more then the Pharisee confest when he said Lord I thank thee that I am not as other men are nor as this Publicane Here was a true acknowledgement that he received this Grace by whose good use he thought himself better then other men freely from God But in making this Comparison he gloried as if he had not received it or as if having received it he was not so great a Debter unto God as the Publicane was nor liable to the same Account for his sins past or present Questionlesse this Pharisee had been partaker of better Grace at least of better means of salvation then the Publican had been And if this conceit of his own worth in comparison of other men had not polluted his works there is no Question but that he had been more righteous then the Publican yet the Publican went home more justified then the Pharisee not for the worth of any good works which he had done but by unfeigned acknowledgment of his own Unworthiness if God should have entered into Judgment with him That Form of Prayer or acknowledgment which the Publican made would at this day well beseem even those which have received a greater measure of Grace then either he or the Pharisee had done even those which have been more fruitful in Good Works then both of them were Or if the Publican be no fit person for sanctified men to imitate certainly the Prophet Daniel is a fit one and yet his confession of his own unworthiness if God should have dealt in Justice with him was more pathetically humble then the Publicans was Dan. 9. 8 9. Oh Lord to us belongeth confusion of face to our Kings to our Princes and to our Fathers because we have sinned against thee to thee O Lord our God belongeth mercies and forgivenesses though we have rebelled against thee He placeth no part of his Confidence in the Merit either of his prayer or fasting which yet were both excellent works proceeding from charity and excellently performed by him but how excellently soever these Duties be performed by him or any they neither can Merit ought for their own worth in themselves nor from the vertue of Gods promises for all his promises are promises of Mercie and he that seeks for mercie though promised by God must sincerely and seriously renounce all works even the best works which he hath done that is he must disclaim all Merit or confidence in works otherwise he cannot take hold of Gods promises of mercie but solliciteth God to deal in justice with him 10. And yet here I must request the Reader to call that to mind which hath been often inculcated before that whensoever our Apostle excludes all works from Justification or Election he is to be understood only of Confidence in Works or Conceit of Merit He excludes not their Presence but necessarily requires it to our Justification as to the making of our Election sure He only denies any Causal Efficiencie in them for procuring these or the like blessings of God least of all for obtaining of eternal life unto which Good works are most necessary For our Apostle takes it as granted that we must deny our selves before we can do any good works but we must do good works before we can renounce them and we must renounce them in all our suits and pleas specially for those blessings which God out of his Free Grace and mercie promised us A Doctrine which would to God some late Writers of Reformed Churches had taken into serious consideration whilst they earnestly pleaded for the Free Grace of God in our Election For so they would never have taught us as to my apprehension they do that our Election to Eternal life is a more free grace of God then the donation of Eternal life it self then which as no blessing of God is more Great so none can be more Free But the absolute Freedom of the Gift doth no way exclude but rather require some Qualifications in the Donee and for this Reason it is that the practise of Good works is in special sort required for the attaining of Eternal Life Because That is the greatest and most Free Act of Grace which The God of Mercie hath to bestow upon us in respect of it our best deeds are most unworthy and the lesse worthy they are the more unfeignedly they are to be renounced And seeing our Apostle when he excludes works from any plea of mercie doth only exclude Confidence or Conceit of Merit in them in whatsoever sense he excludes them from Election or Justification he excludes them in an higher degree of the same sense from the Donation of eternal Life Otherwise that could not be as our Apostle saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Free Gift of God 11. But as in all other points of Controversie betwixt Us and the Romish Church so in this specially concerning Merits I am alwayes jealous of both Readers and Hearers lest whilst they hear one Error refuted they take occasion to run into the Contrary For preventing this inconvenience in this present point I must Request all in the First Place to Observe that Both of us fully agree in this General that God is a Rewarder of them that seek him and no man can truly seek him but by a true and lively working Faith The Question betwixt us is only this Whether God Reward such as seek him according to the Rule of Justice or according to the Rule of his boundlesse Mercy or whether our works his Grace and promise presupposed be worthy of his Reward or only make us not altogether unworthy or not uncapable of his Mercie The Second Point which I would commend to all mens Consideration is This that as our Apostle in the fore-cited place Heb. 6. doth not ground his hope of those Hebrews recovery upon Gods Justice so he doth not ground it upon the Infallibility or immutable estate of their Election He doth not so much as intimate that they could not possibly fall because their persons were Elected for this was more then either he or they knew more then most men can possibly know more then any man in their Case may safely perswade himself He that makes his personal Election the only Anchor of his Faith in such temptations as these Hebrews at that time were overtaken with shall fall into as bad perhaps a worse Error then if he held That his Good works formerly done might merit his Recovery unto his former estate so he will but address himself to do the like This Conceit of merit though we take men in their best estate or when they are least conscious of grosser sins is a Symptom of heathenish pride or ignorance For the Heathens thought they could make the Gods or divine Powers beholding unto them But to stay our selves in the consciousness of grievous sins lately committed upon perswasions of our personal Election is the most dangerous root of Hypocritical Pride that can be planted in our corrupt
the widdow These indeed are works of iniquity and deserve Exclusion from the Kingdom of Heaven But is it a Work of iniquity not to work at all As not to give meat unto the hungry Not to give drink unto the thirstie Not to cloath the naked or lodge the harbourless Yes even these Omissions deserve Exclusion from the Kingdom of Heaven Either by their connexion with sins of oppression because it is scarce possible that any which hear Christs promises should be barren of good Works unless they were too fruitful in the works of impietie and oppression or rather because as our Saviour elsewhere infers that Not to save mens lives when means and opportunitie is offered is to kill Not to feed the hungrie is a bloody sin Not to cloath the naked is as the sin of Oppression The Doing of some Good Works cannot excuse men for the Omission of others which be as necessary To prophesie in Christs name is a Gracious Work to cast out Divels is a Work of Greater Charity and comfort to the possessed then to visit the prisoners and yet such as have done these and many other wonderful Works shall not be admitted at the Last Day Besides the Goodness of the Works which we are bound to do there must be an Uniformitie in them Otherwise they are not done in Faith Now the same Faith and belief which inclines our hearts to works of one kind will incline them to the practise of every kind which we know or believe to be required at our hands by our Lord and Master That even the best Works of mercy or most beneficial unto others are not acceptable unto God unless they be done out of Faith obedience to our Masters Will is clear from our Apostles Verdict of Enoch Heb. 11. 5. Before his translation saith our Apostle he had this testimonie that he pleased God For so it is said Gen. 5. 24. that he walked with God the way by which he walked was his Good Works and Conversation but The Guide of this way and his works was his Faith So the Apostle infers without faith it is impossible to please God for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him ver 6. As God is the Author of goodness yea goodness it self so we cannot come unto him by any other way then by doing good to others yet that which must make even our best Works pleasing to him must be our Belief in him and in his goodness and that he is A bountiful Rewarder of all that do good The good Works even of the Heathen and of such as knew neither him nor his Providence of such as in stead of him worshipped false gods were rewarded by him but with rewards and blessings only Temporal He was their Rewarder but not himself their Reward This was the Peculiar of Abraham his friend and of Abrahams children that is of all such as do the works of Abraham out of the Faith of Abraham that is out of a lively apprehension and true esteem of his goodness Unto all such he himself shall be merces magna nimis or valdè magna Their exceeding great Reward Unto men thus qualified and only unto them it shall be said Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world This Kingdom shall be a Kingdom of everlasting bliss and yet the greatest blessedness of this Kingdom shall consist in the fruition or enjoying of the presence of this Everlasting King who is goodness it self the participation of whose goodness is the very Life and Essence of that happiness which all desire but none shall attain besides such as do His Will by well doing To be separated for ever from his presence is the source of all the miserie which shall befall the damned or accursed But from this place of our Apostle Heb. 11. 6. The Romanist alwayes ready like the spider to suck poison from such flowers in this garden of God as naturally afford honey to such as seek God labours to infer as he doth out of the words of the text That the Everlasting Kingdom here promised is the just Reward of our good works and is as properly merited as everlasting death is by the Omission of the works here mentioned or by the Positive Works of inquitie So that I should here according to my proposed method proceed unto the third point That these good works how necessary soever they be are necessary only Tanquam via ad regnum non tanquam causa regnandi only as the Way and Means which lead unto this Kingdom not as the causes of its preparation for us or of our admission unto it But for the present I chuse rather to make some use or Application of what hath been said concerning the necessity of Good Works then to dispute of their Efficacie or Causality for attaining this Kingdom intending to touch that a little more in the next Chapter though with reference to what I have spoken in the 27. and 28. Chapters 6. You see that Good Works done in faith or which is all one a Working Faith are absolutely necessarie unto salvation But are they as necessary to Justification If they be how is it said by St. Austine and approved by the Articles of the Church of England Bona opera sequuntur hominem justificatum non praecedunt in homine justificando Good works follow Justification they do not go before it This Orthodoxal Truth only imports thus much That no man can do those works which are capable of the promises before he be inabled by God to do them and that this ability to do them is from the Gift of Justifying Faith Now every one that hath this Faith in his heart is said to be Justified that is absolved from the Guilt of sins past and freed from the Tyranny and Dominion of sin by receiving this pledge or earnest of Gods mercie and in this sense is Justification taken by St. James when he saith a man is justified by works that is He is not to be accounted the Son of faithful Abraham nor may he presume upon his own Actual Justification or estate in Grace until he be qualified and enabled to do the Works of Abraham In the same sense is Justification taken by St. John Rev. 22. 11 Qui justus est justificetur ad huc Let him that is righteous be righteous still or more justified And in this sort Children or Infants are said to be Justified by the Infusion of Faith The practise of Good Works is not required to their Justification before they come to the knowledge of good and evil But neither is the apprehension or actual Belief of Gods mercies in Christ required of them Though they be justified and saved for the Merits of Christ and through his blood as we are Yet is not the Rule for Application of these Merits the same in them and
All is to be ascribed to the mercie of God that no man ought to glorie in himself or in his works The other That this Doctrine of merit is taught by the Holy Ghost as either by Christ himself by his Prophets or Apostles for so it must be taught if it be imposed as an Article of Faith although we could not convince it to contradict the Former or any other Article of Faith First then of the state of the Question or Point of Difference betwixt us Secondly Of the Refutation of their Opinions Thirdly The answer to the Objection which they frame out of the Causal Particles in this Text Math. 25. 34 41. 3. That the Doctrine of Merits doth not contradict the Catholick Doctrine which ascribes our salvation wholly to the mercie of God Jansenius seeks to justifie by this One Reason For that the Romish Church doth acknowledge those Good Works wherein she placeth Merits to proceed from the Mercie of God But this speech of his Habemus bona opera a miscricordia Dei By or from the mercies of God we have our Good Works is Indefinite that is It is uncertain how far this man himself or any of his profession do acknowledge Good Works to proceed from the Mercie of God If he had said that All our Good Works are wholly from God this had agreed well with both branches of his Former Conclusion As First That All were to be given to the mercie of God And Secondly That no man might glorie in himself or in his works But if his Speech had been thus farre extended it would have left no room for merits whereas the Doctrine of Merits must have place in all the writings that come from the Roman Press albeit perhaps the Writer himself had assigned them none But if either All our Good Works be not from God or if All of them be from God Quoad Originem only as they are in the Root but not as they are in their Growth and perfection Then there may perhaps some place be left for Merit So much of them as proceeds from our selves and not from God might be accounted our own but yet being ours there is no necessity that God should reward them with everlasting life For the clearer understanding of our adversaries meaning and the State of the Question betwixt us and them we may consider First the Root or Faculty Secondly the Stemme or Habit of meritorious works Thirdly the Fruit or works themselves or the exercise or practise of or according to their Habit. The Root or Facultie whence works truly good do spring as most of the Romish Church now acknowledge is Grace infused And this Infusion of Grace by which men in their Divinity are first justified they acknowledge to be wholly from God And in that they acknowledge the First Grace or Root of Good Works to be wholly from Gods mercie they consequently deny that it can be merited 'T is a Maxim in their modern Schools as we shewed before that Fundamentum meriti non cadit sub merito The Foundation of merits cannot be merited And this Foundation of merits is the First Grace by which man is first justified But after this Grace be once infused the Use of it depends upon mans Free-will He that useth this Talent well or not amiss shall have more given him This Overplus the Romish Church ascribes to the Merit of Works And by the habitual and constant use of Grace and Free-will Life Eternal it self by their Doctrine may be properly merited We acknowledge that whosoever doth not hide the Talent of Grace but imploys it aright shall certainly receive increase of Grace from God and be partaker of joy according to the measure of his Works though not For his Works sake or for his right use of Grace 4. We say the Increase of Grace is no more from any Works or Merits of Works then the First Grace it self is The inheritance of Eternal Life can no more be purchased by the fullest measure of Grace or greatest perfection of Works that in this life can be attained unto then the First Grace can be purchased by Works That the First Grace is not given for our Works is not procured by them the Romish Church now acknowledgeth This beginning of Grace or foundation of merits they confesse that they receive from the sole blessing or Predestination of God And so say we All increase of Grace the Preparation of this Kingdom for us our Preparation to be capable of it our admission into it are the Effects likewise of Gods Predestination and the Fruits of his mercy Yet not so as that his Mercie or Predestination doth impose any necessity upon the men for whom this Kingdom is prepared We deny not a Freedom of will in this Preparation but the Merit of our Free-will A Freedom of will we have to neglect or despise the ordinary means by which Grace is bestowed A Freedom likewise to hide or not imploy those Talents or blessings which God hath already bestowed upon us If we do evil or imploy these Talents amiss the evil is wholly our own the miscarriage is wholly our own If we do well or imploy them aright This is Gods Work and not ours or not so ours as that we may hence challenge any Reward as due unto us No man can do well unless he be enabled first by God to do well and the more he is enabled by Gods Gifts and Graces bestowed upon him the more he is bound to God Nor can we ever in this life be so thankful unto God for Gifts already received as we ought to be The least increase of Grace after the First Grace given exceeds the greatest measure of our service or thankfulness if we could impartially esteem or rate them by their proper worth or weight So that the more Grace we receive from God or the better our Works are the more still we are indebted to him that inables us to work and as our debt to him increaseth so our Title to Merit any thing at his hands questionlesse decreaseth To conclude then That which creates a new Title of bond or debt unto God from us cannot possibly be the Ground-title of merits that is Of any debts or dues from God to us But Grace not the First Grace only but all increase of Grace doth still create or found a new Title of Debt from us to God Therefore Neither the First Grace nor any increase of Grace can be Fundamentum meriti any Foundation or Ground-title unto merits But rather seeing Merits include a Debt or due from God to us he that most aboundeth in Grace which is the Free Gift of God will be most ready to disclaim all Merits 6. But if Works it may be some of the Romish Church will say cannot deserve Everlasting Life in themselves or as they are wrought by us yet may they deserve it in as much as God hath promised Life eternal to all
hungred c. The Form of it is Causal and it necessarily imports some Cause as either the Cause of the Preparation of the Kingdom or of the righteous their Admission into it Otherwise the same form of speech ver 41. FOR I was an hungred and you gave me no meat should not import the true Cause why the wicked are sentenced to hell But the Protestants say they generally grant that this Particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 FOR ver 41. doth import that the true Cause why the wicked are condemned to hell is The Omission of these works and hence they inferre that the true Cause why the righteous are admitted into heaven is the performance of those Works which the wicked neglected and that our Saviour did note out this Cause unto us in the manner of his speech Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you FOR I was hungry and you gave me meat I was naked and ye cloathed me Hence saith Jansenius The righteous do merit eternal life by their Good works as the wicked do everlasting punishment by their bad works This is his Note upon the words and the only Ground or Reason of this Inference is Because the Form of our Saviours Speech is One and the same in both Sentences as well in the Sentence of Life as in the Sentence of Death But though the Phrase or manner of speech be the same will Jansenius therefore stand to the Inference or Observation which he makes upon them viz. That the Good works of the righteous are altogether as true Causes of inheriting the Kingdom of heaven as the bad works of the wicked or their Omission of good works are of their damnation to hell That this was his meaning any honest plain dealing man that should read him only upon those words of this Text would easily be perswaded howbeit in the Process or Sentence against the wicked ver 41. he expresly unsayes the most part of that which he here seems to say being thereto inforced by the Real circumstances of the Text. He ingeniously acknowledgeth what Origen and Chrysostom had observed before him That our Saviour saith unto those on his right hand Come ye blessed of my Father but unto those on his left hand though he say Depart ye Cursed yet he saith not Ye cursed of my Father This implyes as Jansenius acknowledgeth That God the Father is the Author and Donour of everlasting bliss but every one that doth wickedly is the Author of his own Wo or cursed estate God then not our works is the Cause of our Bliss or Salvation Mens evil works not God is the Cause of damnation Again in the other Sentence of Condemnation our Saviour doth not say That the everlasting punishment is prepared for unrighteous men but for the Devil and his Angels What doth this in the Judgment of Jansenius imply First That the condemnation of men is not so to be ascribed unto the Ordinance of God as mens salvation is For God created no man to the end that he should perish but men by their Free-will or Wilfulness in sin do make themselves liable or obnoxious to those torments which principally were prepared for the Divel and his Angels For this Reason saith the same Jansenius Christ doth not say that the Kingdom unto which he cals the righteous was prepared for the Good Angels as the fire is prepared for the Divel and bad Angels lest we should hence collect that men might by Good works deserve or merit the societie of Good Angels after the same manner that they do merit the company or fellowship of evil Angels or Divels For as he adds The merits or Good Works of men do not depend only upon our Free will but they issue from the Grace and bountie of God And our Saviour as this Author concludes in saying That this Kingdom was prepared for the righteous since or from the foundation of the world and in saying hell was not prepared for wicked men but for the Divel and his Angels doth hereby give us to understand That the salvation of the righteous is to be ascribed unto the mercie of God and the condemnation of the unjust not unto God but unto their own iniquity 10. But doth not this plainly contradict his Former Assertion upon the Text when he saith Justi suis operibus merentur vitam aeternam sicut impijsuis operibus aeternum merentur supplicium That the righteous deserve eternal Life by their works as well or after the same manner that the wicked by their works deserve hell All that can be said for him or for his Acquital from contradicting himself is that he put no set Quantity to his First Proposition but leaves it Indefinite a fault common to the Romanists that they may have some excuse for their palpable Contradictions To say That Good Works deserve Heaven even as bad Works deserve Hell and to deny That the one deserves Heaven as well as the other deserves Hell seems to imply a Contradiction Yet if any man should press Janfenius too farre upon these Terms he hath this Evasion Non omnino similiter merentur The one doth not merit Heaven altogether by the same manner that the other doth merit Hell because mens Good Works or Merits do not depend only upon the Freedom of Will But this favourable construction being permitted or allowed him yet to say as he doth That the best works of men how much or how little soever they depend upon mans Free-will do in any sort either in whole or in part merit the Kingdom of Heaven this directly contradicts his former Assertion that Totum deputandum est misericordiae Dei That all is to be imputed to the Mercie of God Quod totum est a Deo non potest vel in parte ascribi meritis nostris That which is wholly from Gods mercie cannot so much as in part or at all be ascribed unto our merits For what is the Reason why the First Grace cannot in their doctrine be Merited is it not because it is wholly from the mercy of God now if this Kingdom of heaven or mans salvation be wholly from the mercy of God it can no more be Merited by any increase of Grace or Good Works then the First Grace it self can be Merited 11. But what shall we punctually answer to the Grammatical Inference drawn from the form of our Saviours speech Inherit the Kingdom c. FOR I was an hungred and you gave me c. The usual Answer is that this Conjunction or Illative For Because and the like do not alwayes denote the Cause of the thing it self but sometimes only the Consequence of what is spoken But seeing the Form of this speech is as Grammarians speak Causal to say that a Conjunction Causal doth not alwayes import some Cause were to deny Principles and affirm that the Grammar Rule were to be corrected But admitting that this Conjunction doth always import some Cause it will not hence follow that it alwayes
imports the Real Cause of the thing it self which is known But oftentimes the Cause only of our knowledge of it Again such Causal Particles do not alwayes import some Efficacious Causalitie but only Causam sine qua non some necessarie means or condition without which the prime and principal Cause especially if it work freely doth not produce its intended effect To give you Examples or instances of these Observations If a stranger coming into a Citie should say surely yonder Gentleman is the chief Magistrate because the sword is born before him No wise man would hence collect that the bearing of the sword before him is The Cause why he is the chief Magistrate For his lawful Election is The Cause of that and that is the Cause why the sword is born before him Yet may we not for this reason deny that the former speech doth necessarily import a Cause for the bearing of the sword before him is the true True Cause of his knowing him to be the chief magistrate And in as much as we oftentimes come to know the Cause by the Effect this word For or other Conjunction Causal doth oft-times point out the Effect rather then the Cause of the thing it self So it doth in the speech of our Saviour Luke 7. 45. Wherefore I say unto thee her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much However some Romanists whose delight it is to set Christian Charitie and faith at odds would hence collect that Charitie is the Cause of the forgiveness of sins yet their greatest Scholars acknowledge their error or oversight and ingenuously acknowledge their understanding being convinced by the evidence of truth that This womans Love was not the Cause why her sins were forgiven but that the Free forgiveness of her sins which were many was the True Cause why she loved so much however her extraordinary love being testified in such solemn sort was a true Cause or reason by which all that saw her might know both that her sins had been many and that she had an internal feeling or apprehension of their forgiveness And the true reason why the Pharisee did neither bear such love unto our Saviour nor exhibit the like signes of respect unto him was because he did not feel himself sick much lesse did he feel or apprehend the cure of his sickness as the woman did For if he had known either the measure of his own sins or that our Saviour was the Physician of his soul he would have given better Testification of his love and respect unto him then he did by a Complemental Invitation of him 12. To instance again If of two parties equally suspected of Felonie a man admitted to hear their examination or tryal should say This is the thief For Two competent witnesses have given evidence against him no man would hence infer that the evidence given in against him by two honest men was the Cause why he was a thief and yet was it the true Cause why he knew him to be the thief Every Revelation or authentick Declaration of any truth before unknown is the true Cause of our knowledge of it but not of the Truth it self for that is the Cause why the Declaration or our knowledge of it is true Now amongst such as professe Christ and call him Lord it is unknown to us who be the true heirs of this heavenly kingdom who be not but in the day of Final Judgement in which all shall be judged by their works the sheep shall be known from the goats and the first certain knowledge which we shall have of this difference shall be from The Declarative sentence of the Judge who cannot erre and his Declaration as you see shall be made according to their works The ones performance of the Good works here mentioned declared and testified by the Judge shall be the True Cause by which men and Angels shall know them to be heirs of the everlasting Kingdom the others Omission of the like works testified likewise by the same Judge shall be the true cause by which we shall know them to be altogether unworthy of Gods favour or mercy most worthy of everlasting death We shall then truly know that the one sort are crowned as Saint Cyprian saith according to Gods Grace and that the other are condemned according to Justice That the ones omission of Good Works is the true Cause of condemnation and that the others performance of Good works is not the Cause of their salvation but the Declaration only or a Testimonie that they are the Sons of God and that they did Good works by the secret Operation of the spirit of Grace in them And thus much if you observe it is implyed in the Reply or Answer of them that be saved to their Judge Lord When saw we thee an hungred c So farre they shall be from conceiting their works to be meritorious or worthie of eternal bliss that they shall be ready to disclaim them as not worthie of it ready to blame their sluggish backwardness or want of chearfulness to have done much better seeing what they did unto their poor brethren as now they perceive shall be so graciously accepted that Christ in his Throne of Majestie will acknowledge that he takes them as kindly as if they had been done unto himself The Case is the same as if a Gracious Prince of his own free motion and goodness should proclaim a general Pardon to a multitude of Rebels Thieves and Traytors so they would accept of it and make their peace with their honest neighbors whom they have wronged All of them in shew accept the Pardon but some of them in the Interim secretly practise treason or disturb the publick peace If at the general Assize or at their Arraignment the Judge upon certain notice of their several demeanors should say to the one sort I restore you to your former state and dignity Because since the Proclamation of your Pardon you have demeaned your selves as becomes Loyal Subjects and thankful men And to the other you I condemn to death Because you have abused your Soveraigns Clemency No man would ascribe the restauration of the one unto their good demeanor in the Interim betwixt the getting of their Pardon and their Arraignment but unto the Princes Clemencie Albeit the condemnation of the other were wholly to be ascribed unto their misdemeanors not unto any want of Clemencie in the Prince towards them The good demeanor of the one could but be at the most Causasine qua non A necessary Condition without which the Princes Clemencie in his Pardon exprest could not profit them And so we say of Good Works They are Causae sine quibus non necessary Conditions or means without which no man shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven but no Positive or meritorious Causes of our inheritance in it To conclude If any one should ask me Why all men that profess they beleive in Christ shall not be saved Albeit Christ
free Pardon for all shall be excluded from it that are Unworthy of it But the grievous and most patient sufferings of the Apostles themselves are here adjudged by our Apostle to be altogether Unworthy of the Glory that shall be revealed in respect of Gods Justice Or if he should enter into Judgment with them after these three branches of Grace Faith Hope and Charity had fructified in them But have they no Answer to this Objection Yes Cardinal Bellarmine the only man which ever that Church had for traversing the Testimonie or verdict of Scriptures alleadged by our Writers hath Two in store or rather two branches of one and the same answer His answer in General is this That our Apostle in this place Rom. 8. 18. doth speak of the Substance of works done by just and holy men not of the absolute Proportion between them and the glory which shall be revealed If we respect the Substance of their works they are not equal for the one is momentany or temporal and the other eternal to the reward or gift of God which is eternal life or glory yet saith he there is a true or just Proportion between them 9. To put a Colour upon this Distinction he gives Instance First in the sufferings of our Saviour which were but temporary and no way comparable for duration of time with the everlasting pains of hell which without his sufferings we all should have suffered and yet his temporary sufferings did make a full and just satisfaction for the sins of men which deserved everlasting torments For what was wanting to the duration or continuance of his sufferings was supplyed by the dignity of his person which suffered them In like sort as he would have it the worth or dignitie of that charity from which the sufferings of Martyrs or other good works of just and holy men do proceed may make up that defect which they apparently have in respect of their short duration or continuance His Second Instance is that the pleasures or contentments of sin are in no wise comparable to the everlasting torments of hell which yet these momentary pleasures justly deserve for the contempt of God and his commandements and thus as he would have us believe the good works of Saints though but few and short may through the vertue of Grace or Charity as justly deserve eternal glory 10. But as his Answer in General is Sophistical so the Instances which he brings to prove it are most impertinent and if they be well scanned most pregnant for Us against him To the First we reply as all Divines agree That Christs sufferings though but temporary for duration and for quality not infinite did make a full satisfaction for the sins of mankind because the Person of the sufferer was truly and absolutely infinite his satisfaction or the value of his sufferings were truly infinite Non quia passus est infinita sed quia passus est infinitus Not because he suffered infinite pains but because He who suffered those grievous and unknown pains was truly infinite But neither the persons of the Saints which suffered martyrdom nor any pains which they suffered or good works which they did had any just Proportion to Infinity and therefore could not be Meritorious of eternal Glory which is for duration infinite either in respect of their persons or of their charity which questionless was much less then Christs love and charity towards us as man though this was not so absolutely Infinite as the love and charity of his Godhead So that this Instance is not only impertinent but altogether unadvised and the Reader may well wonder how such gross and somnolent incogitancie could possibly surprize so wary a man so great a Scholar as Cardinal Bellarmine was His Second Instance though it include no such gross incogitancie as the former nevertheless it is involved in an error too common not only to the Romanist but to many in reformed Churches For the pleasures of sin though but temporary deserve eternal death betwixt which and them in themselves considered there is no just proportion But the True Reason why they justly deserve this death is because men by continuing in sin and by following the pleasures of it do reject or put from them the promises of Eternal Life betwixt which and everlasting death there is a just proportion And when Life and Death everlasting are proposed unto us the One out of Mercie the other out of Justice it is most Just dealing with God to give such as chuse the pleasures of sin before the Fruits of Holiness the native issue of their choice But it could not have stood with the Justice of God to have punished our first Parents transgression with everlasting death unless out of his Free Bounty and liberality he had made them capable not of a temporal only but of an everlasting life But now that Adam hath sinned and made himself and his posterity subject unto everlasting death doth not this Original Sin or every Actual Sin which issueth from it deserve everlasting death Yes they do and would inevitably bring death upon all without intervention of Gods Mercy or Free Pardon made in Christ But this free Pardon being presupposed and being proclaimed unto the world it is not Sin Original or the Positive sins of men in themselves considered which bring everlasting death upon them but their wilful neglect or slighting of Gods mercy promised in Christ or of the means which God affords them for attaining this mercy which leaves them without Excuse or Apology or which makes up the full measure of their iniquity This is our Saviours Doctrine John 3. 17. God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved From what original then doth the condemnation of the world proceed Our Saviour tels us ver 19. This is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darknesse more then light because their deeds were evil It is not then the works of darkness in themselves considered but considered with mens love unto them or delight in them that doth induce a neglect or hate of light which brings condemnation upon the world Now if the works of darkness or pleasures of sin which are but momentany do not in themselves procure everlasting death albeit they proceed from Sin Original much lesse shall the good Works of Gods Saints albeit they proceed from Grace procure or deserve everlasting life For the Grace by which we do them is from God not from our selves but the evil works which we do are our own God hath no share in them So that the Height or Accomplishment of sin consists in the neglect or contempt of Eternal Life and the neglect hereof could not be so heynous if this life could be deserved by us or if it were awarded to us out of Justice not out of meer Mercie and Grace 11. This difference betwixt the Title
desert or only of Gods free Mercy and favour The first Grace being lost though lost it cannot be without their default that had it the second Grace in their Divinity may be merited de Congruo in congruity And this is A strange Tenet that seeing the First Grace cannot be merited by any works of ours either de Condigno or de Congruo that is either out of the true worth of our works or out of any Congruitie or proportion which is between them and Grace the second Grace should be at all merited when the Grace which is the Foundation of this merit is utterly lost this is all one as if they should say The fruit may be good or fair when the Root or Tree which bears it is dead or that the Roof may stand when the foundation is taken from it or that any Accident may remain without a substance Yet thus to hold they are inforced if they wil speak consequently to their other Tenets or Positions concerning the merit of works done out of Grace or charitie For many of their Arguments which they bring for confirmation of their merits in General do either conclude That the Second Grace may be merited or awarded by the course of Gods justice not of mercie only or that the Apostasie into which they should otherwise fall may be prevented by the vertue or efficacie of their former works of charity or else they conclude nothing at all for any merit 3. The Especial or as some think the Only place of Scripture which can with probability be alledged for the Revival of Merits after the Grace from which these merits did spring is utterly extinguished is that Heb. 6. 9 10. But beloved we are perswaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation though we thus speak In the formet verses the Apostle had threatned them with the danger of that Irremissible sin which they call The sin against the Holy Ghost into which no man can fall but by forsaking the works of his First Love What then is the Reason that our Apostle doth hope so well of these back-sliding Hebrews He grounds his hopes as the Advocates for the Romish Church contend not so much upon Gods Free mercie or Favour by which only the First Grace was bestowed upon them as upon Gods Justice And if his hopes be grounded upon Gods Justice more then upon his Free Mereie or Favour Then the Recovery of their former estate or the prevention of that Apostasie into which they were falling was more from the merit of their former works then from Gods Free Mercie or Grace Now That the Apostle did ground his hopes of their Recovery upon Gods Justice they take it as proved from the tenth verse For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love which ye have shewed towards his name in that ye have ministred to the Saints and do minister These words seem to import That if God at this time should have cast them off He had not been just and right in his Judgements and if it had been any injustice in God at this time utterly to have forsaken them Then their perseverance in such Grace as was left them for the Recovery of such Grace as they had lost was out of merit or desert and perhaps meritorious of the Recoverie For every man doth deserve or properly merit that which without injustice or unrighteousness cannot be detained from him This is the most plausible argument which they bring for the Revival of Merits after Grace be lost or decayed and if merits may revive after Grace be lost then questionless Whiles Grace continues without interruption or intercision men may merit more degrees or increase of the same Grace and so Finally Everlasting Life which is here said to be the Grace of God I have been bold to put this Argument drawn from our Apostle Heb. 6. as far home as any Advocate for the Romish Church hath done or can do Because the true and punctual Answer unto it will easily reach all other Arguments which they can draw from the like Head or Topick as when it is said God shall reward us in righteousnesse or as a righteous Judge c. 4. To this Place I Answer That the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek or Justitia in Latine doth sometimes import strict or legal Justice as it is opposed to mercie favour or loving kindness Sometimes again it imports universal Goodness or all the branches of Goodness So the heathen had observed that Justitia in sese virtutes continet omnes that Justice universally taken did comprehend all vertues in it And in this sense A loving or friendly man is said to be A Just or righteous man So the holy Ghost speaks of Joseph the betrothed Husband of the Blessed Virgin that being a Just man he was not willing to make her an example but was minded to put her away privily though he found her with child between the time of her Espousal and the time appointed for her marriage yet not with child by himself Now so long as he was ignorant that she had conceived by virtue of the Holy Ghost it had been no injustice but rather a branch of Legal Justice to have made her an example to have had her severely punished for so the Law of God in this Case as he yet understood the Case did not only permit but seemed to require And to present a fact punishable by the Law of God is alwayes lawful and just Yet this was no part of that Justice or righteousness which the Holy Ghost commends in Joseph when he saith he was a just man To be Iust then in his Dialect in this Case was to be A loving a friendly and favourable man And if the Romish Church would take Righteousnesse in the same sense in those places wherein it is said that he shall reward the Saints as a righteous Iudge and crown them with Glory their Conceit of merit could find no supportance from those Testimonies of Scriptures which they most alledge for it But To the former place in the Epistle to the Hebrews it is further to be noted That our Apostle doth not say there though it be most true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The God you have to deal withall you cannot say is not just but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is not unjust As there is a great difference between not worthy and unworthy so is there betwixt not Iust and unjust When our Apostle denies God to be unjust this Negative is Infinite and doth include all other branches of Gods Goodness besides that Justice by which he renders to every man his due It specially importeth in our Apostles meaning his favour or loving kindnesse or his unwillingness to take the advantages of Law or strict Justice against these Hebrews or a willingness not so much to remember their present misdeeds or back-slidings in his Justice as to remember their former works which
were much better then their present in mercie favour and loving kindnesse 5. But whilst they thus contend for the merit of works done by Grace do they not derogate from the merits of Christ who is the only fountain of all Grace We say They do But They Reply They do not but rather magnifie the merits of Christ more then we do who deny the merits of Saints For Christ as they alledge did not only merit Grace for us but this also that we by Grace might truly Merit Now grace itself and the merit of grace is a more Magnificent Effect of Christs Merits then grace alone Here is a Double Effect of Christs Merits by their Doctrine whereas we admit but a single One. Thus they reply But if the One of those two effects which they imagine or conceive doth derogate more in true construction from the merits of Christ then the supposal or admission of it can add unto them We attribute more unto his merits by the admission of One single Effect only to wit meer grace then they do by acknowledgment of Two to wit grace it self and the merit of grace in us But the more we are to merit by grace for our selves the less measure of merit we leave unto Christ For as that which he merited for us is not ours but his so that which we merit for ourselves is not His but Ours The merit of grace supposeth a Fulnesse or Fountain of grace and Fountain of grace there is no other but Christ himself nor is there any Fulness of grace but in him only For of his fulnesse as the Evangelist saith Iohn 1. 16. we all have received grace for grace that is grace upon Grace Every degree or greater measure of Grace which we receive doth flow alike immediatly from the fulness of this inexhaustible Fountain of Grace without any secondary Fountain or Feeders Grace doth not grow in us as Rivers do which although they have one main spring or fountain yet they grow not to any greatness without the help of secondary Fountains or concurrence of many springs or feeders Grace doth so immediatly come from Christ as the Rivers do from the sea Increase of Grace doth come as immediatly from Christ as the increase of Rivers from rain or as the increase of light in the waxing Moon comes from the Sun 6. The state of this Question concerning The merits of works comes to the same issue with that other Great question concering Justification As whether it be by faith alone or by faith and works The Romish Church grants that we are justified by faith in Christs blood or merits Tanquam per Causam efficientem as by a true efficient Cause seeing all the Grace which we first receive is bestowed upon us for Christs sake But they hold withall that it is the Grace which for Christs sake is bestowed upon us by which we are formally justified that is As water poured into a vessel doth immediatly expell the air which was in it before so the infusion of Grace for the merits of Christ doth expell sin whether Original or actuall out of our souls And this in their Language is The remission of sins for the attaining whereof There needs no imputation of Christs righteousness after Grace be once infused The formall Cause of every thing requires some efficient or Agent for the production or resultance of it but being once produced or existent it excludes the interposition or intervention of any other Cause whatsoever for the production or existence of its formall Effect To produce heat in the water it is impossible without the Agency or Efficiency of fire but the water being made scalding hot by the heat of fire will heat or scald the flesh of of man or other living creature although it be removed from the fire although it work only in its own strength or of the heat inherent in it Thus say the Romanists that grace cannot be produced in us but by the vertue and efficiency of Christs merits but being by them once produced it doth justifie us immediatly by the strength and vertue of it inherent in us and by the same strength and vertue working in us it doth produce its formall effect to wit the increase of grace and lastly eternal life But if this Doctrine of theirs so far as it concerns Justification or the Remission of sins were true then this inconvenience as I have elsewhere shewed would necessarily follow That no man already after this manner justified could say or repeat that Petition in our Lords Prayer Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespasse against us without a mockerie of God or Christ For if our sins be formally remitted by the infusion of grace and if by the infusion of the same grace we be formally justified the only true meaning of this Petition is in true Resolution This Lord makes us such or remit our sins after such a manner that we shall not stand in need of thy remission or forgivenss of them or that we shall not stand in need of the mediation of thine only Son For if they be remitted immediatly by grace so long as this grace endures all mediation is superfluous is impossible This Inconvenience is farther improved by the same Doctrine so far as it concerns the merits of works done in charitie And prophanes those Two other Petitions in the same our Lords Prayer Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven no lesse then their Doctrine of Justification doth that Petition Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespasse against us For if works done by grace or charitie could truly merit eternal life the effect of all the three Petitions should be but this Lord let thy Kingdom of Grace so come unto us Lord let thy will be so done by us here on earth that as we have been long debters unto thee for giving thine only Son to die for our sins and for the purchasing of the First Grace unto us so let us by this grace be inabled to make both Thee and Him debters to us by the merit of this grace and debters in no meaner a sum then the retribution or payment of Eternal Life For if that life can be merited by our works then God doth owe it unto us for our works And if it be due unto us by merit or by debt then it is not as our Apostle hath it in this 23. verse the gift of God or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Original hath it the Grace of God The Apostle might as well have said that Eternal Life was as truly the wages of our righteousness as death is the wages of our sin And so the best Scholars in the Romish Church do grant he might have said What then is the Reason why he did not say so Of this they give us This Reason Inasmuch say they as the First grace by which we merit the Kingdom of heaven is
nature Now any Symptom or Branch of pride or vain-glory is less deadly then the Root of Pride vain-glory or pharisaical hypocrisie Far be it from any of us to think that the like sin committed by a man regenerate doth not deserve worse at Gods hands then if it had been committed by an unregenerate or meer natural man because he thinks himself to be of the number of the Elect For if this sin or transgression be for Substance the same the Circumstances make it a great deal worse in a regenerate then in a meer natural man That saying of the heathen Satyrist or Censurer of ill manners holds as true in Divinitie as in Morality Omne animi vitium tanto conspectius in se Crimen habet quanto major qui peccat habetur The crime or fault is so much the greater by how much the partie offending is in his own esteem or others better qualified 12. From what Original is it then that the righteous Judge doth oft-times lesse punish the sins of men which have lived a godly life then he doth the like sins in men not as yet regenerate or in men that have been altogether barren of good works The true Resolution of this Probleme or Question must be taken from that general rule or Maxime That God will render to every man according to all his wayes either in Justice or in mercy Now albeit God alwayes punish the ungodly in this life Citra condignum in lesse measure then they deserve because his mercy and long suffering inhibits the execution of his punitive justice yet he alwayes rewards the good works which we do Ultra condignum far above their deservings for albeit the best works which we can do deserve no reward at all yet his infinite goodness will not suffer the least good works which we do to go without his Reward Rewarded we shall be either with some Positive Blessing or with the Mitigation of some punishment which our evil works had justly deserved From this Original it is that albeit the bad works of men regenerate or endowed with grace do weigh heavier in the scale of Gods Justice then the like works of men unregenerate do yet they do not sway so much because whiles he weighes the bad works of men regenerate in the scale of his justice he weighes the good works which they have formerly done in the scale of his mercy and bounty But as for such as have lived a lewd and godless life and have made themselves unworthy of his mercy their grosser sins are weighed in the scale of his Justice without a Counterpoize and therefore do sway the further and nearer towards hell albeit for their nature and quality they be not more heynous then some offences of the regenerate So that God is no Accepter of persons albeit in this life he punisheth the same sin more grievously in one then in another for this he doth not with any respect unto their persons but with respect unto his own mercy whereof the one sort are Capable the other are altogether unworthy And this was the true meaning of our Apostle and the ground of his Hope or good perswasion of these Hebrews Chap. 6. ver 9 10. But we are perswaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation For God is not unrighteous to forget your works and labour of love which ye have shewed towards his name in that ye have Ministred to the Saints and do Minister CHAP. XXIX ROMANS 6. 23. But the Gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Three Points 1. Eternal Life the most Free Gift of God both in Respect of The Donor and of The Donee 2. Yet doth not the Soveraign Freeness of the Gift exclude all Qualifications in the Donees rather requires better in them then others which exclude it or themselves from it Whether the Kingdom of Heaven was prepared for all or for a certain number 3. The first Qualification for Grace is to become as little children A parallel of the conditions of Infants and of Christians truely humble and meek 1. THe Points remaining to be handled are Three The First is in part touched before That Eternal Life is nor only The gift of God or as the Vulgar renders the Original Gratia Dei but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The gift of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is as if you would say The Gift of Gifts the greatest Gift and the Freest Gift that God hath to bestow on mankind for in or through Christ Jesus our Lord. The second that The Absolute Freedom or graciousness of this Gift doth not exclude all Qualifications of works or inclinations to good works but only confidence in works The third is The Qualification required in all such as hope to receive this Gift or The manner how they are to work out their own salvation that they may be capable or at least not Totally uncapable of this free gift To the first That Eternal Life is the Gift of Gifts or the most free or Gracious Gift that God hath to bestow on man may be easily proved from the Conditions required in a Free Gift And These are Two The first respects the estate or condition of the Donor as that he be not tied by any necessitie either natural moral or politick to bestow his benevolence The second condition respects the Donee And it is Absentia if not Carentia meriti Being without if not a want of desert or merit In both respects Life Eternal is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The most excellent and most undeserved Gift that can be given That it is freely given without any constraint or Tie of necessity is clear For no operations of the most Holy and Blessed Trinitie besides the Eternal Generation of the Son of God and the Eternal Procession of the Holy Ghost have any Natural necessitie in them These be operations of the Divine nature all extraneous things are works of Gods divine will and pleasure God who worketh all things worketh all things else according to the Counsel of his Will that is he so worketh them he so preserveth and ordereth them as it was free for him from eternity not to make them not to preserve them not so to order them as he doth He was when the world was not and might so have continued And this clearly evinceth that there was no Natural necessitie why he should create the world or any thing in it for so the world should have been as he is eternal without beginning Nor was there any Moral necessity that he should create the world or man or Angel for none could have impeached him of injustice or unkindness or of other transgression of any Law or Rule if he had never given them such Being as they have Nor was there any Politick necessitie that he should create the world or man or Angel in whose creation he had no respect to any private end he gained nothing by their Being the best
of them are but Unprofitable servants 2. It was free then for God to create or not to create man but as it was his pleasure to create him so it was necessary that man being created by him he should be created good and righteous Suppose then the First man had continued in his First Estate that is righteous and good his righteousness could have merited nothing of God much lesse Eternal Life It was as free to God to have annihilated him or to have resolved him into nothing as it was to make him of nothing Indeed to have punished him with everlasting death unlesse he had wilfully and through his own default lost his Orginal righteousness could not have stood with the righteousness or goodness of God There was a morall necessity that his Creator should not punish him with everlasting death unlesse he had transgressed his Law and made himself unworthy of everlasting life But the First Man did wilfully and freely that is without any necessity transgresse the Law of his God and make himself and his posteritie unworthy of eternal life That God upon this transgression did not instantly punish him with everlasting death this was An Act of the Free Grace and mercy of God thus he might have done without any impeachment to his Justice without any disparagement to his Goodnesse That unto man thus ill deserving he made A Promise of Redemption and of Restitution to a better Estate then he lost this was An Act of his Mercie and gracious goodness a more Free Act then his first Creation For that was not deserved and therefore Free But not so Free as the Promise of his Redemption after he had justly deserved the contrary to wit condemnation unto everlasting death But this Promise of Redemption through the Womans Seed being freely made is not the performance of it on Gods part necessary Is he not bound by promise to bestow his Grace on all them to whom he promised Redemption Though he be Debter unto no man yet he is Faithful in himself and cannot deny himself or not perform what he hath promised It is true if the parties to whom he promiseth do so demean themselves as they should or as by the Second Covenant they stand bound But who is he can make this Plea with God Who is he that can truly say there was any necessity at that time when the promise was made to our first Parents in the Womans Seed that he should be begotten or born or that he was such a child of promise from the time of Adams Fall as Isaac was And if there were no necessity then that he should be born what necessity is there that he should be partaker of Grace after he is born Or what necessity is there that after the Grace of Baptism received he should come to be of the number of the Elect No man can plead any worth or merit in himself for the receiving of Grace or any necessity whereby God is tyed by promise or otherwise to bestow Grace or perseverance in Grace upon him in particular These and the like Favours must still be sought for by the Prayer of Faith that is by unfeigned acknowledgement of our own unworthinesse and of Gods Free Mercie not only in making the First Decree concerning mans Redemption but in continual dispensing the Effects of the same Decree or the means of our Salvation This is the only way To lay hold upon the General Promise 3. It was no Contradiction in Cardinal Bellarmine as some conceive it after he had strongly disputed for Merit of Works thus to conclude Tutissimum est It is the safest way to place our Confidence in the Merits of Christ This Resolution of his will truly inferre that albeit the Question concerning Merits were doubtful yet we Protestants take the more useful and safer way and the way which Cardinal Bellarmine himself in his Devotions and as I hope on his death bed did take Yet admit his Doctrine concerning Merits had been true indefinitely taken There had been no Contradiction between his Premisses and Conclusion For many things which are unquestionable in Thesi or in the General are doubtful or vncertain in Hypothesi when we come to make particular Application This Doctrine is most true in Thesi That God is faithful in all his promises that he cannot deny himself or falsifie his promise Yet is it not safe for Thee or Me thus to infer that God cannot deny eternal life to us in particular because he hath promised it as sincerely to Thee or Me as to any others The absolute and unchangeable Fidelity of God will not inferre how strongly soever we believe it That either Thou or I are faithful for the present or shall continue faithfull unto the End or until our finall victory over the divel the world and the flesh which is the True Importance of this Phrase To the End in many places of Scripture Now Gods promise of eternal Life is not immediately terminated To any mans Person or Individual Entity but unto such as continue faithful unto the End or unto such as overcome as you may observe in many places of Scripture especially in the second and third Chapters of The Revelation of St. John Now it is a great deal more easie for a man to assure himself that he is faithful for the present or victorious in respect of instant temptations then to assure himself that he shall continue victorious in respect of temptations that may befal him And yet in respect of the deceitfulness of our own hearts it is not safe for most men to make it as an Article of their Faith or point of Absolute Belief that they are so faithful for the present as that God cannot deny Eternal Life unto them though not in respect of their Merits yet in respect of his Promise if they should instantly depart this life So that such as have as full and perfect Interest in the Promises of God as others have may forfeit their Interest as well by Immature Perswasions or Presumptions that they are of the number of the Elect as by conceit of Merit or Confidence in works Both perswasions are dangerous because both prejudice the Free Mercie and Grace of God in bestowing eternal Life or in dispensing the means required unto it The Romish Church saith it was Free for God to give us Grace or ability to do the works of Grace or not to give it but this Grace being Freely given and the works performed it is not Free but Necessary in respect of Gods Justice to give eternal Life as the Reward of Works Others opposite enough to the Papists say that it was Free for God to Elect or not to Elect us unto eternal Life but being Elected it is not Free for God to deny eternal Life unto us For this in their language were to deny himself or falsifie his promise Yet by their leave If we were thus Elected from Eternity it was never Free
in men of years and discretion Though with some abatement or allowance it holds in such as are converted to Christ upon their death beds These must apprehend Gods mercies in Christ resolve to do Good Works and leave testimonie of sorrow for their past negligence in doing Good Works For in such as are endued with knowledge of Christ and are enlightned to see their miserable estate by nature the self same Faith which apprehends Gods mercies in Christ cannot be idle it will be working that which is Good and acceptable in the sight of God In vain it it shall be for them to sue for mercie at Gods hands through the Merits of Christ unless for love to Christ whose Merits for them and Goodness towards them Faith apprehends they be ready to do the works which he hath commended unto them For as you heard before not every one that saith unto him Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of his Father which is in Heaven and his Fathers Will is that we do those things which he here commands But another special Branch of the same Will is That when we have done all this we faithfully acknowledge our selves to be unprofitable servants This our Plea for mercie as men altogether unworthy for our best Works sake to be partaker of Gods Goodness or of everlasting bliss is that justification which St. Paul so much insists upon in most of his Epistles and unto This Justification that is to our good success in making this Plea Good works are necessary and usually Precedent or as it is usually taught by Good writers Good works are necessary quoad presentiam to justification non quoad efficientiam Their presence is necessarie to Justification their Efficacy or efficiencie is not necessary for as you have heard before and shall afterwards Chap. 31. hear meritorious efficiencie they have none 7. But let us ever remember as I often put the Reader in mind when it is said VVe must renounce all our works in the Plea of Iustification or suite of Pardon for our sins This must be understood Of those good Works which we have done not of those which we have left undone For these are not ours These the Hypocrites and unbeleevers will be ready to renonnce He alone truly renounceth his Works that doth Good Works and yet when he hath done them puts no trust or confidence in them and seeks not to improve them so far as to make them meritorious but wholly relies upon Gods mercies in Christ appealing from the Law unto the Gospel Nor is it every sort of Relyance upon Gods mercies in Christ but A faithful and stedfast relyance that can avail and no man can faithfully rely upon Christs merits but he that is faithful in doing his Fathers VVill. 8. But is this Necessitie of good Works to be equally extended to all sorts of Good works So saith Saint James Chap. 2. 10 11. VVhosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point he is guiltie of all for he that said do not commit adulterie said also do not kill Now if thou commit no adulterie yet if thou kill thou art become a transgressor of the Law His meaning is That albeit we are diligent in many points of Gods service yet if we wittingly dispense with our souls in other parts of it this is an Argument that we Truly and faithfully observe no part For if we did observe Any part of his Commandments out of Faith or sincere obedience to Gods Will we would observe as much as in us lies every branch of his Will revealed For as true Faith will not admit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Respects of Persons which was the fault in the beginning of that Chapter taxed by St. Iames and gave occasion to the Maxim or principle in the words last cited so doth it exclude all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Partialitie to Gods Commandments or branches of His Will revealed If we love and prize one we must love and value all We may not love and respect One and neglect another This is the true intent and meaning of the Apostle which some to the wounding of their brethrens weak consciences have extended too far who say expresly or at least are so defective in expressing themselves as they occasion others to think That if a man either positively or more grievously transgress in breach of Gods Negative Precepts or often fail in performance of some Positive Duties commanded by him it is all one as if he had transgressed all Gods Commandments This is more then can be gathered from St. James in this place or from any other part of Gods word which only condemnes Partialitie to Gods Commandments Now a man may trespass oftner and more grievously against some one or more of Gods commandments whether Negative or Affirmative then he doth against others and yet do all this not out of any passionate affected Partialitie towards Gods Commandments or for want of uniformitie in his Faith or Affections towards Christ but only out of the Inequalitie of his own natural or acquired inclinations to some peculiar sins or vices in respect of others Some men as well before Regeneration or knowledge of Christ as after may be naturally or out of custome more prone to wantonness then unto covetousness Others again by natural disposition or bad custome may be more prone to covetousness to ambition or unadvised anger then unto wantonness Others again by bad education may be more prone to rash oathes or causless swearing then to any the former vices One sort after their regeneration or after they come to make Conscience of their wayes may offend more often and more grievously against the third Commandment then against the sixth or seventh Another sort may offend more grievously against the sixth Commandment Thou shalt not kill then against the seventh Thou shalt not commit adulterie A third sort such as are by natural disposition or custom given to wantonness may offend more grievously against the seventh Commandment then against the sixth A fourth sort more pecularly prone to covetousness or ambition may offend more grievously and more often against the last Commandment Thou shalt not covet then against any of the former And yet none of them fall under that censure of Saint James Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point he is guiltie of all For they may all respectively offend in some one part or few points not out of any Partialitie to Gods Law or Commandments but out of the Inequalitie of their particular or peculiar dispositions to observe them Their desires or endeavours to observe those duties which they more neglect may perhaps be Greater then their desires or endeavours to observe those wherein they are less defective However this may fall out Yet this Rule is certain that Whosoever truly observes any or more of Gods Commandments out of Faith and sincere obedience to his
deep touch of Pity or Compassion would raise our spirits to an higher point of service unto Christ then any relief or supply of their bodily wants can amount unto You may if you will for Christs sake be pleased to do it distribute so unto their bodily necessities as you may lay a necessity upon their souls of coming to the ordinary knowledge of Christ and of Gods mercies in him towards man You may by authority put the Precept of our Apostle in execution Such as will not work let them not eat or such as will not work the ordinary works of God that will not labor to be instructed in his fear and in his Laws let them not be partakers of your Bounty and Pity To constrain the poor the halt and lame to enter into the Lords house were a matter easie if as the Law of God and man requires none were permitted to remain amongst us but such as were confined to some certain dwelling or abode where they might live under the inspection or cure as well of Civil as of Ecclesiastick Discipline And consider with your selves I beseech you how either the Civil or Ecclesiastick Magistrate will be able to answer the great King at the last day through whose default whether joyntly or severally many children have been by Baptism received into Christs Church and yet permitted after to live such a roving and wandring life that no Tie can be laid upon them to give an account of their Faith or Christian conversation to any Church or Embassador of Christ But as Bodies while they are in motion are in no place though they pass through many so these wandering Meteors are of no Church though they be in every Church If I should in private perswade You Magistrates to seek some Redress of this Enormitie and blemish to the Government of this place I doubt I should be put off with the Exception to which I could not easily replie That you have better experience then I or others of my opinion or profession have And out of that experience see greater difficulties then we can discern But now having express warrant from our Saviour's words and this Fair opportunitie of Time and Place You must give me leave to reply unto you as an ingenuous and learned Scholar once did to a Christian Emperour which pretended greater difficulties in a good work which he commended to his Princely care then you can do in this Yet a work not all together so necessary nor so acceptable unto God as this work would be In rebus pijs aggrediendis nefas est considerare quantum tu potes sed quantum Deo fidis qui omnia potest Think not when you are about works of Pietie so much of your own Abilitie or weakness but examine how much you relie and trust in Almightie God who is able to do exceeding abundantly above what we conceive or think CHAP. XXXI MATTH 25. 34. 41. Come ye Blessed of my Father FOR I was hungry and ye gave me meat I was thirstie Go ye Cursed FOR I was an hungred and ye gave me no meat I was thirstie Jansenius his observation and disputation About merit examined and convinced of contradiction to it self and to the Truth The definition of Merit The State of the Question concerning Merit Increase of Grace no more Meritable then the First Grace A Promise made Ex mero motu sine Ratione dati et accepti cannot found a Title to Merits Such are All Gods promises Issues of Meer Grace Mercy and Bountie The Romanists of kin to the Pharisee yet indeed more to be blamed then He. The objection from the Causal Particle FOR made and answered 1. AGainst such as denie the merit of humane works Thus much saith Jansenius an ingenuous and learned Bishop though a Papist is diligently to be observed That Christ in this place deputes this Kingdom to the righteous FOR their works sake hereby giving us to understand that Life Eternal is bestowed upon them FOR their works by which the righteous Merit Life Eternal even as the wicked by their evil works Merit everlasting punishment The only ground or reason of this Assertion is For that our Saviours Form of speech in both Sentences is the same and Causal in both As he saith unto the wicked Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire FOR I was an hungred and you gave me no meat c. ver 41 42. So he saith unto the righteous or them on his Right-hand v. 34. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you FOR I was an hungred and you gave me meat c. Yet least any man should except against him as dissenting from the Doctrine of Christ elsewhere delivered and from the Apostolick and Catholick Church By which Our salvation is ascribed to Gods Grace and mercy he adds this salve to the wound which he had made Non tamen Sic merit is nostris putetur dari vita aeterna c. Let no man think that life eternal is So bestowed upon our merits as All may not be given to the mercie of God from which we have our good works or merits He grants withal That the salvation of the Righteous depends upon Gods Blessing and Predestination upon which likewise their Good works depend Lest any should glory in himself A sin forbidden by Gods Prophet Jer. 9. ver 23. That All then is to be attributed to Gods mercie that no man may glorie in himself or in his works is true Our enemies in this Point being Judges is confessed by our Adversaries even in this place from which they seek to establish Merits And This we may conclude is A Point of Catholick Doctrine taught by Christ Prophets and Apostles stedfastly imbraced by all Reformed Churches and expresly in words acknowledged by the Romish Church With this Point of Catholick Faith we mingle no Doctrine no Opinion which may but questionably pollute or defile it We avoid all occasions of incurring the least suspition of contradicting it and for this cause We abandon the very name of Merit as now it is used or rather abused by the Romish Church Although in some Ages of the Church it were an indifferent and harmlesse Term Mereri importing no more as was shewed Chapter 27. then to Get or Obtain But Merit in the language of the modern Romish Church Est actio cuijustum est ut aliquid detur is An action or work to which something or any thing is due by Rule of Justice Yet doth the Romish Church not only Enjoyn the Use or Familiarity of this Name in this Sense or signification but Require the Assent of Faith unto the Reality Expressed by it 2. The Points then which lie upon that Church to prove if she will acquit her self from polluting the holy Catholick Faith are Two The One That this Doctrine of meriting heaven by works doth not contradict the former part of Catholick doctrine acknowledged by her to wit that
children were taught amiss to know the nature of God or of his Enemy by vulgar Pictures or Representations For so the fashion was long before and continued till his time to picture God or the blessed Trinity in some fair and beautiful form and to paint the divel in some foul loathsom or ugly shape And this good Writer to correct their error well admonished as well the parents as their children That if they would learn to know what God was they must first be taught to know what Goodness is what Justice is what Mercy is what Bounty or loving kindness is And if they desire to know what maner of creature the divel is who is the chief enemy of God they should first be taught to know what malice is what filthiness is what loathsomness is what villany or treachery is For Satan is but a Compost of these or an extract of all that children or their parents acknowledge for evil Howbeit if either children or parents could be taught to know what Iustice is what Mercy is what loving kindness is or if they could be taught to know that God is what all these are even Iustice it self even mercy it self loving kindness it self wisdom it self or Wisdom Justice Mercy and loving kindness it self truly infinite yet his wisdom his mercy and loving kindness would be to us incomprehensible unapprehensible even in that these Attributes in him are infinite We could have no true or lively apprehension either speculative to inform our understandings what were good and ought to be followed or moral to enable and qualifie our hearts and affections to imitate or express that patern of goodness or so much of it as we apprehend in God if we should look upon these Attributes as they are in God the Father only or in the Divine nature But as he that cannot look upon the Sun in its strength or brightness or at the noon day may take the model of it in the water or in the Moon at full So we that cannot behold the glory of Divine Majesty in the Godhead may safely behold the Map or Model of his incomprehensible Goodness in the Man Christ Iesus All His actions and endeavors were with such wisdom set and bent upon mercy on goodness on loving kindness that every one which saw and duly considered his maner and course of life here on Earth might collect that he truly was as himself avouched more then the Son of man the very Son of God himself who is good and gracious to all For Christ as Man went about doing good to all doing hurt to none Now as the Son of Syrach saith Ecclus. 22. 3. That an evil son is the dishonor of his father So it will follow by the Rule of Contraries That a wise or good son is the honor of his father So Solomon hath said in express terms Prov. 10. 1. A wise son maketh a glad father but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother Now Christ as we know is called The Wisdom of the onely wise immortal God his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased And well pleased with him he is for that he is the honor of his Father And as Christ by confessing God and by real expression of his Goodness in his life and actions did truly glorifie his Father as he himself expresly avoucheth John 17. So all that really confess Christ to be the Lord that is all which throughly express the Map or Model of his Goodness in their lives and conversations do truly glorifie God the Father 9. Briefly then Every tongue truly and rightly confesseth Christ to be the Lord that observes his Commandments or that observes the Commandments of God more strictly and more religiously then others do who although they profess they honor God yet do not honor him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ or do not honor Jesus Christ as his only Son This is that special Will of the Father which is in heaven and that which must be done by all which mean to enter into Heaven that every one which honoreth the Father should also honor the Son Joh. 5. 23. Honor the Son they must not in words or title only but by performance of real Service Every one that thus honoreth the Son doth hereby glorifie God the Father Hence saith our Savior Matth. 5. 16. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven And again Ioh. 15. 1. Our Savior compares himself to the Vine and his Father unto a Husbandman which expects the fruit of his vineyard So that the end why the Son of God did descend from heaven why he was planted and took root here on earth was that the sons of Adam or Abraham might be ingrafted in him and the End of our ingrafting in him was that we might bring forth fruit unto his Father But What comfort is it to have Christ Our Lord if by Allegeance to him we be more strictly bound to do the will of God then those which do not acknowledge Him their Lord I Answer 1. It is a credit by consent of Nations and repute of men naturally wise if not A Real Comfort to have him Our Lord who governs his people by the most excellent and equitable Laws Such were those which the Son of God gave the Jews What are these now refined in the Gospel All men naturally desire happiness As by those Laws God directed the Jews so by these he disciplines Us for our Good seeking occasion or Title in our obedience to exercise his bounty by rewarding us for doing good to our selves and others at his command He that sins against the laws of Christ doth it in Sui damnum sins against his own soul and by straying from them goes out of that way which only can lead him to the happiness he desireth 2. It is comfort that our Lord rules not with rigor but masters his Dominion with Equity Novit figmentum nostrum having Himself been compassed with the infirmities of mans nature all but such as did proceed from sin or lead unto sin he can by acquaintance and experience of them tell both how willing the spirit and how weak the flesh of miserable Mortals be and ready is he to give allowance accordingly But Thirdly Here is comfort indeed That as JESUS CHRIST the Righteous is our Lord so He is The Lord our Righteousness so is He our Sollicitor our Advocate our most compassionate High-Priest who ex officio negotiates on our behalf by mediation and intercession with the Father for pardon of all our transgressions negligences ignorances both of all sins committed and duties omitted or performed untowardly and amiss He made One Propitiation by his death and he lives for ever to make intercession for us Yea so gracious is This our Lord that he seems in a manner during this Acceptable Day or time of Grace to lay aside The Title
when occasion or exigences of time require it should be This Qualification includes somewhat more or somewhat besides Poornesse in spirit or humility or patience in mourning Meeknesse is a moderation of anger in some special Cases such a Temper as our Saviour requires in his Followers when he commands them to turn the right cheek to him that smites them on the left and to be willing to redeem their peace with a troublesome neighbor that would take away the coat though it be with the losse of the cloak also Now this kind of Temper exposeth men to many kinds of Inconveniences hard to be digested by flesh and blood Many otherwise humble and ingenuous when they are toucht as we say in their Coppp-hold or in their inheritance will take courage and boldness sometimes more then were fitting though necessarie if they be resolved to defend their own without respect to the occasions or exigences of time For facies hominis in causa propriatanquam facies Leonis A mans face or presence in his own cause is as the face of a Lyon And he that cannot take his own part in his own cause and set the best Foot forwards may easily be turned out of house and home And yet there is no true Disciple of Christ but must expect to have his patience exercised in this kind to be injuriously vexed and molested by Others for that which is not Theirs Now he that in this Case will not vex or molest others again nor himself he is truly meek and unto men thus qualified or to encourage all to be thus qualified the Blessednesse of the life to come is promised not under the Title of a Kingdom or of Comfort but under the Title most contrary to the course and custom of this world wherein Meeknesse is commonly Accursed with loss of their own possession But Blessed saith our Saviour are the meek for they shall inherit or possesse the earth or the Land even that good Land where there is no Ejection no dis-inheriting of such as are possessed of it and therefore are the meek blessed because Meeknesse or quietnesse is the Way or Title to get Possession thereof 9. But the poor in spirit may have more honor then they can desire so may such as mourn have as much Comfort and the meek as large and durable an Inheritance as their hearts could wish But if this were all they could not be satisfied Every one of these have in this life their several Thirsts or Longings As he that mourns thirsts after Comfort the poor in spirit and the meek hunger and thirst after their Contentment in some kind or other But without all hope of satisfaction unlesse they hunger and thirst after somewhat else besides these particular contentments Man in his first estate was created righteous and unlesse there be a longing after that Righteousnesse which our first Parents lost whatsoever we gain or get besides cannot satisfie our desire either In Re or In Spe. Hence saith our Savior in the Fourth place Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousnesse for they shall be satisfied There is a thirst after honor preferment and ease and there is Auri sacra fames an unquenchable hunger after gold and Pelf but this cannot be satisfied all these are tortures to the soul wherein they harbour For though honour be Gods though gold and silver as the Prophet speaks be his yet he is not these these are not the same that He is but as we said lately God is righteousness He is Peace He is Love He is mercy and therefore whosoever delights in these he truely delights in the Lord and shall assuredly have his hearts desire he only shall be satisfied 10. But no man in this life doth or can delight in these works as he ought the most righteous man that ever lived on earth if God should enter into Judgement with him could not be absolved from the sentence of the Law and so long as he stands unabsolved or uncertain of his Absolution he cannot be satisfied he cannot have his hearts desire he alwayes stands in need of mercy And mercy he shall have that is merciful For it is Remarkable that this qualification of mercifulness is the only qualification or condition which is rewarded in kind in this we most perfectly resemble the goodness of God Hence saith our Saviour Blessed are the merciful But why are they blessed Not because they shall receive a Kingdom not because they shall possesse the Land not because they shall be satisfied but because they shall obtain mercy Without the exceeding mercy of God no man can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven neither into the Kingdom of Grace in this life nor into the Kingdom of Glory in the life to come and he that means to enter in at the Gate of mercy must bring his Ticket or rather his * Counter-part indented with him he must be merciful as his heavenly Father is mercifull otherwise he shall be excluded Righteousness towards God if it were possible to be severed from mercy towards man could not suffice 11. But that which comes nearest to true blesledness it self is Puritie of heart This contains the Root whereof Holiness is the fruit that Holiness whose End is Everlasting life Now he that desires to keep this puritie of heart must deprive his eyes of many pleasant sights and his ears of many delightful sounds and every sense of those particular contentments wherein the world most delighteth But in lieu of this loss he hath A blessing promised not only of this life but of the life to come In the life to come he shall see God as he is face to face and in this life he shall see him as through a glass and so he shall see him in his Word and in his Attributes And the best knowledge that in this life can be had The knowledge of God and of his Attributes without transforming the Divine nature into the similitude of our corrupt affections is To see his righteousnes and Justice without derogation from his Mercy or Goodness or to see him to be goodness it self and mercy it self without any diminution of his Justice To see his gracious and peculiar favour towards some without suspition or imagination of rigour or crueltie towards others To know him to be love it self without admixture of hatred towards any thing that he hath made 12. It is this sight of God or this apprehension of this uniformity be-between his Attributes which must transform us into such a similitude of his divine nature as in this life can be had that is such as may make us the children of peace This is the immediat fruit of purity of heart And unto men thus disposed to preserve peace as for their own particulars and to make peace between such as are at variance the blessedness of the life to come could not be promised under a more grateful Title then under the style
experience of did acknowledge as much as hath been formerly delivered out of Gods word to wit That men are usually misdrawn to do those things in particular which in general they desired not to do and to leave those things undone which in the calm of composed affections they desired to do either by the hope of some bodily pleasures or by fear of some bodily pain And unto this two-fold inconvenience he prescribed this brief Receipt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That men in youth especially should accustome themselves to abstinence and sufferance to abstinence from evil and to sufferance of evil that is unto abstinence from unlawful pleasures which we call Malum culpae or Evil of Sin and to endure with patience malum poenae the evil of pain or of some loss rather then hazard The quiet of Conscience by doing that which is evil or unlawful or by not doing that which is good specially when we are thereto required But this brief receipt or diet of the Soul without some other addition will rather serve to condemn us Christians then enable us to live a true and Christian life The Receipt though is good in the General but defective in these Particulars First Unless he knew more of Gods Will or of the mysteries of Christian Religion then we know any means by which he could possibly know either being an Heathen he was ignorant of many evils from which he was bound to abstain and altogether as ignorant what those good things were for whose love he was to suffer malum poenae the evil of pain loss or grievance rather then disclaim them Secondly Albeit he had known what was to be done what to be left undone yet being ignorant of this main Article of Christianity to wit of A Life everlasting which is the reward of well-doing the Crown of Holiness and of an everlasting Death which is the wages of sin and issue of unlawful pleasures His Receipt of Sustine Abstine was altogether as fruitless and vain as if a Physician should prescribe a Dosis or Recipe to his Patient of such Simples or compounded Medicines as cannot be had in this part of the world but must be sought for at the East or West-Indies or at the Antipodes whence there is no hope they can be brought before the Patient be laid in his Grave The Medicine which he prescribes is no where to be found but in the Word of God The Simples whereof it is compounded can grow from no other root or branch then from The Articles of everlasting Life and everlasting death The Belief of the One is the root of Abstinence from sinful or unlawful Pleasures The Belief of the other is the root of Patience or sufferance of malum Poenae or of sufferance for well-doing Howbeit to speak exactly both parts of his Receipt may be had from the Belief either of Everlasting Life or Everlasting Death but most compleatly from the belief of both The manner how thence they may be gathered is expressed by our Apostle St. Paul Rom. 8. 16. c. The Spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God And if children then heirs heirs of God and joynt heirs with Christ if we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together for I reckon that the suffrings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us c. 2. If all the sufferings of this life be not worthy of the glory which shall be revealed in us as the Rule of Faith teacheth us then conscience and reason it self bindes us to suffer all the Persecutions or Grievances which can be laid upon us rather then hazard our hopes or forfeit our Interests in the Glory that shall be revealed in all such as with patience suffer persecution or other temporal loss or detriment for the truths sake And this hope of Glory is as the Root whence Christian patience or sufferance must grow So is the fear of everlasting Death the root of our abstinence from evil or of repentance for former want of this abstinence This is the same Apostles Doctrine 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men To what doth he perswade men To do those things which are good and which being done shall be rewarded not in Judgement but in mercy and loving kindness Those things by which we shall be reconciled unto God But were not these Corinthians reconciled to God before our Apostle thus perswaded them Yes so saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 18. God hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ And when our Apostle and those to whom he wrote were reconciled unto God through Jesus Christ we that are now living were by the same means reconciled unto God For God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself Now if the world that is not this or that man not this or that generation of men but all generations the world of mankind were reconciled unto God when our Apostle wrote this Epistle yea when Christ offered himself upon the Crosse what need is there of any further reconciliation For that which God doth he doth most perfectly most compleatly 3. It is true Our reconciliation was most perfectly most compleatly wrought on Gods part by Christs death upon the Crosse he payed the full price of our Redemption of our reconciliation nothing may or can be added thereto Yet A Reconciliation there is to be wrought on our parts though wrought it cannot be but by the spirit of God and wrought it is not ordinarily but by the ministry of men as Gods Deputies or Embassadors So the Apostle adds ver 19. God hath committed to us to wit his Ministers the word of reconciliation Now then we are Embassadors for Christ as though Christ did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God So then God hath reconciled us all unto himself from the hour of Christs death and yet every one of us for his own particular must be reconciled to God by the Ministry of his Embassadors And the efficacy of their Ministry is demonstrated by working true repentance in us The means again by which they work this true repentance must be by representing the Terrour of the Lord or as our Apostle saith Act. 17. 30. by putting them in mind of the last and dreadful day The times of this ignorance to wit of the old world before Christs death God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead Thus
in the instruments of the same senses and so it shall be in every other particular sense or faculty wherein sin hath lodged or exercised his dominion The hint of this general Rule or doctrine is given unto us by our Saviour in the Parable of the rich Glutton the principal crime wherewith he is expresly taxed was his too much pampering of the sense of tast without compassion of his poor brother whom he suffered to die for hunger And the only punishment which is expressed by our Saviour is the scorching heat of his tongue which is the Instrument of taste and his unquenchable thirst without so much hope of comfort as a drop of cold water could afford him though this comfort were earnestly begged at the hands or rather at the finger of Abraham who in his life time had been open-handed unto the poor a man full of bounty mercie and pitie But these are works which follow such as practise them here on earth into heaven they extend not themselves unto such as are shut up in that everlasting prison which is under the earth CHAP. XXIV ROMANS 6. 23. The wages of Sin is Death But the Gift of God is Eternal Life through Iesus Christ our Lord. The Body of Death being proportioned to the Body of Sin Christian meditation must applie part to part but by Rule and in Season The Dregs or Reliques of Sin be The sting of Conscience and This is a Prognostick of the Worm of Conscience which is chief part of the Second Death Directions how to make right use of The fear of the Second Death without falling into despere and of the Hope of Life eternal without mounting into presumption viz. Beware 1. Of immature perswasions of Certaintie in Salvation 2. Of this Opinion That all men be at all times either in the Estate of the Elect or Reprobates 3. Of the Irrespective Decree of Absolute Reprobation The use of the Tast of Death and pleasures The Turkish use of Both. How Christians may get a Relish of Joy Eternal by peace of Conscience Joy in the Holy Ghost and works of Righteousness Affliction useful to that purpose 1. SEeing the Body of the Second Death is in every part proportionable to the Body of Sin which not mortified doth procure it The Art of Meditation upon the one branch of this Great Article viz. Everlasting Death must be thus assisted or deduced First By right fitting or suiting the several members or branches of the Second Death unto the several members of the Body of sin The force or efficacie of this Medicine depends especially upon the right Application of it And the right Application consists in counterpoizing our hopes or desires of unlawful pleasures with the just fear of sutable Evils Now as the fear of those evils whereof we have a distinct or comprehensive notion hath more weight or force upon our affections then the fear of evils far greater in themselves but of which we have only an indistinct confused or general notion such as a man blind from his birth may have of colours which in the general he knows to be sensible qualities but what kind of qualities in the particular he cannot know So of those evils whereof we have a specifical or distinct notion those have the greatest sway upon our several corrupt affections which are most directly contrary to our particular delights or pleasures which accompany the exercise or motions of the same affections So as the chief if not the only means to mortifie the several members of the old man or body of sin is to plant the fear of those particular evils in the same sense or faculty by whose peculiar delights or pleasures we find our selves to be most usually withdrawn from the wayes of life For the fear of any evil distinctly known though in it self more weighty doth not so directly or fully countersway any delight or pleasure unless it be seated in the same particular subject with it and move upon the same Center Curiosity of the eye is not so easily tamed with any other fear as with fear of blindness Lust or delight in the pleasures of the flesh are not so forcibly restrained by any other fear as by fear of some loathsome disease or grievous pain incident to the Instruments or Organs of such pleasures Pride and Ambition stand not in so much awe of any other punishment as of shame dis-grace or dis-respect 2. But how good soever the Medicine be it is either dangerous or unuseful unless it be applied in due season The same Physick hath contrary effects upon a full and a fasting stomack And as a great part of the Art of Husbandry consists in the observation of times and seasons wherein to sow or plant So a great part of this divine Art of Meditation depends upon our knowledge or observance of opportunities best fitting the plantation of this fear of particular evils which must countersway our inclinations to particular pleasures This must be attempted as we say in cold blood and in the Calm of our affections or in the absence of strong temptations which scarce admit of any other Medicine or restraint save only flying to the Force of Prayer It was a wise Caveat of an heathen that as often as well call those pleasures or delights of the body or sense whereof we have had any former experience to mind we should not look upon them as they did present themselves or came towards us for their face or countenance is pleasant and inticing But if we diligently observe them in their passage from us they are ugly and loathsom and alwayes leave their sting behind them And as the several delightful Objects of every particular outward sense meet in the internal Common sense or Phantasie So the dregs or Reliques which every unlawful pleasure at his departure leaves in the sense or faculty wherein it harboured do all concur to make up the Sting of Conscience And the Sting of Conscience unless we wittingly stifle the working of it doth give the truest representation of the Second Death and makes the deepest impression of hell pains that in this life can generally be had 3. There is no man unless he be given over by God to a reprobate sense whose heart will not smite him either in the consciousness of grosser sins unto which he hath in a lower degree been accustomed or of usual sins though for the quality not so gross Now if men would suffer their Cogitations to reflect upon the regretings which alwayes accompany the accomplishments of unlawful desires as frequently and seriously as they in a manner impel them to reflect upon those inticing Objects which inflame their brests with such desires these cogitations would awake the natural Sting of Conscience and This being awakned or quickned would not suffer them to sleep any longer in their sins For the smart or feeling of the Sting of Conscience is as sensible and lively a Prognostick of the Worm which
Heaven and if those of Sardis were to walk with him in white robes Because they were Worthie The Controversie may seem Concluded That Good Works are meritorious of heavenly Ioyes or of Eternal Life 5. To the latter Objections or frame of Arguments drawn from these and the like places For I was an hungry and you gave me meat c. Calvin makes Answer That these and the like particles Quia Etenim For or Because do not alwayes import or denote The true Cause of things but sometimes only the Order or connexion betwixt them But However this may be True it is not so Punctuall but that Bellarmine and others take their advantage from it as having the Authoritie of the Grammer Rule against it For the particles used in all the places alleged by them are Conjunctions not Copulative or Connexive but Causal And it may seem harsh to say That some conjunction causal doth not import a causalitie It is true Yet sometimes they import no cause at all of the thing it self but onely of our knowledge of it Oft-times again they import no Efficacious causalitie of the thing it self but only Causam sine qua non that is some necessary means or condition without which the Prime and Principal cause doth not produce its Effect To give you examples or Instances of both these observations If there should come into This or the like Corporation A stranger who knowes not any Magistrate by sight he would say surely this is the chief Magistrate Because all others give place unto him because the Ensignes of Authoritie are carried before him Here the word Because must necessarily denote A true cause but not the cause why he is the chief Magistrate for that is only his true and just Election What cause doth it then denote The cause of his knowledge of him to be the chief Magistrate Thus when we come to the knowledge of the cause by the Effect The effect is the cause of our knowledge of the cause As others giving place unto him or the carrying of the Ensignes of Authority before him is not the cause why this or that man is the chief Magistrate for the time being but rather his being the chief Magistrate is the cause why all others give him place and why the Ensignes of Authoritie are born before him Yet these and the like Effects are the true cause or reason of a strangers knowledge of him to be the chief Magistrate And by this Rule we are to interpret that saying of our Saviour many sins are forgiven her for she loved much In which speech it may not be denied but that the Particle For imports A true cause yet no cause of the thing it self to wit of her love For this were utterly to reverse or thwart our Saviours meaning which was no other then this That the forgivenesse of her sins was the cause of her love so was not her Love the cause of the forgiveness of her sins which by our adversaries confession being of Free Grace and of the First Grace which was bestowed upon her could not be merited or deserved Howbeit the manner of expressing of her loue by washing his feet with her tears and wiping them with her hairs was The true cause of every understanding or Observant mans knowledge that many sins were forgiven her and unlesse she had an apprehension of her manifold sins thus freely forgiven her she could not have loved him so much or made such expression of her Love 6. Sometimes again this Particle For or the like causal speech imports only a subordinate or instrumental cause or A necessary means or condition required without which the Positive the Principal and only efficacious cause especially if it work freely doth not produce its intended Effect To put the case home in this present business Suppose a great and potent Prince out of his own meer motion and free grace should proclaim a pardon to an Army of Traytors and Rebels which had in Justice deserved death if a man should ask What is the cause or reason why the Law doth not proceed against them no other cause could be assigned besides the gracious favour of the Prince But if one should further ask Why the pardon being freely promised to all the principal malefactors it may be are pardoned or restored to their blood or advanced to dignities whereas others which were included in the same pardon are exiled or put to death The speech would be proper and in its kinde Truly causal if we should say the one part submitted themselves and craved allowance of their pardon whereas the other stood out and rejected it For it is to be presumed that no Prince being able to quell his rebellious adversaries will suffer any to enjoy the benefit of a General Pardon how freely soever it be granted unlesse they submit themselves unto it and crave the benefit of it with such humility as becomes malefactors or men obnoxious Much lesse will he restore any to blood or advance them to dignities whom he knowes or suspects still to continue ill affected or disloyal in heart So then the not-submission or continuance in rebellion is The true and Positive Cause why the one sort enjoy no benefit of the General Pardon but are more severely dealt withall for rejecting the princes Grace then they should have been dealt withall if no Pardon had been granted The humble submission of the other and their penitence for their former misdeeds is Causa sine qua non that is a necessarie means or Condition without which the Prince how gracious soever would not suffer them to enjoy the benefit of their Pardon would not restore them to their blood would not advance them to greater dignities This is the very Case of Adam and all his sons All of us were Traytors and Rebels against the Great God and King of Heaven who is better able to quell the whole host of mankinde than any Prince his meanest Rebellious subjects yet it pleased him to pardon us more freely then any earthly Magistrate can do a malefactor If then the reason be demanded Why any of mankinde are saved Why they are restored unto their blood and advanced to greater dignitie then Adam in Paradise enjoyed no other true cause can be assigned of these Effects besides The meer grace and mercy of the Almighty Judge But if it be further demanded Why some of mankinde enjoy the benefit of this Pardon and inherit Eternal Life Why others are sentenced to everlasting death When as the free Pardon with its benefits were seriously and sincerely tendred to all The Answer is Orthodoxal and True Because some in true humilitie accepted of the Pardon and craved allowance of it whereas others rejected it and sleighted such Proclamations or significations of it as the God of mercy and compassion had given out not to this or that man only but To all the World So that the Omission of those good works which our Saviour mentions in the
for God to Elect or not to Elect us and so eternal Life should not be the Award of Gods Free Merrie and Grace as now present but an Act of his Fidelity or promise past before we had any being before the world was made But if God had not the same Free Power at this day to Elect or not to Elect any man now living or not the same Free Power to shew mercie on whom he will and to harden whom he will which it is supposed once he had he should not have the same Power over us which the Potter hath over his Clay which is at his free disposal not only before he works it but while it is in working I may conclude this Point with Cardinal Bellarmines Tutissimum est It is the safest way the only way absolutely to rely all our life time upon Gods Free mercie and Grace and to make continual supplications unto God the Father through Christ that as he hath prepared a Kingdom for us from the foundation of the world so he would prepare and fit us for it For without preparation or fit Qualification we are not capable of it and thus we come unto the Second Point proposed 4. The Second Point to which the Third is annexed or sub-joyned was That the Absolute Freedom of this Gift doth not exclude all Qualifications in the parties on whom it is bestowed but rather requires better qualifications in them then can be found in others which exclude it or make themselves uncapable of it The Truth of this Assertion you may easily conceive by this one Instance or Example Suppose you that are Governors of this Corporation should Found as God put it in your hearts to do a Goodly Hospital or Almes-house at your own proper cost and charges the Gift would be most Free a Gracious Gift or Foundation and yet no man would conceive that the doors of that house though most Freely Founded should be as open or the good things belonging to it as Free for theeves and robbers for Bands or Panders for sturdy and lazie Beggars as for the halt and lame for the aged and impotent or as for men of decayed estate by Casualties as for Widdows or Orphans not so free or open for persons so qualified but otherwise haughty and proud as for Widdows or for decayed persons that were pious humble modest and ingenuous He should wrong you much that should conceive that you did intend only to have the number filled up though it were by such as the Poet describes but in a verse somewhat better Qui numeri essent fruges consumere nati That is by persons good for nothing but only to devour Gods Blessings To admit all sorts of people promiscuously into such a Foundation without respect of any Good Qualification would be an Act of Prodigality or impiety rather then of Free Bounty or Gracious Charity And can you imagine or suspect that the most just and righteous Judge the only wise immortal God who requires no more of us then that we should be perfect as he is perfect that we should be bountiful as he is bountiful and merciful as he is merciful doth not more constantly observe the Rules of his eternal Equity Bountie and Mercie then we can observe our Saviours Rules which are but the Copy of them albeit we made this our chief care and only study Thus to do is natural unto him not so unto us we cannot imitate the paterns which He sets us without much difficulty and many interruptions We may Freely bestow our Alms or Rewards but we cannot qualifie the parties that are to receive them we may prepare good things for them but we cannot prepare their hearts to receive them well or worthily But God doth not only prepare the Kingdom of Heaven for us but must also prepare us for it otherwise as our Apostle speaks Heb. 4. 1. We shall come short of the promise which is left us for entring into his rest And no man can come short of the promise or of the blessing promised but he that had a true Interest in the promise or he for whom the blessing promised was prepared 5. What shall we say then That any for whom the Kingdom of Heaven was prepared from the Foundation of the world shall finally miss of it or be excluded from it at the end of the world so our Apostle in the fore-cited place evidently supposeth Was it then prepared for all or for a Certain number A curious and ticklish Question Yet about which if any Contention have grown or may grow this cannot arise but only from the malice ignorance or incogitancie of the men which dispute and handle it For between these two Propositions themselves The Kindom of Heaven was prepared for all The Kingdom of Heaven was not prepared for all there is no Contradiction if men would not look upon them through some imperfect Logical Rules which hold true only in some Cases or Subjects If we should say That the Kingdom of heaven was prepared for the self same man Saint Peter for example from Eternity And The kingdom of heaven was not prepared for the same Saint Peter from Eternity we should say no otherwise then the Holy Ghost hath taught us There is no more Contradiction between the Affirmative and the Negative then if one should say The inhabitants of this town are rich The Inhabitants of this town are not rich but poor The Rule is generall that Betwixt an Indefinite Affirmative and an Indefinite Negative there is no Contradiction Now though Saint Peter were all his life time One and the same Individual man for Person if we consider him only as he stands in the Predicament of substance yet he was not all his life time One and the self same Object in respect of Gods decree of mercy or Judgement or for the preparation of Eternal life To affirm this were to contradict the Holy Spirit whose unquestionable Maxim it is that God renders to every man according to all his wayes Now if Saint Peters wayes and works were not at all times the same he was not at all times the same individual Object of Gods Decree God had One Award for him whilst he denied his Master or disswaded him from under-going the Crosse for us and Another Award for him whilst he resolutely confest Christ before Princes though certain to undergo the Crosse himself for so doing 6. But where doth The Spirit of God teach us this Logick or thus to distinguish Matth. 20. ver 23. Mark 10. 40. The story is plain save that the one Evangelist saith It was the mother of Zebedees children The other saith that the sons themselves to wit John and James came with this Petition unto our Saviour that The one might sit on the right hand the other on his left hand in his Kingdom And it is plain out of Saint Matthew that the Petition was as well exhibited by the sons as by the
must in this Case exceed little children must be out of the consciousness of this our Impotencie or infirmitie to frame our Petitions unto God with the Prophet Psal 51. 2. Wash me throughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin And again ver 10. Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy holy spirit from me Again Little Children though they be set upon their feet after their Fall they are not able to stand upright although they adventure not to go unless they be supported by their nurses or other helper and it is our Apostles advice unto such as stand to take heedlest they fall But is this circumspection in their power after Grace received No no more then it is in the power of Little Children to keep themselves from falling To what end then doth this Admonition serve To make us more careful by the knowledge of this our infirmitie continually to use that or the like prayer Prevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy gracious favour and further us with thy continual help If we truly acknowledge our selves to be but Little Children we cannot but know that without his preventing Grace we must still wallow in our natural filthiness and uncleanness that without his Concomitant Grace we cannot stand and that without his Subsequent Grace we can make no progress towards eternal Life All our doings must be begun must be continued and ended in him by his Grace otherwise we shall fail of the end here proposed unto us by our Apostle Again Little Children are sensible of hunger or want of Food yet cannot provide it cannot be their own carvers of it cannot take it unless it be reached unto them We then become in some degree the children of God when we feel a want of spiritual Food or when we hunger and thirst after righteousness But power we have none after Grace received to give satisfaction to this hunger and thirst after good things The best knowledge that in this Case we have is To Beg Food Convenient at our heavenly Fathers hands in that or the like Form of Prayer Give us this day our daily bread And thus to beg it out of full assurance that he is more ready to hear our requests then any earthly Father is to give his children bread or any earthly Mother to give her sucking Infants milk when they cry for it For some Mothers are unnatural others may forget their children but so will not God forget his so they be children in malice not in the Knowledge of his Goodness Little Children again if they be exposed to cold or heat or any other danger that may accrew from hostile or ravenous creatures have no power or strength to defend themselves all that they can do is but to cry for help from others Now the spiritual and Ghostly enemies of every Child of God and the dangers whereto they daily expose themselves are more in number then the bodily dangers whereof little Children are capable Lesse able we are though endowed with some measure of Grace to resist the Devil who goeth about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour then a sucking child to withstand a Bear or Wolf that should come upon him To what end then doth God bestow his Grace upon us if with this we cannot defend our selves as with a weapon Only to this end that we should daily pray for his special protection as his Son hath taught us Lord lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil specially from the Author of evil for thine is the Kingdom the power and the glory Thou only art able to subdue and conquer the Prince of this world and to destroy him who hath the power of death Lastly albeit we must exceed Little Children in the acknowledgment of our infirmities and though our capacities to conceive these and the like forms of prayer be greater then theirs yet in respect of most particulars we are in this too like Little Children that we know not how to pray or ask those things which for the present we stand most in need of And in this point our Knowledge must exceed theirs that we must have a knowledge of this infirmity and out of the consciousness of it pray more fervently unto our heavenly Father that he would teach us how to pray or hear the supplications of his Spirit for us whose language we perfectly understand not and not to indent with him for other particulars but only to grant us what he knows to be best for us and most available though not for our present occasions yet for the attainment of Everlasting life Until we learn this lesson of Humility and meekness which The Son of God himself so often commends unto us by his own example by Precept and Instances we shall find no true Rest unto our souls we shall not have that Full Assurance of hope unto the end whereof our Apostle speaks Heb. 6. 9. But is this Qualification of becoming like Little Children alone sufficient No he that saith Whosoever receiveth not the Kingdom of heaven as a little child shall not enter therein hath also said Matth. 5. 20. Except your righteousnesse shall exceed the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Doth he Instance in them as in the most wicked men that were So his Instance should not have been so pertinent at least his Admonition not so peremptory The Scribes and Pharisees if they had not thought so of themselves were the most righteous men then living they were the only Precisians of those times and observed many Rules of righteousness more exactly then most men now living do any Wherein then did they come short of the promise By making Extraordinary Conscience of some necessary duties and little or none at all of others The old Serpent deceived them as he doth many Christians to this day by that Fallacie or Sophism which we call A Dicto secundum quid ad simpliciter that is in using their known zealous observance of some good duties as an Argument that they were simply and absolutely more righteous then other men specially then those whom they saw gross transgressors of some Commandements which they made conscience of They did acknowledge that they had received many Graces from God for which they thanked him but yet they gloried as if they had not received them and this polluted all their works A good man saith Solomon is merciful unto his beast This property of Good men is in the Turks for they are more compassionate towards their dogs more careful for begging them benevolence of strangers and passengers for feeding them in the open streets then most Christians are for the relief of their poor brethren yet is that property of wicked men which Salomon in the same place describes more remarkable in them Their mercies are
that continue in well doing But that Good Works should deserve Eternal Life Only upon supposal of Gods promise some of the greatest Scholars I will not say of the best men amongst them will not yield But to take them at their Best As when they say that Good works do merit as much as God hath promised to Reward them with This is too bad For to merit in their language is a great deal more then to be Rewarded it includes a Reward due unto the works wrought not meerly given out of the mercie or bountie of him that promiseth The Rule is General Whatsoever any man hath Interest in by promise it must be expected sued for and accepted upon the same Terms that it is promised unlesse between the promise made and the performance of it we can oblige the party promising by some real service that may be profitable unto him more then was included in the Conditions to which the promise did tie us To do more then is Covenanted and promised so it be behoof-ful for either party especially if it be profitable to the Rewarding party deserves a Reward in Equity though not in Law at his hands to whom it is behoof-ful If the party which promiseth us a good Turn receive any thing from us in lieu or consideration of what he promiseth he is tyed in Law to perform his promise and is a debter till he perform it The performance is not a meer courtesie or bountie but an Act of Commutative Justice The Assuming of a shilling may bind a man to the payment of many pounds Wheresoever there is Quid pro quo or Ratio dati et accepti something as well given as taken upon mutual promise there is an Act of Commutative Justice And wheresoever there is not Ratio dati et accepti Somewhat given as well taken there can be nothing due in Justice From this ground some great Schoolmen in the Romish Church deny Justice commutative or that branch of Justice which is the Rule of all matters of bargain or sale to be properly in God because there cannot be Ratio dati et accepti any mutual giving or taking between God and his creatures For he gives us all that we have or can have we cannot possibly give him any thing which he hath not And for this reason albeit he were purposed to bestow the greatest measure of Grace upon us that any creature is capable of this could not include any Grace of merit for still the more place Grace hath in our hearts the less room there is for Merit True it is that our Lord and Saviour did merit heaven at his Fathers hands for us but the ground or foundation of this His merit was not only the fulnesse of Grace in him as man but that he being in the Form of God the Son of God equal to his Father did humble himself and become man for us and did his Father service as man he therefore did merit all graces for us because he was the Son of God not by Adoption or creation but by Eternal Generation To be the Sons of God by Adoption or to be made his sons by Grace is a blessing bestowed on us for the which we become Debters to God the Father and servants to God the Son so deeply indebted to both that albeit we should do ten times more then we do we should still be unprofitable servants we could not make the least Recompence for that which he hath done for us The manner of the Apostles Interrogation Rom. 11. 35. Quis prior illidedit who hath first given to him includes an universal negation No man hath given ought to God No man can give any thing unto him And if none can give any thing unto him none can receive any thing from him by way of merit or valuable consideration but of meer mercy and free Bounty 7. If we would scan the Tenor of all Gods promises made unto us in Scripture with such accurateness as Lawyers do Tenures of Land we should find that he only promiseth to be merciful and bountiful unto us whether we limit his promises to the First Grace which we receive from him or extend them to All after-increase of Grace or to the accomplishing of all blessings promised in this life by our admission unto life eternal in the world to come Now if Mercy and Bounty be the Compleat Object of all his promises then may we not expect performance or accomplishment of his promises as a Just recompence or merit for any service which we do him but only as the Fruit or effect of his mercy or loving kindness If a loving earthly father should allot his son a liberal Pension before he could in modestie ask it or in discretion expect it and promise him withall that if he did employ this present years Pension well he would allow him more liberally for the next year following in this case how well soever his son did either demean himself or use his present Pension yet seeing the whole profit did redound unto himself not unto his father the more bountifully his father deals with him in the years following the more still he is bound unto him An ingenuous or gracious son would not challenge the second or third years Pension as more due unto him by right or merit then the First albeit he had his fathers promise for these two years which he had not for the first For the fathers promise was only to be good and bountiful unto him so he would be dutifully thankful for his bountie Now to expect or challenge that by way of right and merit which is promised meerly out of favour or loving kindness and upon condition of dutiful demeanour is a transgression of duty an high degree of unthankfulness especially from a son unto the father For every son by the Law of God and nature owes obedience and respect unto his Father and though there be no mutual bond of Obedience yet is there a bond of mutual dutie between an earthly father and his son at least the father as well as the son owes obedience unto Gods Law and Gods Law enjoyns every father unto kind usuage of his son so he challenge it not by way of debt or merit but in love humilitie or obedience But on our heavenly Father no bond of Obedience of debt or dutie can be laid what good soever he doth unto us it is meerly from his Free Mercy and loving kindness It was his meer goodness to Create us to give our First Parents such Being as once they had This First Being could not be merited nor doth any Romanist affirm it could Having lost that goodness wherein we were created it was more then meer Goodness the abundance of mercy to make us any promise of Restauration to our First blood and Dignitie And after this promise made it is but the continuation or increase of the same abundant mercy to bestow the Grace of Adoption upon us and no more
our consciences approve for good If thy enemie be of that strange temper above described and one that would scorn to be beholden to thee steal thy good in upon him and do him good so as that he shall not know from whom it came Thou art bound to minister comfort to him as a compassionate and cunning Physician doth Physick to a melancholick or distempered patient But thou wilt say so I shall lose all my thanks for all my pains and cost I answer by asking Thee is the honour or thanks that cometh from God alone of no value The Heathen could say to his friend We are each to other Theatrum satis amplum a Theater sufficiently large for matter of content and contemplation By doing So thou shalt be sure to gain The Testimonie of a good Conscience And herein thou maist justly triumph over thine enemie in that thou art better aminded towards him then thou couldst expect that he would be towards thee These are the best terms of comparison that thou canst stand upon with thine enemy if thou canst truly say That thou art A better man then he and if the mind be the man then he is truly and properly said to be The better man that is better aminded towards all men in as much as they are men This is the perfection and goodness of men as they are Civil and natural men and this is that Law of nature which St. Paul saith Rom. 2. 14. 15. was written in the Gentiles hearts For when the Gentiles which have not the law that is not the written Law of God do by nature the things of the law or contained in the Law these having not the Law are a law unto themselves which shew the effects of the Law written in their hearts their consciences alwayes bearing witness and their thoughts accusing one another or else excusing 13. But however the Heathen had this Fundamental Law of nature This Root of Righteousness as without offence I hope I may term it because it was a Relique of Gods image in them with many branches of it ingrafted in their hearts yet as their consciences might acquit them for performing many particular duties which it injoyned so might they accuse them for negligence in more For neither did they practise so much as they knew to be good nor did they know all that to be good which This Rule might have taught them to be such And albeit the better sort of them will rise up in Judgement against us and may condemn even the best sort of Christians as the world counts them now living Yet most of them we may suppose especially in later times were as negligent hearers of natures Lore as we are of the Doctrine of Grace God as the Apostle saith Rom. 1. had given some of them over to a Reprobate sense That seeing they would not practise what they knew for good they should not know Good from Bad. And as the learned observe when mankind had like Retchless unthrifts corrupted their wayes and like ungratefull Tenants to their Landlord Or undutiful subjects to their Prince had cancelled the Original instruments of their inheritance Or copie of that Law by which they were to be tried dayly defacing and blotting it by their foul transgressions and stain of sins it pleased The Lord in mercie to renew it once again in visible and material Characters ingraven in stone adding to it the commentaries of Prophets and other Holy men that so his people might once again copie out that Covenant whose Original they had lost the written law being but as the sampler or drawn work which was to have been wrought out by the law of nature and imprint it again in their harts by meditation and practise Yet once again the people of the Jewes unto whom this written Law was committed did by their false interpretations and Hypocritical glosses corrupt the true sence and meaning of Gods Law as the nations before had defaced the Law of nature by their foolish imaginations and conceited self-love Nevertheless as sin did abound in man so did Gods grace and favour superabound For when hoth the Law of nature was almost wholly lost among the Gentiles drown'd in Gentilisme as the Latin tongue is in the Italian and the Jews who should have allured others by their good example and continual prosperitic had they continued faithful in observing it to observe the written Law of God had quite corrupted it God sent his Only Son in the nature of man and Form of a Servant by infusion of Grace into mens hearts to revive the dead Root of Natures Law when it was almost perished and also to purifie and cleanse Gods written Law from the false interpretations of the Scribes and Pharisees which he performs in this seventh Chapter and in the two precedent So our Saviour saith Chap. 5. v. 17. Think not that I am come to destroy or dissolve the Law or the Prophets I am not come to destroy them but to fulfil them But how did Christ come to fulfil the Law Only by his own Righteousness and example No not so only but by proposing unto us the true sense and meaning of the moral Law which all that were to be his followers were to fulfil in a more spiritual and better manner then either the best of the Heathens or the most strict Sect of the Jews of that time did For they had abrogated the force and sense of sundry Commandements and stood more upon the letter then the meaning of the Law Wherefore he adds verse 20. I say unto you except your righteousnesse exceed the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven It is evident then from our Saviours words that both the righteousnesse commanded in the moral Law and in the Prophets must be fulfilled in better measure by Christians then it was either by the Scribes or the Pharisees and that the best and most easie way of fulfilling both the Law and the Prophets is the practising of this Rule Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do ye so unto them For this is the Law and the Prophets 14. Let us see then what we have more from His Doctrine then from Nature for the Right Practise of this Royallest Rule By Christs Doctrine we have both the Grounds of the former Precept which Nature afforded us better fortified and confirmed unto us And also have Motives or inducements which may sway Reason against Passion to the practise of the same Rule more certain and infinitely greater then the Heathen or meer natural man had any I must request you to call to mind what was said before That the Ground of this Precept was The Equalitie of all men by nature The Heathen knew this full well That all men were of one kind all mortal all capable of Reason and consequently of right and wrong And from this knowledge even such among them as held no Creation
die then to pollute the Sabbath by making up the breaches made in their wals or fortifications as ye may gather 1 Maccab. 2. And Plutarch in his Book De Superstitione taxes them for their Follie. As Iuvenal Satyr 14. scornes them for observing the Rest of the Day Quidam sortiti metuentem Sabbata patrem Judaica ediscunt quae jura volumine Moses Tradidit arcano Cui Septima quaeque fuit Lux Ignava partem vitae non attigit ullam Their Fathers sinned grievously in taking that liberty upon the Sabbath which the Law of God had denied them These later Jews sin in refusing to use that liberty which God had in some Cases allowed them or at least in applauding themselves for their strict Reformation and condemning others which in matter of doctrine or practise opposed them And this their Fervent zeal to maintain their own Rigid Reformation did in the issue draw them to worse practises then their Fathers had committed in their grossest prophanation of the Sabbath Their Fathers were not at any time more violently bent against Esay Jeremy or others of Gods Prophets who taxt their scandalous breach of the Sabbath then these later Jews were bent against our Saviour for not complying with them in their Rigid Reformation of former abuses Their Fathers were not more apt to persecute the Prophets as peevish disturbers of their peace by reproving their prophaneness then these later Jews were to persecute our Saviour for a prophane Fellow or Sabbath-breaker for doing works of mercie and charitie upon the Sabbath albeit he wrought all his Cures without any manual labour or servile work 9. The Antient Iews were so delighted in gross Idolatry That they left the house of the Lord God of their Fathers and served Groves and Idols by a common consent of the King and his Princes as you may read 2 Chron. 24. 17. And not herewith content they stoned Zachariah the Son of Jehoida their High-Priest to death in the house of the Lord for opposing their practise or controlling the Kings Licence by a Countermand from the Lord as it is ver 20 21. This was a Prodigious Fact as the later Jews have curiously aggravated it and his blood did crie for vengeance even upon that later generation which thought they had so acurately reformed their Fore-fathers abuses As Our Saviour tels us Luke 11. 51. Verily I say unto you IT to wit the blood of Zacharias shall be required of this generation But how did these Jews make up the measure of their Fathers sins which shed Zacharias blood for disswading them from Idolatry Seeing they did detest this very Fact and the occasions of it By no other means then by Over-prizing their Rigid Reformation and by their distempered Zeal to maintain it against all that should contradict it So farre they sought to root out this sin that they made not only all Causes but all probable or remote Occasions of renewing Idolatry to be matter of death yea they did rather chuse to die themselves then to admit so much as an Image or Picture in their Temple or upon the wals of it though set up but for Historical or Civil use So vehemently did they distaste and loath the very conceit of multiplicity of Gods that this their extream opposition unto the Heathens did so farre mis-sway them as they could not be brought to admit a Distinction of Persons in the Trinity How often did they accuse our Saviour of blasphemy for saying he was the Son of God or God as well as man In fine The cheif matter or occasion which they took to persecute our Saviour unto death was for that he would not consent unto them either for doctrine or practise in their Rigid Reformation of those gross sins which their Fathers had committed or in their uncharitable Expositions of the second and fourth Commandement Hee could not away with their Sabbaths Is 1. 13. To omit other places for the present That one place of St. John chap. 5. shall suffice There you may read ver 8. that he had cured a man by his meer word which had been sick of a grievous infirmitie thirty eight years together But after the Iews knew that it was Iesus which made him whole they sought to slay him because he had done these things on the Sabbath day And when our Saviour makes this Reply Pater meus adhuc operatur ego operor giving them a true Exposition concerning the negative Precept of the Sabbath which did prohibit only works resembling the works of Creation not works resembling Gods everlasting preservation of things created They sought the more to kill him not only because he had broken the Sabbath but said also that God was his Father making himself equal with God Verse 17 18. 10. To Parallel both their misdemeanors with the Issues The Fathers for love unto heathenish and sense-pleasing Idolatry did forsake their God and the service of his house wherein he had promised to dwell These later Jewes for their delight and complacencie in their known freedom from these and the like particular sins of their fathers solemnly forsake and utterly disclaim the same God even when according to his promise made to Moses he had his Tabernacle among them and did walk with them as the ancient Jewes expected their Messias should in visible manner Their fathers slow their High-Priest in the Temple these in killing Christ did destroy the Temple and Tabernacle of God so his body was Thus to forsake or disclaim their Messias they had a plausible pretence or shew of truth That he whom they saw to be a man did take upon him that Authoritie which was proper to God alone For so we read that when he said to one whom he cured of the palsie Be of good cheer thy sins are forgiven thee The Scribes and Pharisees which were then present began to reason saying who is this that speaketh blasphemy who can forgive sins but God alone And for thus censuring Him they presumed they had the warrant of God himself Isai 43. 25. I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins It was most true what they from this place allege That God alone can forgive sins But from this present miracle and the manner of our Saviours conversation here on earth and their own wicked dealing with him if they had compared these with the words immediately precedent in the Prophet ver 24. they might have gathered that He was that only God which did forgive sins For so the Prophet had said unto Israel in the person of this only God Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins thou hast wearied me with thy iniquities This is One of those many places which even by the Jews confessions were evidently meant of God himself and yet were never literally and punctually fulfilled or verified but of God incarnate For God did never serve with this peoples sins was
unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites 2. The principal and most deadly Branch of this bitter Root was Their garnishing the Sepulchers of the Righteous and building the Tombs of the Prophets In which notwithstanding they did not so mightily deceive others as their own souls yet by a Fallacie very familiar and apt to insinuate it self into all our thoughts For who is he amongst us but will take his love and good respect to Good men whether alive or lately dead as a sure Testimony of his own goodness or integrity especially in respect of theirs that either have persecuted them living or defamed them after death Howbeit this kind of Testimony generally admitted for currant would make way to bring Pharisaical Hypocrisie into Credit with our souls Many we have known either in hope of filling or fear of emptying their purses pinch their bellies But as none can be so miserable as not to desire to fare well rather then ill so he might have good chear as good cheap as bad So hardly can any be so wicked as not to like better of Godliness or vertue in others then of vice so the one be no more prejudicial or offensive to him then the other Now the Fame or memory of godly men long ago deceased or farre absent cannot exasperate the wicked or malitious nor whet their pride to Envy For Envie though a most unneighborly quality is alwayes conceived from neighborhood or vicinitie Contrariwise the righteous that live amongst the wicked are as the wise man speaks a Reproach unto them because their works are good and the others evil This different esteem of vertue present and absent the Heathens rightly had observed Virtutem incolumem odimus sublatam ex oculis quaerimus invidi For as Bats and Owls joy in the Suns light after it is gone down though it offend their eyes whilest it shines in full strength and comforts all other creatures indued with perfect sight So can the sons of darkness endure the sons of light after their departure out of this world albeit a perpetual eye-sore unto them living in the same Age or society Upon this humor did Sathan that great Politician work putting such a Gull upon these Scribes and Pharisees as Domitian the Emperor did upon his Subjects For as this Tyrant when he purposed any cruelty or murther would alwayes make speeches in Commendation of mercie or clemencie to prevent suspicion So the old Serpent having made choice of these Scribes and Pharisees as fittest instruments to wreak his spight upon our Saviour first sets them a work to build the Tombs of the Prophets and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous whom their fathers had slain least they should suspect themselves of any like intent against that Just one of whom they proved the betrayers and murtherers Time had so fully detected their fathers sins that it was bootless for them to attempt their concealment The safest and most plausible course to appeace their consciences was freely to protest against them for they said If we had been in the dayes of our fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets And is it credible that men so ingenuous as thus to confess their fore-elders shame and ready as farre as was possible to make the dead Prophets amends for wrong done to them by their ancestors many hundred years ago should attempt any cruelty against the Prince of Prophets whom Moses their Master had so strictly commanded them to obey No the world must rather believe Christ was not that Great Prophet but a Seducer because so much hated of these great Rabbies which so honoured the memory of true Prophets whom their fathers persecuted With such vain shews do these blind guides deceive the simple being bewitched themselves by Sathan with groundless perswasions of their own sincerity and devotion towards God and his Messengers To think this hypocritical Crue should wittingly and purposely use these devices as politick Sophismes to colour their bad intentions were to make us think better of our selves then we deserve by thinking worse of them then our Saviour meant in that censure They do all their works to be seen of men This according to the like phrase most frequent in Scripture doth argue the praise of men to be the Issue of their works but not the End they purposely aimed or intended For their hypocrisie supposed a mis-guided zeal or aberration from the mark they sought to hit caused from their immoderate desire of honour and applause which did so intoxicate and over-rule their minds and like leaven diffuse it self through out all their actions that even the best works they did could be pleasant only unto men not unto God which trieth the heart and looks as well that our Intention be sound and entire as that we intend that which is good because commanded by him To honour the memory of Holy men was a good work but ill done by them because it proceeded not from a contrite and penitent heart To stint the Crie of so much righteous blood as had been shed by their Ancestors what could it alass avail to deck the places where their bodies lay buried That God was greivously offended they could not doubt and to think he should be pacified by such sacrifices was to imagine him to be like sinful men which can wink at publick offences for some bribe given to their servants or some toyes bestowed upon their children Thus to acknowledge their fore-fathers crueltie and not to be more touched with sorrow for it was to give Evidence against themselves as our Saviour in the 31. verse inferres So then ye be witnesses unto your selves that ye are the children of them which killed the Prophets Or as St. Luke relates the same passage Wo be to you for ye build the Sepulchres of the Prophets and your fathers killed them Truly ye bear witness and allow the deeds of your fathers for they killed them and ye build their sepulchres For not to amend that in our selves which we reprove in others but rather to assume liberty to our souls as if we were acquited by such reproofs or corrections of their mis-deeds is in deed to allow what in word we disclaim Had these Scribes and Pharisees never taken notice of their fathers sins they could have had no occasion to conceit their own holiness so highly but now by comparing their own kindness to dead Prophets bones with their fathers cruelties against their living persons they seem in comparison like Saints hence emboldened to trespass more desperately against the Holy One of God In this respect our Saviour in the words immediately going before the Text not content with this ordinary Title of Hypocrites or blind Guides cals them Serpents and a generation of Vipers As if he had said Ye are children or seed of the old Serpent the Divle which was a murderer from the beginning and now ye are ready to take his part against the promised
shall live Hence it is that this people of God in their distress make The Confession of their fore-fathers sins as Essential an Ingredient or Condition of their prayers as the confession of their own Dan. 9. Ezra 9. Nehem. 9. Psal 106 6 7. For this the Lord himself had expresly taught them Levit. 26. For your transgressions the Land of your enemies shall eat you up And they that are left of you shall pine away for their iniquitie and for the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them also Then they shall confess their iniquity and the wickedness of their fathers Ver. 38. Thus doing I will remember saith the Lord my Covenant with Jacoo and my Covenant also with Isaac and also my Covenant with Abraham will I remember and will remember the Land You see then it is evident that as Adam's-sin remaines in his Posterity until it be taken away in Christ so doth Gods wrath abide upon a Land for the former Inhabitants sins and passeth from the Dead unto the Living unless the Attonement be made by the sweet incense of prayer and fervencie of spirit which is to be in every Christian and spiritual Priests heart as ready upon this occasion as fire from the Altar was in Aarons hand when he stayed the Plague by standing betwixt the dead and them that were alive Numb 16. 46. It is not the sacrifice though of the calves of mens lips without an humbled and contrite spirit and fervent zeal of blessing Gods Name by Contrary good deeds that can stay the plague and divert the wrath gone out from God against a Land for her former Inhabitants their Predecessors sins 3. From these Principles we may easily gather How Gods Mercies may be abridged towards a Land or People less sinful perhaps then others formerly have been for actual transgressions if we consider the sins only of the present time From the same Principles we may likewise clearly discern how the full measure of any Lands or Peoples iniquity may be accomplished then when to mens seeming their out-rages be nothing so greivous as others before them have been or when their Princes or Rulers are more then ordinarily religious First Where the transgressions of Predecessors have been many and greivous and the Reformation of their Successors but slight or imperfect the wrath of God procured by the former may remain still and light heaviest upon the Third Generation following who shall procure it further if they follow their Grandsires sins notwithstanding their immediate Parents or Predecessors did in part repent or in some sort renounce their Fathers wayes For the fruits of such repentance seeing it is not Total and proceeds not from a perfect and unfeigned heart do but as it were for a time put off the Fit or Extremity of Gods wrath they take not away the disease it self which therefore returns to its course again As the Psalmist excellently describes the effects of such repentance When he stew them they sought him and they returned and sought God early And they remembred that God was their strength and the most high God their Redeemer but their heart was not upright with him Neither were they faithful in his Covenant The fruit of this was that oft-times he called back his anger and would not suffer his whole displeasure to arise This stayed the Course or Motion of his wrath It did not minish the Inclination or Propension of the same But when the former sins burst out again either in them or their posterity His judgments drew nearer unto them then before and his vengeance was more fierce and sudden Secondly Where the Reformation of Religion and turning unto the Lord is on the Princes parts perfect and compleat yet the people do not inwardly repent and with a perfect heart abjure their fore-fathers wayes the wrath of God due unto their fathers sins comes upon them and is executed by taking away their good and giving them Princes alike minded to themselves And so by little and little they fulfil the iniquity of their fore-fathers 4. To give you a view of these General undoubted Truths in the succession of this Kingdom Righteous David had left Gods Mercie towards this Land and People so farre over-ballancing his Justice that all the Idolatry which Solomon his son had set up albeit idolatry be a most greivous sin did not any more then bring his Mercie to an Equipoize with it again But Rehoboam following his Fathers footsteps in evil not his religious Grandfathers paths in good puls down Gods judgments upon his head and first bears the rod of his transgression having more then one half of his Kingdom rent from him by his servant Jeroboam and afterwards both he and Judah which had remained with him bear the strokes of their iniquity by the hand of Shishak King of Egypt who forraged the Land and took away the treasures of the Temple of the Lord. But in this God did but shake his sword over their heads These beginnings of plagues and judgments are but the Motions of His wrath which abides not for his Mercie presently retired unto the same Point where it stood at Jeroboams revolt Of an unwise father there sprung up immediately an unrighteous son Abijam who though he had sometimes good success against his enemies yet as the sequel of this Story intimates 1 King 15. 3. he had almost brought Gods fierce wrath upon the Land by following his fathers footsteps but that the Lord as yet drew back his punishing hand for Righteous David his great Grand-fathers sake For David 's sake did the Lord his God give him a light in Jerusalem and set up his son after him and established Jerusalem ver 4. This was Asa in whose dayes the Land had peace for he followed the footsteps of his Father David yet was there no perfect Reformation wrought in his raign for the High places were not taken away And he himself after good success in victory was infected with the Fatal disease of Kings and Princes To begin to trust too much to secular Policie and grew impatient of the Lords Prophets reproof But by his carriage and good example such as it is and the righteous reign of his son Jehosaphat is the Current of the Lords former wrath stopped yet so as it is ready to overflow the Land with greater violence in the next succession wherein the like iniquity as had reigned in former times should burst out afresh again Although Jehoshaphat's heart was upright yet did he work no perfect Reformation For the high places were not taken away And as it is 2 Chron. 20. 23. The people had not yet prepared their hearts unto the God of their fathers Neither so penitent as that they could recal Gods wrath or bring his mercie back again unto its former stay Nor yet so extream bad and forward in sin as that the Lord would not spare the Land and be merciful to
them for religious Jehoshaphat and the Righteous sakes that lived in it After Iehoshaphats death Iehoram his son reigns in his stead a successor to the Kings of Israel in all wickedness and Idolatry And as his life was wicked so was his estate unfortunate his end terrible and his death ignominious In his dayes did Edom make his final revolt from Iudah 2 Chron. 21. 10. and Libnah at the same time because he had forsaken the God of his fathers And ver 14. Behold saith Elijah to him by a letter with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people and thy children and thy wives and all thy substance And so Gods judgments came upon him and his Children He himself dies of a lingering loathsom disease without the wonted solemnities of Funerals And Ahaziah his youngest son all the elder being slain by the Arabians 2 Chron. 22. 1. is about a year after killed by Jehu executing judgment upon the house of Ahab After all this were All the Royal Seed of Judah destroyed by Athaliah Ioash son of Ahaziah only excepted whose beginnings were good The reformation of Religion was perfect for the external form so long as Iehoiada the Priest did live but not compleat for the number or quality of such as turned to the Lord their God For the Princes hearts were wholly set upon idolatry And the King himself is drawn upon his own destruction by them after Iehoiada's death As his beginnings were good and godly so were his later dayes idolatrous and cruel and Zachariah's blood was recompensed upon his head and upon the head of Amaziah his son who though he were not like his father guilty as principal of actual murther in putting a Prophet to death yet thus farre by Participation guilty of his fathers sin that he is impatient of the Prophets just reproof As his father killed so he threatens the Prophet for reproving him for his sins for taking the gods of Edom for his gods 2 Chron. 25. 14. Have they made thee the Kings Counsellor Cease thou why should they smite thee And the Prophet ceased but said I know the Lord hath determined to destroy thee because thou hast done this and hast not obeyed my Counsel His doom is read and judgment followes For he is shamefully foyled 2 Chron. 25. 23. by Ioash King of Israel and led captive home to his own good Town of Ierusalem four hundred cubits of whose wals were broke down to make entrance for his triumphant enemies in the sight of his own people And after his freedom bought with his own treasure and with the treasure of the Lords house his own Subjects conspire against him and pursue him unto death where he dies his fathers death by the hands of his Servants 2 Chron. 25. 27. As Amaziah from good beginnings grew idolatrous so Uzziah his son after good success became in his later end sacrilegiously presumptuous For intermedling with the Priests Office he becomes liable to the Priests Tribunal He is judged a Leper and removed from administration of the Kingdom for the leprosie wherewith the Lord had smitten him 2 Chron. 26. 5. Thus in process of time is still the increase of sin either their Kings are wicked as but two from David to Hezekiah's time which continued in good Or if their Kings be vertuous and religious as Iehoshaphat had been and Iotham son to Uzziah now is yet in his dayes again the peoples hearts are not prepared to serve the Lord 2 Kings 15. 35. But the high Places were not put away for the people yet offered and burnt incense in the high places and so kept in the fire of Gods wrath which had been long kindled against Judah but not suffered to burst out into any flame in the dayes of righteous Jotham and such as by his example followed righteousness Nay to encourage others to follow him the Lord gave him victory over the enemies of Judah and He grew mighty because He directed His wayes before the Lord His God 2 Chron. 27 6. 6. But neither did he nor any Prince of Judah since Righteous David so perfectly direct as Ahaz his son did pervert his wayes before the Lord. This is the first that adds stubbornness to infidelity and drunkenness to thirst as the Spirit tels us 2 Chron. 28. 22. In his tribulation did he yet trespass more against the Lord this is King Ahaz saith the Text you must expect a remarkable monster in his dealings For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus which plagued him and he said Because the gods of the Kings of Aram helped them I will sacrifice unto them and they will help me yet they were his ruine and of all Israel ver 23. This people was alwayes prone to wickedness even during the reign of most religious Kings but are now so violently carried to all mischief having got this preposterous Monster for their Governor that as a ship sailing with advantage of wind and tide and help of oares continues motion when sail is stricken and Rowers cease so Jerusalem and Judah after Ahaz their Commander in mischief ceased from his wicked labours held on still their mischievous courses even in good King Hezekiah's dayes 7. Whereas God 's threatnings had been but particular heretofore either to the King alone or to his Line and House or of some momentary desolation upon the Land Now God thunders out a General Deluge of Calamity to the City and Temple by the Prophet Micah Sion shall be plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall be an heap and the mountain of the house shall be as the high places of the forrest Here the scattered clouds of Gods judgments which had long soared over Judah are gathered as it were into one shower ready to fall upon her as it were an Hawk stooping to her prey but that good King Hezekiah and the people by his example laid fast hold upon his mercies and averted his fierce wrath from them by hearty and unfeigned prayer They feared the Lord and prayed before him and the Lord repented him of the evil that he had pronounced against them Whiles I behold the Compleat Reformation which Hezekiah wrought and the peoples will to accord with him therein Me thinks I hear the Lord wishing from heaven as he did sometimes to their fathers in the wilderness Deut. 5. 29. Oh that there were such an heart in them to fear me and to keep all my Commandements alway that it might go well with them and with their children for ever But Hezekiah did not render according to the reward bestowed upon him For his heart was lifted up and wrath came upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem 2 Chron. 32. v. 25. Not that it did seize upon them but that it was ready to smite For as it follows ver 26. Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself after his heart was lift up he and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem and the wrath of the Lord came not upon
Meridian and runs away out of their Hemisphere And in his stead a Comet ariseth out of Egyptian exhalations which portends nothing but war and blood This is Jehoiakim whom Pharaoh Nechoh which slew his father hath now appointed to be King over this people for his purpose the successe of whose Raign in general the people might well prognosticate by his life and manners the Epitome of which Iosephus lib. 10. cap. 5. hath given very pithily in two words He was neither religious towards God nor just towards men And yet besides this his natural disposition was particularly incensed against this people for preferring his younger brother to the Crown and so more ready to wreak his spite by reason of his dependance upon the Egyptian out of whose Country he had the Prophet Uriah brought to satiate his thirst of blood Jer. 26. 23. which bloodie Fact of his and the like with their like successe is the train I have pursued in these present Meditations I will conclude them with that of Solomon Prov. 28. 2. For the transgressions of a Land many are the Princes thereof And of Iudah never a good one after Iosiah such they were as might serve to scourge this people until they were cast like Vagabonds and unprofitable Members out of that City and Land which had bred them 10. Thus you see Gods largest Promises have their limits greatest prosperity hath a period and mightiest Kingdomes have their fall You have likewise seen how for the uncircumcised hearts of this people is he slain by uncircumcised hands who had so throughly cleansed Ierusalem and Iudah from all the abominations of the Heathen The Heroical attempts of whose Princely resolution and zeal in restoring the true worship of God unto this people needs not mine it hath the commendations of Gods Spirit who hath been curious in calculating his particular good deeds throughout this Chapter to have been matchless in Davids Race and how then possible to be parallell'd in any other Princes Line And what If through the religious care and industrie of some one or two Princes whom the Lord in mercie had raised up as Lights unto this Land the foggie mists of Superstition Heresie and Idolatry be driven hence This is an Infallible testimonie of Gods former love unto our forefathers no sure Document of our continuance in his favour if yet this Land and People may be taken in the very manner of those capital Crimes which did condemn Iudah his first-born amongst the Nations in the dayes of good Iosiah even whilest it was acquitted from profession of Idolatrie and Superstition What shall it avail us that those forrain hungrie Hell-hounds which brought Commissions of Charter Warrant for hunting out the good things of this Land and made this people a prey for maintenance of the many-headed beast have been long time prohibited to continue their wanted raunge if the Princes which are left within her be as roaring Lions and her Judges as wolves in the evening which leave not the bones until the morrow What availes it that the secular Priests and Jesuite are would God they were transported out of this Land if her owne Prophets be light and wicked persons and her Priests pollute the Sanctuary and wrest the Law Or what shall it avail us that the Light of the Gospel doth shine amongst us if the just Lord be in the midst of us and every morning bring forth judgment unto light and fail not and yet the wicked will not learn to be ashamed Or what avails it that we have cast off all blind obedience to the Sea of Antichrist if we will not suffer Gods providence to be a Rule and Christs word a Light unto our paths but walk on still in the wayes of the heathens making secular observations our chief confidence and worldly policie our greatest trust Or what avails it to have purged our hearts from all conceit of merit if we pollute our hands with bribes Or what availes it to give God the glory in all good actions and yet daily dishonor his name with bad dealings I will speak more plainly What advantageth it us to object unto the Papists that they seek to merit heaven by their works and share with God in the honour of good deeds if they can truly reply upon us That the free Almes of Papists Founders have been by Protestants set on sale unto their brethren Or that secular Appendices and Alliance of Spiritual men devour a great part of that liberal maintenance which was allotted only for Prophets and Prophets children 11. Beloved in our Lord were we our selves without sin without these enormous sins which I have mentioned all of us might freely attempt to stone that filthy Whore and all her foul Adulterers unto death But such of us as seek most to purge the Land of them and seek not withal to cleanse our own hearts of those sins which have procured Gods wrath against it may justly dread lest we find no better success then good Josiah did to provoke the enemie to do more mischief then haply they meant Mistake me not I beseech you as though I misliked such as sollicite severitie against that Nation yet cannot I hope but some will be as jealous of me as these Iews of Iosiah's and Jehoiakim's dayes were alwayes of the Prophet Jeremy whose footsteps I have resolved to follow through good and bad report Give me leave to explain my meaning thus As from my heart I reverence their religious labors who have of late so effectually stirred up our Sovereignes heart to this purpose and earnestly request your heartie prayers unto Almighty God that his Holy Spirit may continually enflame his royal heart with those good motions which have been kindled in it of late so do I desire from the very centre of my soul both that men of place Authoritie Gravitie Learning and Integritie of life may prosecute it and that young Divines whether young in years or manners it skills not would oftentimes even for Sions sake hold their peace or at least be wary where and when they open their mouths in this argument For he that looks into the temper of this present people with a discreet religious not with a turbulent factious eye may easily discerne that many ill tempered and extravagant invectives against Papists made by men whose Persons wanting Authoritie as much as their speeches do Reason do nothing else but set an edge upon our Adversaries sword whilst the light behaviour and bad example of the Inveighers life infuseth courage to their hearts and addeth strength unto their armes In one word Many of our words in this place increase the wrath and many of our lives out of this place increase the number of that Faction 12. Though all of us by Profession are Christs Soldiers yet every Soldier is not fit for any service Albeit I discourage no man I only advise that every man that means to be a valiant Soldier in Christ and would do his
sin be a work altogether impossible all of us should utterly perish none repent if possible to any shall it not be possible to the Almighty who alone can do all things if possible to him why is not repentance wrought in all whose salvation he more earnestly desires then the most tender hearted mother doth the life and welfare of her darling infant Hence with Seeming Probabilitie some may Conclude either that Gods Love unto such as perish is not so great as some mothers bear unto their children or else his Power in respect of them is not infinite And against our Doctrine perhaps it will be Objected That by thus magnifying Gods Love towards All we minish his Power towards Some From which to derogate ought is in some mens judgements the worst kind of Blasphemie a Point as dangerous in Divinitie to speak but doubtfully or suspiciously of it as in matter of State to determine or limit the Prerogative Royal. Howbeit if no other choice were left but a necessitie were laid upon us of leaving either the infinite Power or infinite Goodnesse of our God questionable or unexpressed the offence were lesse to speak not so much of his Power as most do than to speak ought prejudicial to that conceipt which even the Heathens by light of Nature had of his Goodness This Attribute is the Chief Object of our Love and for which he himself desires to be loved most and in this respect to derogate ought from it must needs be most offensive But his curse be upon him that will not unfeignedly acknowledge the absolute infinitenesse as well of his Power as of his Goodnesse Whosoever he be that loves his Goodnesse will unfeignedly acknowledge that he is to be feared and reverenced as the Almightie Creator Preserver and Judge of men and unless he were in Power infinite he could not be infinitely Good Howbeit he that restrains his Love and tender Mercie only unto such as are saved doth make his Goodness less at least extensively then his Power For there is no Creature unto which his Power reacheth not but so doth not his loving kindness extend to all unless he desire the good and safetie of such as perish 7. For winding our selves out of the Former Snare we are to consider a main difference between the Love of man or other Creatures and the Love of God to mankind Dumb creatures alwayes affect what they most desire if it be within the precincts of their power because they have neither Reason nor other Internal Law of right or wrong to controll or counter-sway their brutish appetites Man although indued with Reason and natural Notions of right and wrong is notwithstanding oft-times drawn by the strength or inordination of his tender affection to use such Means as are contrarie to the Rules of Reason Equitie and Religion for procuring their safetie or impunitie on whom he dotes Howbeit among men we may find some which cannot be wrought by any promise or perswasion to use those unlawful courses for the impunity of their children or dearest Friends which the world commonly most approveth Not that their Love towards their children friends or acquaintance is lesse but because their Love to publick Iustice to Truth and Equitie and respect to their owne Integritie is Greater then other mens are A fit Instance we have in Zaleucus King of Locris who having made a severe Law That whosoever committed such an offence suppose Adultery should lose his eyes It shortly after came to pass that the Prince his Son and Heir apparent to the Crown trespassed against this Sanction Could not the good King have granted A Pardon to his Son He had Power no doubt in his hands to have dispensed with this particular without any danger to his Person and most Princes would have done as much as they could for the safetie of their Successor nor could Priviledges or Indulgences upon such special circumstances be held as breaches or violations of Publick Lawes because the Prerogative of the person offending cannot be drawn into Example But Zaleucus could not be brought to dispense with his Law because he loved Justice no lesse dearly then his Son whom he loved as dearly as himself and to manifest the Equalitie of his love to all three he caused one of his own eyes and another of his Sons to be put out that so the Law might have its due though not wholly from his son that had offended but in part from himself as it were by way of punishment for his partialitie towards his son It were Possible no doubt for a King to reclaim many Inferiors from theft from robberie or other ungratious Courses so he would vouchsafe to abate his own expences to maintain theirs or afford them the solaces of the Court make them his Peers or otherwise allow them means for compassing their wonted pleasures But thus far to condescend to unthriftie subjects were ill beseeming that Gravitie and Majestie which should be in Princes If one should give notice to a Prince how easie and possible it were for him by these means to save a number from the Gallowes his reply would be Princeps id potest quod salva majestata potest That only is possible to a Prince which can stand with the safetie of his Majestie But thus to feed the unsatiable appetites of greedie unthrifts though such as he otherwise loves most dearly and whose welfare he wishes as heartily as they do that thus speak for them is neither Princely nor Majestical For a King in this Case to do as much as by some means possible he is able to do were an act of weaknesse and impotencie not an act of Soveraigne power a great blot to his Wisdom Honor or Dignitie no true Argument of Royal Love or Princely Clemencie In like Case we are to consider That God albeit in Power infinite yet his infinite Power is matched with Goodnesse as truly infinite his infinite Love is as it were counterpoised with infinite Majestie And though his infinite mercie be as Soveraign to his other Attributes yet is it in a sort restrained by the Tribunicial Power of his Justice This Equalitie of infinitenesse betwixt his Attributes being considered the former Difficultie is easily resolved If it be demanded whether God could not make a thousand worlds as good or better then this it were infidelitie to deny it Why Because this is an effect of meer Power and might be done without any Contradiction to his Goodness to his Majestie to his Mercie or Justice all which it might serve to set forth And this is a Rule of Faith That all Effects of mere Power though greater then we can conceive as possible may be done of him with greater ease then we can breath His only Word would suffice to make ten thousand worlds But if it be questioned Whether God could not have done more then he hath done for his Vineyard whether he cannot save such as daily perish The Case is altered and
which Bad works have to Death and the Want of Title which the Best works have to Life Everlasting is most significantly exprest by St. Paul Rom. 6. 23. The wages of sin is death saith He and wages are merited are never detained without some interruption of the course justice But Eternal Life is not the wages of holiness but the Gift of God And if in any sort it might be deserved or merited the Apostle questionless would have said it had been if not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wages yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Reward of Holinesse But in as much as this word Reward sometimes includes Rationem dati something given as well as taken not alwayes a Reward of meer bounty therefore the Apostle doth not say it is the Reward of Holinesse or the Reward of God Nor doth he say it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies A Gift for Gifts though freely given in kindness and not by Covenant may be mutual and may include a kind of merit de congruo as we say One Kindnesse requires another like but our Apostle to prevent this conceit of Merit useth a word which in its true and proper signification is incompatible with the conceit of Merit he calleth life eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is as the vulgar Latine renders it Gratia Del the Grace of God CHAP. XXVIII ROMANS 6. 23. But the Gift of God or The Grace of God is Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Whether Charismata Divina that is The Impressions of Gods Eternal Favor may he merited by us Or whether the Second Third Fourth Grace Life Eternal it self may be so About Revival of Merits The Text Heb. 6. 10. God is not unjust c. expounded The Questions about Merits about Justification have the same Issue The Romish Doctrine of Merit derogates from Christs Merits The Question in order to practise or Application stated betwixt God and our own souls Confidence in merit and too Hasty perswasion that we be The Favorites of God Two Rocks God in punishing Godly men respects their former Good Works 1. THe Gift or Grace of God This word Grace is sometimes taken for The Favour of God which in the Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes it implyes the Stamp or Impression of this Favour in us and this in the Greek is exprest by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used here by St. Paul That The Favour of God cannot be merite by any works of man is out of Question For it was the Favor or Free Grace of God which gave our First Parents Being which continues their posterity here on earth And neither our first Parents nor any of their posterity could deserve or merit their Being This Favour of God is as he is without Beginning without Change But so is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Impression or Effect of this Eternal Favour in us It hath no Being in us before we Be And after it be inherent in us it admits of Alteration or Change in us The Question then is Whether the Effects or Impressions of Gods eternal Favour to us may be deserved or merited by us Or seeing the Degrees or Parts of Grace inherent be many it is Controversed between the Romish Church and us Whether any parts of this Grace can be deserved or merited by us That the First Grace that is The first stamp or impression of Gods Favour towards us cannot be merited by us They grant For the First Grace as some of them say is Fundamentum meriti The Foundation or ground-work of all Merits Et fundamentum meriti non cadit sub merito Every Merit is precedent to the thing merited But there can be no Merit-precedent to the First Grace which is the Root the Ground or Original of all Merits But the Second Third or Fourth Grace or Degrees of Grace may in their divinity be merited through the Virtue or Excellencie of the First Grace or First Degree of Grace so we use that as we should Between the First Degree or Seed of Grace sowen in our hearts by the finger of God and the Full Growth or increase of it there is as Cardinal Bellarmine alleadgeth a True proportion though no Equalitie And therefore there may be some Ground of Merit for the increase of Grace though not for the first beginning of it Indeed if Grace did grow in us as trees or plants do from the first seed without any great care or operation of him that plants them and if it did thus grow without any interruption or default on our parts there might be some pretence for merit or some probabilitie at least that the fruits of Grace so growing should be Ours or so far Ours as we are our selves because we are the soil wherein the first seeds of Grace were sowen But if it be God not we our selves that gives the increase if it be God that sends Paul to plant and Apollos to water the seeds which he hath sowen in us if it be He that made us and not we our selves All the fruits of Grace are his by proprietie not Ours but only so far as he shall suffer us to enjoy them by continuance of the same Gracious Undeserved favour by which he hath made us and by which he sowes the first seeds of Grace in us 2. But Grace being sowen or planted in us by his immediate hand without any Co-operation on our parts non Crescit ecculto velut arbor aevo doth not grow up in us as wel-thriving plants out of their proper seed without ceasing or interruption though by degrees unsensible for sometimes it decreaseth oft-times it suffers many interruptions in its growth by our default or negligence And is it possible that we should deserve or merit the increase or fruits of that Grace whose growth in spring is oft-times blasted or hindred through our negligence or wilfull default This They do not say This in congruity of Reason They cannot say Who deny that Grace once implanted in us cannot be displanted can admit no intercision in its substance or Being however it may admit interruptions in its growth or some decay or waning But the Romish Church with her Advocates willingly grant That Grace truly inherent in men and inherent in such perfect measure as inables them to fulfill the moral Law of God may be utterly lost may be expelled by mortal or deadly sin and yet may be recovered again but lost or expelled it cannot be without the default or negligence without some mortal default or negligence of him who had it in his custody And yet being so lost they hold the like Grace may be gotten again and the Grace so gotten and recovered they call The second Grace and if it be twice lost and so recovered it is The third Grace The Question then is How the second third and fourth Grace is or may be recovered by us whether by way of Merit or
cruel for out of this compassionate affection towards dumb creatures they will be ready to kill a Christian man if he chance to wrong or harm them It is a good thing then to be zealous of good works but unless this zeal be uniform that is unless it proportionably if not equally respect good works of every kind partial or deformed zeal will bring forth compleat Hypocrisie 10. But it is an easie matter to tell men that their zeal must be uniform and unpartial the point wherein satisfaction will be desired is this How this uniformity of zeal in good works must be wrought and planted in men This men must learn from that fundamental Rule of our Saviour Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you so do to them for this the Law and the Prophets All of Us desire or wish that not this or that man only but that every man should deal justly friendly and kindly with us should think or speak well of us whilst we do or intend well should Judge charitably of us when they know nothing to the contrary and censure us charitably if we chance to do amisse The Rule of practise then in brief is this that we make payment by the same measure by which we borrow that is do good as occasions or abilities serve to every man as he is a man or our fellow creature though in more abundant measure unto such as are our Christian brethren and of the same Church and Religion To be charitable in word indeed in thought towards all even towards such as deserve punishment or censure Another branch of the same Rule is this If any have really shewed themselves kind unto us to do unto them as they have done If any have dealt rigidly or unkindly with us not to do as they have done but as we desired they should have done unto us for our desires to be well dealt withall are just but so were not their dealings with us And why should we make other mens unjust dealing with us rather then our own just desires of being friendly dealt withall the Rule of our future actions or dealings with the same men For God will judge us by the former Rule the Tenour whereof is this not to do as we have been done unto specially if we have been unjustly dealt withall but to do to every man as we desire they should have done unto us The same Rule may be yet further extended thus we must do to every man not only as we desire that every man should do to us but as we desire that God should do to us or for us So when we pray that God would forgive us our trespasses we must be ready to forgive them that have trespassed against us If we desire that God would relieve us in distress comfort us in sorrow or succour us in need we must be ready to relieve our neighbors in their distress to succour and comfort them as we are able in time of need not thus in some good measure qualified we do not pray in faith our prayers are not truly religious For as St. James tels us Chap. 1. verse the last Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherlesse and widdows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted of the world CHAP. XXX MATTH 25. 34 c. 41. c. Then shall the King say unto them on his Right hand Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world FOR I was an hungred and you gave me meat c. Then shall he say also to them on the left hand Depart from me ye cursed FOR I was an hungred and ye gave me no meat I was thirstie and ye gave me no drink I was a stranger sick and in prison c. Two General Heads of the Discourse 1. A Sentence 2. The Execution thereof Controversies about the Sentence Three Conclusions in order to the Decision of those Controversies 1. The Sentence of Life is awarded Secundum Opera not excluding Faith 2. Good works are necessary to Salvation necessitate praecepti Medij And to Iustification too as some say quoad praesentiam non quoad efficientiam The Third Handled in the next Chapter Good works though necessarie are not Causes of but the Way to the Kingdom Damnation awarded for Omissions St. Augustines saying Bona Opera sequuntur Justificatum c. expounded St. James 2. 10. He that keeps the whole Law and yet offends in one Point c. expounded Why Christ in the final Doom instances only in works of Charitie not of pietie and sanctitie An Exhortation to do good to the poor and miserable and the rather because some of those Duties may be done by the meanest of men 1. THis portion of Scripture is divided by our Saviour himself into These two Generals the first A Sentence which for the matter is Two-fold Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you verse 34. c. And again ver 41. Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels But many Sentences are given which are not put in Execution Yet this being the Final Sentence that shall be given upon all men and upon all their works there is no question but it shall be put in Execution If reason grounded upon Scripture be not sufficient to inforce our belief as well concerning the Execution of the Sentence as the Equitie thereof we have an Expresse Testimonie of the Judge himself for the certaintie of this Execution ver 46. And these to wit the Goats which were placed on his left hand that is all workers of iniquitie or fruitless hearers of the word of life shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal The Sentence it self hath by the perversness of mans will or by the curiositie of some wits been made the matter of many controversies especially in latter times Of which we shall deliver our Opinion as it shall fall out in the prosecution of the Positive Truth which we are bound to believe The Positive Truthes which I would commend unto the Readers meditation are Three The First That Life everlasting shall be awarded Secundum opera or that all men shall receive their final doom according to their works The second which will necessarily follow upon this That good Works are necessarie to salvation or to the inheritance of this Kingdom here promised The third That good works are necessarie to our admission into this kingdom Non tanqnam Causa regnandi sed quia Via ad regnum not as meritorious Causes for which this kingdom is by right due to us or to any but as the necessarie Way or path by which all such as seek to enter into this Kingdom must passe To begin with the First Point That the Final reward or retribution shall be Secundum opera according to mens works