy self to Jesus Christ that his spirit may come upon thee and form the new-creature in thee the sum of all is this put off thy ornaments that God may know what to do unto thee yield resign be in the lowest posture of a creature that all the Evangelical graces may be thine own Secondly This doth highly exalt God and that in several respects First It exalts the mercy of God Now it appears that mercy in its proposals of salvation comes down to the very lowest terms it will adopt justifie and sanctifie an yielding sinner and how can it possibly go lower should he adopt such as will not suffer him to draw his picture upon their hearts when Thomas Arundel was for his Martial merits made Earl of the Empire Queen Elizabeth said that her sheep should not be stamped alieno stigmate with another mans mark as long as men will keep the worlds and Satans mark upon them God cannot tell how to call them sons can he justifie the ungodly to justifie the ungodly repenting and resigning is his infinite grace but to justifie them hardning and rebelling is impossible to his holiness should be count them pure with the wicked balances Mic. 6.11 every unresigned sinner hath a wicked balance in his heart which makes as if a little sinful pleasure did outweigh God himself and can he justifie such wicked ones should the sanctifying spirit with all its train of graces come and dwell in the unclean stable of indulged lusts Christ the holy one of God was in his admirable humility in a stable of beasts but in a stable of indulged lusts he cannot be he dwells in the heart by faith that is in the resigning heart and it cannot be otherwise Mercy it self if it comport with the justice and holiness of God cannot make lower terms then to save the yielding sinner Secondly It exalts the wisdom of God He hath so admirably contrived the way of salvation that mercy shall stoop to the lowest terms and the creature take it in the lowest posture that so mercy might sit in majesty and save in state Princes use in their acts of mercy to give an allay of Majesty such as may stand with their honour Solomon will pardon Adonijah but he must be a worthy man or as the Original is a son of virtue 1 Kings 1.52 King Henry the fourth of France would have freely pardoned Birone but then he must make an ingenious confession of the treason which he neglecting to do in time lost his head The great God gives out mercy to poor sinners but they must take it upon the knee in a bending and resigning posture such as is congruous to so infinite a Majesty they must be put into self-emptying and self-annihilating thoughts as Moses into the clift of the rock while the glory of free-grace passes before them Thirdly It exalts the veracity of God The believer resigns up his soul himself his happiness his all upon the meer word of God giving him the glory of his truth in every tittle What Peter said to Christ when he bad him let down his net Master we have toiled all night and have taken nothing yet at thy word I will let down the net Luke 5.5 that saith the believer unto God Lord I am toiling in the dark under sin and wrath but at thy word I will cast my self upon free-grace I am labouring under spiritual wants and necessities but at thy word I will repair to the great treasures of grace in Christ still the hangs upon a word its true he resigns up himself to Christ and free-grace but his warrant for doing so is a meer word how doth he know that the infinite Ocean of mercy whose effluxes are free will flow out to sinful men how doth he know that the Son of God was incarnate and suffered
upon God in the 119 Psal thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts but O that my wayes were directed to do so ver 4 5. I will keep thy statutes but O forsake me not utterly ver 8. with my whole heart have I sought thee but O let me not wander from thy commandements ver 10. I will run the way of thy commandements but do thou enlarge my heart ver 32. I love thy precepts but quicken me O Lord according to thy loving kindness ver 159. I have chosen thy precepts O let thine hand help me ver 173. how working is David and how depending how sweetly do mans obedience and Gods influence accord together this a believer practically understands and none but he whilest others labour to fathome it by speculation the mystery is too deep for them but the believer hath it practically and in experience every day As to spiritual extractions the believer is very sagacious Chymists by racking and torturing of nature have forced her to a confession of many secrets and choice mysteries which made Paracelsus so triumph over Galen vaunting proudly that the least hair of his head had more learning then all the Vniversities besides The believer is the best of Chymists no extractions are like those of faith he extracts heaven out of earth could a man extract gold out of base metals it would be but earth out of earth purer out of grosser but the believer extracts heaven out of earth As Jacob saw more then meer Esau he saw Gods face in Esaus so the believer sees more then the meer creature-comfort he sees the goodness of God in it which is the sweetness of all Carnal men are content with the bulk and gross matter of an earthly blessing but the believer draws out the spirits and quintescence thereof that is the love of God without which oil and wine and corn and all other earthly things are but a caput mortuum a piece of dross and dead mattor in his eyes earthly things are transient and perishing in themselves but he hath an art to melt them down by charity into a fixed condition though he cannot say his house yet he can his charity shall continue for ever Silver and gold will not go in speeie in the upper world but he knows how by the poor which are Christs bankers to return them thither for everlasting habitations given in exchange by free-grace Again he extracts good out of evil Carnal men see nothing in affliction but a lump of sorrow but the believer knows that there is a blessing in it the sharpness of it may let out his corruption the suddenness of it may alarum his spiritual watch the bitterness of it may wean him from the breast of the creature the weight of it may try the back of his faith and patience it is no longer meer trouble but made out into fans to unchaff him of his vanity into furnaces to resine his golden graces into moulds to cast him into the image of a meek suffering Christ into spiritual wings to elevate the soul in devotions and heavenly affections towards the everlasting rest which is above much of the love and faithfulness of God is to be seen in it which made Munster sick of the pestilence to shew the ulcers and plague-tokens on his arm ut armillas preciosas Christi gemmas as the bracelets and rich jewels of Christ such noble extractions can faith make out of sore afflictions as if they were the only love-tokens to feal up a son of God according to that old saying Qui excipitur à numero flagellatorum excipitur à numero siliorum Again he extracts strength out of weakness Satans shocks and the fluxes of inward corruption may make him weak and ready to perish but his faith tells him that the power of God which can do all things is perfected in weakness and the weakness of man under which he groans is a capacity for that power to shew forth it self in when our power is gone there is room for Gods when there is no might he increaseth strength as it was in Christ the weakness the humane flesh was anointed with the divinity so it is in the believer the weakness the humane frailty is anointed with the power of grace when he is weak in himself then he is strong in God when weak in the flesh then strong in the spirit The Psalmist hath some Psalms upon Machalath that is upon instruments Musical say some but upon infirmity say others the believer is able to glory and make Musick over his weaknesses because his faith can fetch down the power of God upon him wait on the Lord and he shall strengthen thine heart Psal 27.14 as faith goes up so power comes down hence the believer out of weakness is made strong as the Apostle expresses it Heb. 11.34 Again he extracts grace out of unworthiness well knowing that the way of grace is to move it self into act from our unworthiness a notable instance whereof we have Hos 2.13 14. she went after her lovers and forgate me saith the Lord therefore behold I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably unto her as if he had said she is idolatrous therefore behold I will be gracious Oh what a stupendious therefore is here deservedly is it followed with a behold a note of admiration So wonderful it is that some Learned men among the Papists not understanding how such a connection could possibly be have thought that it referrs not to that which immediately went before but to some precedent words about the beginning of the Chapter a parallel place to this we have Isa 57.17 18. he went on frowardly in the way of his heart I have seen his wayes and will heal him Oh! what strange grace is here one would have thought he would have said he went on frowardly I have seen his wayes and will damn him but it is I have seen his wayes and will heal him Some Jewish Commentators gloss it thus I have seen his repenting wayes and will heal him I suppose not understanding how grace should immediately follow upon perversness but the believer knows that this is the method of grace and therefore by an holy art presses for it even from his own unworthiness Our Saviour Christ calls the Canaanitish woman crying out for mercy no better then dog Math. 15.26 a word of reproach such as the proud Jews put on all the Gentiles such as made the Saracens revolt from the Emperour Heraclius his army and set up for themselves under their Captain Mahomet but see how admirably her faith gathers upon him and even from that word presses for mercy truth Lord yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their Masters table ver 27. ipsum Dominum in verbis capit she takes the Lord in his own words saith Ferus proving her title to the crumbs from her being a dog Holy David prayes O Lord pardon mine iniquity for
dependence the Spirit comes down in auxiliary Grace and there is an effectual working in every part of the New Creature Love in the Spirit as it is called Col. 1.8 and Joy in Spirit and every other Grace in the Spirit badding and blossoming and filling the face of the life with holy fruits Only it must be remembred that this Dependence is in Gods way where Christ is experimentally Immanuel God with us to stir up all holy Graces into act Thus Faith actuates Graces in a general way common to them all I now proceed to shew how Faith actuates this or that Grace in particular And that I may not be too prolix in running over all Graces I shall single some choice ones out instead of all First I shall begin with the Grace of Love This is the great Command the sum of the Law a Divine Union with God a bond of perfection among Men a holy fire kindled by the Holy Ghost in the Heart and the sweetness and easiness of every good Duty This Grace whether it respect God or Christ or our Neighbour is actuated by Faith As touching our Love to God it is so actuated The very light of Nature reveals a God an excellent perfect Being or the Being of Beings whose Love as the Philosopher said is the principle and knot of the World and so cannot but raise up a kind of Love toward him the Will being necessarily in some sort affected with such an Excellency though seen but by a glimmering light Not that this Love is a Grace or a Love in sincerity or a Love sicut oportet as an ancient Council speaks or indeed in Scripture sense any love at all because it loves not God above all it must needs be inordinate there being the same ataxy in loving God below the Creature as in loving the Creature above God But that there is a kind of Love such as that dark light can raise up in faln man But when the light of Faith comes it raises up the Grace of Love towards God and ever after moves it into act by the pure discoveries of him which it lets into the Heart from Scripture He is saith Faith an immense infinite Goodness Creatures are but drops of Being lying in the shell of Time but he is the Ocean of all Perfections They may be good for this or that in particular according to their finite kinds and spheres but he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the All-things as the Aposile calls him 1 Cor. 15.28 And withal he is Love it self as another Apostle hath it 1 Joh. 4.16 Not shutting up his Allness in unapproachable Glory but letting it out to Believers His Love though he ever had perfect Blessedness in himself would yet pour out it self in making a world of good Creatures and after Mans fall in giving his only Son to take hold of our nature and in it to bring us back again to himself that he might be our God and make over his Allness to us and all this in pure Grace without any Money or Merit on our part and in rich Mercy towards worms and forlorn Sinners and to assure it to us a Gospel is let down from Heaven full of great and precious Promises such as are the very counterpanes of that Grace and Mercy which flow in his Heart towards Sinners Vnder such musings of Faith Oh how the holy fire of Love kindles What high rates and estimates are set upon him How is the Heart inflamed towards Union to be one spirit with him What Complacencies and Sabbaths of rest doth it find in him What little things are Worlds and Creatures What an All is He and an Heaven his Love What tastes are there of his Goodness and surrenders to his Will and Glory Our Love goes after him as his is by Faith let in upon the Heart Moreover Faith excites the Love of him by every act which it sets about in its recumbencies it enamours the Heart that he should give us leave to lean on his Grace and in so doing bear up our weakness with Promises and sweetly answer us in Pardons and suitable Graces in its Obedience it is very ravishing that he should chalk out such pure ways for us and take us by the hand and teach us to go and at last crown our faultring Obedience with Eternal Life Ordinances which to Unbelief are but dry things are to Faith the lovely Chariots of the Spirit Creatures which are Idols to carnal sense are to Faith fair mirrors of the infinite Goodness and Beauty in the Creator Which way soever Faith turns it self it meets with something or other inflammative of our Love towards him who is every-where and all in all As touching our Love to Christ it is actuated in the same manner A meer notion of Christ raises up some Love towards him as we see in those Temporaries who receive the word with joy Mat. 13.20 which though it be but fructus horarius hints out a kind of Love Such a story as that of Codrus the Athenian King 's dying for his Country could not but affect his Subjects much more must the History of Christ dying for a World do so Only this Love to Christ raised up by meer Evangelical notion as the Love to God raised up by natural is not right nor elevated to a Divine pitch till Faith come and shew him forth by a light more congruous than all literal knowledg and then there is as the Church after an elegant description concludes Totus desideria all loves or desires Cant. 5.16 Every thing in him is attractive What a person is the Eternal Word the brightness of the Fathers glory What an Union Immanuel God and Man in one Heaven and Earth admirably blended together as a pledg that God would be at one with us What a robe is his Righteousness made as broad as the Law and woven all of Love from the top to the bottom What a Laver his Blood able to expiate a world of Sins and save a world of Sinners What a treasure is his Fulness where the Spirit is in over-measure and all its Graces in redundance running over into the vessels of Faith and filling all its capacities Who that hath eyes of Faith would not love him To ask why we should love him is as the Philosopher told him who demanded Why Beauty was so taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a blind mans question nothing but blind unbelief can hold us from his Embraces Whatever posture Faith be in whether contemplating him in the Mount or leaning on the bosom of his Grace or hiding in his Wounds or sitting at his feet for Wisdom or lying under his Scepter for power against Sin still it stirs up an holy Love to him It finds his Blood in every Pardon his Spirit in every Grace his Wine-cellar in every Ordinance his Seal in every Promise and his Purchase in every Creature No wonder if St. Paul count all things dung and dross for him And St. Austin