to the Jews and their children but also to the Gentiles for that is meant by afar off Eph. 2.17 all that shall be converted and take hold of the Covenant for themselves their posterity shall be taken into their Covenant-right also and that 's the inducement and the argument used Act. 2.39 The great plague of sin lies in this that a man does not only undo himself but his posterity as it was in Adam and the great comfort in grace is that a man shall do good to his posterity as it was promised to Christ Psal 89.29 filiabitur nomen ejus his name shall be continued amongst his posterity in the Church Now for God to give a man a name in his posterity to owne them it 's a great mercy to speak of a mans house a great while for to come and it 's exceedingly heightned by this Adams sin was imputed to his posterity as well as his grace now the priviledges of the Fathers Covenant shall be entailed but the sins of the parents are personal and shall never be imputed unto the children It 's true that the sin of Adam is imputed but the sin of the immediate parents is not imputed unto the children and though God doth visit the iniquity of the parents upon the children yet it is as true that the children do not bear the iniquities of the fathers so that the fathers priviledges are the childrens but the fathers sins are his own for every man now sins as a private person for himself not as a publick person as a representative head as Adam did for himself and his posterity 3 The Lord would engage their children to himself above all the Families and Posterities of the Earth Ezech. 16. and therefore he calls them the children born unto him thou hast taken my sons and my daughters that thou hast born to me and they shall have the Priviledge that none upon Earth have that thereby they may be engaged to God and if they be wicked they may be the more left without excuse as Nazianzen says in Orat. 40. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are persons given up and dedicated to God in their infancy and from the womb there is written upon them holiness to the Lord and if outward and temporal mercies be such great Obligations upon the Soul what are spiritual and Church-mercies and therefore the condemnation of the children of the Kingdom shall be greater than of the children of this world because their mercies and priviledges and opportunities are greater the Lord would bind them unto himself by higher cords of love than he does the rest of the world he does make the Sun to shine and the rain to fall upon other men filling their hearts with food and gladness There are temporal mercies that God dispenses to all men but they are not like unto the mercies of spiritual and Church-priviledges that 's beyond what other men injoy the Lord would bind them that are his Covenant-people unto himself by this cord beyond the rest of the world 4 To shew forth the goodness and overflowing mercy of Christ under the second Covenant unto unregenerate men who for the state of their persons are under the Covenant of Works and are enemies unto the Covenant of Grace and yet they shall injoy many priviledges and benefits thereby and this the Lord does bestow upon them either as preparatives and as means to fit them for services or as priviledges and rewards of services for all the creatures are now given into the hands of Christ and all men in the Church belong to him they all come under him either as servants or as sons they that are sons partake in the graces of the Covenant but the servants also partake in the priviledges of it for they abide in the house though not for ever and while they are in the house they have bread enough and to spare they partake of the root and fatness of the good Olive-tree they have Church-ordinances that fit them for service and they receive Church priviledges as temporal rewards of service 5 For the Elects sake there are some upon whom the grace of the Covenant is bestowed and unto whom the Priviledges of the Covenant do chiefly belong and they are the Elect of God but because they are bound up in the same bundle with the rest of mankind and men cannot distinguish for it is electing Love that puts the difference therefore as Ordinances are continued unto all for the Elects sake so Priviledges are bestowed upon all but the primary intention of them is for the Saints the Elect of God that they might partake in them for whom they were specially purchased and intended As the preaching of the Gospel was primarily intended for the Elect of God that they might partake in it and for the gathering in of Souls unto him but because the Elect of God are amongst the wicked of the world therefore if men be to dispense Ordinances they must do it in common and wait upon God in the use of them and the grace of God will fall upon the Elect unto Conversion and so it does accidentally come upon ungodly men but primarily and intentionally it is given only for the Elects sake as appears by this that when the Lord has finished and gather'd in the number of the Elect he will continue Ordinances and Church-priviledges unto unregenerate men no longer therefore as Ordinances being dispensed by men must be in common for the Elects sake so must priviledges dispensed by men be also as the World stands for the Saints and yet ungodly men enjoy much of the comforts of the world that a man would think it were all for their sakes so Church-priviledges are vouchsafed to ungodly men as a great part of the Church that a man would think all were for their sakes and yet it is with a special respect and primary intention to the Saints that both the one and the other are continued in the world wicked men shall share with the Saints in the external priviledges rather than the Saints of God be wholly deprived of them And upon these grounds I conceive it mainly is that the Covenant is entailed from father to son for the outward priviledges but not for the inward graces thereof § 9. How far Arguments drawn from Circumcision Quest 9 being an Ordinance of the Old Testament can by way of Rule determin any of the Essentials of Baptism which is an Ordinance of the New Testament that is how far this argument has force in it to say The Children of the Jews being infants came under their fathers Covenant and therefore were by Gods command initiated and sealed by Circumcision which was the Seal of the Covenant therefore under the New Testament the children of Christians while infants are taken into Covenant with their Parents and so ought to be initiated and sealed by Baptism which is the Seal of the Covenant under the new Administration as Circumcision was under the old
Promise to abstain from the sin forbidden and to perform the duty required So much for the compulsion of the Law 2. The Law works death by irritating sin 2. To such as are under the first Covenant the Law works Death and Condemnation by its Irritation of sin The Law was in its first Institution and still is to those that are under the second Covenant a sanctified Instrument for the restraining and keeping under of sin but to those that are under the first Covenant it proves accidentally by reason of the violence of Lust and Gods Curse an occasion of irritating and enraging sin It 's true the Law as a Crystal glass discovers the soveraign holy pleasure of God forbidding sin but doth not the lustful bent of mens hearts affect sin even because forbidden And the Law discovering unto such the pravity and vitiosity of sin how do their hearts boil up with hatred against the Law because it strikes at sin wherein they place their chiefest good Again when the Law comes to put a bridle and curb on their Lusts are they not hereby like an untamed Colt the more enraged and furious And is not this the genuine reason why such as live under the clearest and brightest promulgations of the Law oft have their lusts boiled up to the highest pitch Yea is it not hence that the unpardonable sin takes its first rise namely from the lusts of such who living under bright notices and discoveries of both Law and Gospel and receiving some tastes of good things to come at last continuing still under the first Covenant have their lusts more irritated by the Law Moreover the Law condemning such as are under the first Covenant for sin and thereby injecting sparks of Hell-fire into their Consciences the fire-brands of dreadful terrors and despair how are their lusts enflamed hereby what revenge against God what excess of riot are they hurried into hereby Doth not also the righteous God by an invisible secret Curse suffer such as desire to be under the Law as a Covenant to have their lusts irritated and exasperated thereby Lastly doth not the wise and holy God permit Satan so far to abuse the Law as thereby to draw men into sin And oh what a pleasure is it to Satan to make use of that which is most deâ—â—â—â—o God thereby to draw men into sin And doth not this discover to us the miserable 〈◊〉 of such as are under the first Covenant that the Law of God which is so excellent in its own nature and of such excellent use unto the Saints should be so much abused for the irritation of Lust It 's true the Law may sometimes irritate sin even in such as are under the New Covenant yet it is not from any dominion it has over such neither doth this irritation so far prevail as to bring forth fruit unto death as it doth in those under the first Covenant who are under the complete dominion of the Law unto whom it hath no other use but to exasperate and improve their lusts And as the Law so also the Gospel and all the means of Grace To such as are under the first Covenant the Gospel and all other Blessings prove Curses yea all the Providences of God and comforts of this life prove snares and curses to such as are under the first Covenant 1 What greater Jewel is there to be found or desired among the Sons of men than the Gospel of Grace Is not the heart and bosom of God hereby laid open unto sinners O! what sweet attractives and cords of love are there in the Gospel to draw the soul out of its miserable and sinful state unto eternal Beatitude And yet lo how is this rich odor of life turned into a pestiferous odor of death to such as are under the first Covenant Is not that which is in it self the greatest blessing made by such the greatest curse The same food that nourisheth Believers unto eternal life of what use is it to those under the first Covenant but to nourish their incurable disease of self-sufficience Are not these mens lusts offended at the spirituality and simplicity of the Gospel What false Glosses and Comments do they put thereon How is the Grace of the Gospel by such turned into wantonness what controversies to their lusts make about it 2 So also for all Means of Grace Providences and temporal blessings which draw the hearts of Believers nearer to God are not the hearts of those under the first Covenant driven from God thereby Do not all their Duties though never so Evangelic center in Self Is not this the great Idol unto which their hearts are chained do not all the lines of their Devotion and Religion terminate in this center Oh! what an ample field of Contemplation is this to expatiate in were not our Meditations confined to the limits of a Summary The Second Part of the following Discourse regards The Covenant of Grace The Covenant of Grace explicated in in the Explication whereof our Author is more copious distinct and potent even to Admiration The Heads discoursed of by him and the method he makes use of in discoursing of them may with facility be apprehended by the Table of Contents that which I design in this Summary is some short Reflexions on such Heads as are not directly or professedly discussed by our Author And 1. 1. Its differences from the first Covenant We shall begin with the Differences between the first and second Covenant 1 In the first Covenant God dealt with man in a way of soveraign Empire and Dominion mixed with infinite Wisdom Justice Benignity and somewhat of Grace though without the least dram of Mercy there was indeed something of Grace in appointing the Reward but nothing of Grace in the infallible conduct thereto But now in the second Covenant the principal motive and Fountain that gave origine thereto was free Grace and Bowels of warm tender Mercies what was the foundation of this Covenant but the absolute and soveraignly gracious pleasure of God Were there any Objective Ideas of good any reasons grounds or motives foreseen by God which moved him to give grace to Jacob rather than to Esau Did not Esau and Jacob stand on equal ground as to Divine Election Was not Esau Jacobs brother saith the Lord Yet I loved Jacob and hated Esau Mal. 1.2 3. It 's true the free Grace of God hath deep Reasons in it self but yet no reasons or motives without it self to move or rule it in its egresses towards the creature Yea doth not the Grace of God find as much and as good reasons in Esau as in Jacob in Cain and Judas as in Peter and Paul in the worst as in the best of Men by Nature Yea what more agreeable to the Methods and Designs of Grace than this to shew mercy to the vilest of sinners How oft doth the free grace of God take hold of such as are most graceless and whence
do him no good for they are all of them added unto the Covenant of Grace as signes and seals thereof In the ordinance of Baptism there must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 3.21 an answer 1 Pet. 3.21 which I take to be an allusion to the ancient manner of John Baptist Luk. 3.10 the people asked him and what shall we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thereby implying a willingness to engage themselves unto those practices of repentance and those duties of reformation unto which John did baptize them whence arose that ancient form in the Church in baptizing persons by propounding unto them Questions concerning Faith Repentance renouncing the World the Flesh and the Devil and their solemn engagement and stipulation thereunto which if it were in truth and from a good conscience the person was truly baptized in the sight of God or else he was only baptized with water and no more So what was circumcision but a sign and a seal of the Covenant which if it did reach unto the heart it was circumcision Gen. 17.13 else their circumcision became uncircumcision for the men were not in Covenant with God therefore Jer. 9.25 I will punish all them that are circumcised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jer. 9.25 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Omnes circumcises in praeputio so it is in the Original and so Montanus and others do render it all that are circumcised in uncircumcision Now it is by the Learned observed that the Nations there named did thus circumcise but being a people out of covenant with God it was no circumcision unto them and though they were circumcised yet they were in uncircumcision still and so the Jews they were circumcised and in an outward Covenant but yet their hearts did not consent and therefore though they were circumcised in flesh yet they were not circumcised in heart So for the Sacrament of the Lords Supper it is the New Testament in the Blood of Christ Mat. 26. Zach. 9.12 and this blood is the blood of the Covenant and therefore if thou be a man out of the Covenant thou hast no right to it it can do thee no good but hurt all thy days As Cyprian de Lapsis hath a story of one that when the people of God were receiving the Sacrament came secretly in amongst them to receive it also Ausus est latenter accipere he durst take it secretly and having taken the bread in his hand Cinerem se ferre apertis manibus invenit opening his hand he found it turned into ashes and so Gratia salutaris in cinerem imo in venenum fugiente sanctitate mutatur the salutarie grace is turned into ashes yea poyson c. And therefore if such a man receive the Sacrament he takes the name of God in vain for in Gods account he did never receive it because it is a seal of the Covenant of Grace and he remains still under the covenant of works 4 All the motions of the Spirit of God as the giving of the Spirit doth belong to the second Covenant This is the Covenant says the Lord that I will make with them Isa 5.9 ult my spirit that is upon them c. And it is the Gospel that is the ministration of the Spirit for it is Christ the Prince of the Covenant that doth send the Spirit and what is the end of the Spirits coming it is only to advance the Covenant of Grace He shall take of mine says Christ and shew it unto you that he may bring you into Union with Christ and so into Covenant with God by him and therefore it is the Spirit of the second Covenant and the healing motions and strivings and impressions of the Spirit of God with man are all to this end to bring them within the bounds of the Covenant and though they may receive many gifts and common graces and common works yet the Spirit is grieved resisted and quenched if this great work be not wrought that the spirit may become a spirit of adoption and all those glorious works of the Spirit as a witness as a seal and as an earnest they do all come under the second Covenant and belong to the spirit as the spirit of the Gospel 5 If thou be not translated into the Covenant of Grace thou art left in a remediless condition for thy first Covenant being broken does bring thee under a curse and there is but one remedy against the sting of the Serpent and that 's the brazen Serpent there 's no avoiding the curse of the Covenant but by being translated out of it and this translation thou wilt not accept of therefore thou art in a helpless condition for thy disease is mortal of it self and thou wilt not accept of a remedy and so thou art left to the punishment of the first Covenants curse Joh. 3.33 He that believes not the wrath of God abides upon him not comes upon him only but abides upon him There is ira transiens and ira permanens transient wrath and permanent wrath All sin brings a man under wrath but there is no sin leaves a man under wrath but unbelief because a man will not accept of peace and reconciliation that is made to him And let me tell thee O soul whoever thou art in such a condition thy misery will be so much the greater that thou hast had a second Covenant offered and yet despisest it and in this Sodom and Gomorrah will come in against thee and will condemn thee for if they had had the offers that thou hast had they would have accepted of them yet thou hast rejected them nay the Devils themselves will be brought in against thee for thy condemnation and in this as thy sin is greater so will thy judgment be for they never had an offer of any terms of peace made to them they found themselves shut up under wrath without hope but thou hast had offers and hopes all thy days and this will be matter for that never-dying worm to feed upon at the last and great day when the soul shall reflect seriously upon its by-past life I neglected hopes and possibility and it 's now unrecoverable though there was a time that the offers of mercy were made to me and treaties of Grace made with me by the common works of the Spirit of God which I rejected mercy was upon her knees to me and I had as great possibility and probability to have found mercy as any other there are some that lived under the same Ordinances and offers of Grace with me and many of them had never the opportunities that I have had and yet I see them sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God and I am left out And this will be the great misery of many I may say of most of the children of the Kingdom they that live in the Church at the last and great day § 3. We may hence see the
they shall have this fruit by it which will be a great one hereafter Seeing that all men are sinners in Adam alike and sin in one man is as much improved as in another that all men are not alike sinful in this life and alike miserable in the life to come for there be degrees of wrath and that all men do not sin against the Holy Ghost and are not by Satan hurried on to the great Transgression it is no thanks to the man but merely to restraining Grace So in Mar. 10.21 the young man that came to Christ Mark 10.21 Christ is said to love him he was proud and stood upon his own righteousness and he was covetous and did part with Christ to reserve to himself an Estate and went away from him as being offended at his Doctrine and never returned again and yet it is said that Christ loved him what was there lovely in such a man Here Interpreters distinguish 1 of the act 2 of the object 1 Of the Act they say there is a double love of Christ so Cartwright Quia illi grata est humani generis conservatio ideoque politicas virtutes amare dicitur Tenues paulatim per se evanescentes imaginis suae reliquias Beza a Humane and Divine a Divine love that is to Salvation so he loves only the Saints but there was a humane love and so he loved his friends and kindred according to the flesh who yet did not believe in him And some say there is a double love of God and of Christ as God there is a peculiar and a fatherly love and this he bears only to his own people but there is also a common love whereby he loves whatever is of his own in any of the Creatures So Beza and Calvin But I should rather call them the common works of the Spirit of Christ dispensed unto unregenerate men under the Gospel 2 They distinguish of the Object he â—oved the remainder of his own Image or rather the works of his own Spirit in him though they were common that he was preserved unchangeable in tanta morum corruptela where there was such a general and universal overspreading of wickedness and this was Donum Dei gratuitum naturale illam pravitatem non quidem immutantis sed in quibus illi placet paulatim reprimentis Bernard i. e. Not mortifying but restraining sin So that all this was grounded upon the restraining Grace the Lord did vouchsafe unto him in his younger years for to be preserved is a good thing a great gift it is a great mercy not to be tainted with the common corruption and not to wallow in the common mire of the times nor to be given over thereunto 3 In reference unto godly men before and after their conversion 1 Before a mans conversion so it was with Paul Phil. 3. who was concerning the righteousness of the Law blameless and one that did not sin against his Conscience even then when he persecuted the Church Act. 23.1 because there is the greater guilt and horror upon a mans Conscience having so highly dishonoured God the greater bitterness to a man having insnared and corrupted others by his example and the greater matter of temptation Satan representing unto a man anew the sweetness that a man has tasted in former sins and his former experience of it does exceedingly strengthen the temptation and make a mans heart to hanker the more earnestly after them 2 After conversion restraining Grace is a mercy Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins Psal 19.13 Also the word does signifie to restrain or keep a man back or with-hold him as with a bridle the same word is used in Gen. 20. I with-held thee from touching her And so David Set a watch before the door of my lips So that though lust will be in a mans heart and though it will sometimes arise and all the power of Grace cannot keep it under yet to have it restrained that it shall not break forth and a man not to be hurried upon sinful actions is a great mercy After conversion for the lust of Adultery to be up in David and he desired her and yet if he had been kept from the act it had been a great mercy and so in numbering the people his lust was up and to have been kept from the act would have been a great mercy as we see it in the case of Nabal his lust was up but how does David bless God that it did not break forth into acts but that the lust was restrained before-hand and so do all the Saints of God bless the Lord that sometimes by his Law and sometimes by afflictions and by the admonitions of friends or by the reproach of enemies any lust is kept within its bounds from breaking forth or that there is a restraint of it in any measure that a man doth not pour out himself upon it with greediness that a man is not wicked in the highest degree and that carnal fear doth not prevail upon him as it did upon Peter and carnal love as it did upon Sampson or Solomon and passion as it did upon Asa c. 4. By the Gospel lust is subdued and mortified and that is one great end of the Gospel That we should deny ungodliness and worldly lusts Tit. 2.13 14. And having these promises should purifie our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit 2 Cor. 7.1 And he that has this hope does purifie himself even as God is pure But the Spirit of God doth make use of the Law even to this end also and the restraints thereof There is a double way for the mortifying of sin 1 By infusing a new principle of Grace 2 By restraining the old principle of sin 1 There must be a new principle of Grace infused which will work out the contrary and hinder the actings of it the spirits lusting against the flesh We are not under the Law but under Grace therefore sin shall not have dominion over you Rom. 6.12 Not under the Law strengthning and irritating sin but under Grace subduing it the Spirit of God-working in a man a new and another nature Joh. 3.6 which is contrary unto sin and is like unto that spirit of holiness that works it That which is born of the spirit is spirit Joh. 3.6 and it cannot sin because it is born of God 2 There is a power of the same Spirit of God restraining and keeping under the lusts of men Psal 19.13 and thereby destroying them With-hold from me presumptuous sins in me they are and I find in my self a proneness to them but keep them under With-hold me from the actings of them lest they grow upon me and get the dominion over me As by the exercise of sin it does increase so by the restraining of it it does die and is brought to nothing It is as fire if it be covered and have no vent it will go out and as Trees the more
mans God is to have an interest in infinite mercy and power and grace the God of my mercy and the God of my strength c. and have the Lord thine in a way of communion and fruition that the Lord will impart himself so as to become my portion the Covenant of Grace being a Covenant of Friendship and this is much more if we consider it is not in our own but in Christs right and therefore I having naturally no distinct title unto God yet being under his Covenant he is become my God as he is Christs God John 20.17 I ascend unto my Father and your Father my God and your God 2. This Covenant brings in a righteousness beyond that of the Angels 1. It is the righteousness of God Dan 9.24 and not meerly of a creature 2. It is a righteousness that sin can never spend an everlasting righteousness it is a Garment that will cover all the sins of the Elect of God a Sun of righteousness that though it enlighten all the Stars and the Earth yet every day it goes forth as a Bridgroom out of his Chamber as full of glory as ever it was 3. It is a Covenant by which Heaven is opened which was before shut against all the sons of men Heb. 10.20 we have access with boldness into the most holy place by the blood of Jesus by a new and a living way which he has consecrated through the veil c. when Heaven was shut by sin there was no way to open it but the Lord himself to descend from Heaven and to take upon himself a created nature so that the way to Heaven is by Christs Incarnation and Satisfaction in the Flesh and it is the way that Christ has made new because the old way was shut and man cast out of Paradise a Type of Heaven and it is a new way because it shall never wax old as the former Covenant did and a livingway because it gives life unto the Passenger that walks to Heaven in it and in the way of the Law there is no Life to be found but this is a living way a man finds life in it though the Law indeed was a way to Heaven but a man must bring life with him that will walk in it And by this opening of Heaven we have a double benefit 1 All good comes out of Heaven to us John 1. ult 2 We ascend up to Heaven to receive the mansions that are prepared for us and so Heaven is our home our House not made with hands and all by this Covenant 4 It is by this Covenant that a man hath the service of all the Angels and the inheritance of all the creatures it 's Christ whom the Angels serve and they ascend and descend upon the son of man there was no such thing under the first Covenant they were our fellow servants but our servants they were not till the grace of the second Covenant was made manifest it is first Christ that they serve the Lord bringing his only begotten Son into the world he saith Heb. 1.6 1 Cor. 3.21 Fidelibus est totus mundus divitiarum Jo. 5.22 and let all the Angels of God worship him and of all the creatures 't is said all things are yours for they are Christs Inheritance and ours only as we are in him there is dominium Politicum and Evangelicum a Politick and Evangelick dominion they have the use and the good of all the creatures 5 It 's by this Covenant that your Government of the World is changed and committed into another hand the Lord hath committed all judgement to the Son Christ is now King of Nations as well as of Saints and he has as Mediator a providential Kingdom as well as a Spiritual he is the Head over all things to the Church Ephes 1.22 a head of Guidance as well as of eminence the Keys of Hell and Death are committed to him the Government is upon his Shoulder as the great Officer that the Lord employs Esa 9.6 and it is our happiness that he that is our Head and Husband hath the rule of all things in his hand should the Lord have continued to have governed the world he must without a Mediator have destroyed it according to the first Covenant and the rules of his Government therefore the Lord saith I cannot go before you but I will send mine Angel take heed of him and obey his voice and it 's the happiness of the world that the Lord Christ raigns Let the earth rejoyce c. 6 It is by this Covenant that the world stands he upholds all things by the word of his power had not he put under his hand Heb. 1. the Earth had melted and come to nothing he establishes the earth for the curse of the first Covenant coming upon the creatures must have received them all Yet that 's not all but that the earth should stand firm and that by his word he shall raise the earth and elevate the creatures this is much more for there is an earnest expectation of all the creatures for a deliverance as well as of the Saints and hence we look for a new Heaven and a new Earth What change soever shall be made in the creatures at the last day whether in substance or in quality it shall be perfective not destructive for it is a promise that the Saints expect and pray for and all the creatures do groan and wait for when the glory of the Sons of God shall be made manifest Vse 3 § 3. It 's for consolation it is this in which the soul lives and the privation thereof is the death of the soul in Hell where it is utter darkness Now as in the first Covenant there is a life of Comfort in the duties of it he that doth them shall live in them Heb. 10.38 Gal. 2.20 so there is the second Covenant also and therefore the just is said to live by faith as the other by doing shall live in it so he shall by believing in believing he shall live not only a life of holiness but a life of comfort and therefore as the second Covenant is the better Covenant because it is established or founded upon better promises so the comforts that do flow from those promises are higher and more glorious consolations and therefore all the ordinances and promises of it are called the breasts of consolation Esa 66.11 Heb. 6.18 out of which a man may suck and be satisfied the comforts of the second Covenant are strong consolations that which is powerful and able to bear up the spirit in the greatest assaults of temptation either from sin or Satan 2 Thess 2.16 and it is everlasting consolation and good hope through grace and such were not the comforts and consolations of the first Covenant But the more immediate any mercy and comfort is and the nearer it is to the fountain of Consolation the sweeter it is now
And this is the Covenant that I will make with them I will be their God Jer. 31.33 and they shall be my people And what it is for to have Jehovah for your God The happiness of it you have heard that as you are wholly his so he also is become wholly yours all that is within you is for God and all that is in God is for you and for your good And he is your God as he is Christs God for there the Covenant-right doth first begin he is my father and your father my God and your God c. 2 He doth in this Covenant take you to be unto himself a peculiar people whom he hath separated unto himself above all people to be unto him for a name and for a praise throughout the earth as Exod. 19.5 You shall be unto me a peculiar treasure above all the people of the earth and he doth say they are his portion the Lords portion is his people and Israel is the lot of his inheritance though all the earth be his yet he hath set his heart upon them and they are dear and precious ones 3 By this Covenant the earth stands that all the creatures may serve the Saints those that are in Covenant with the Lord it is the curse of the first Covenant that shall set on fire the whole frame of the world at the last and great day all the creatures serve the Saints as they do serve God for Christ hath bought the services of all the creatures and he hath in his house vessels of dishonour as well as for honour and even the Devils and wicked men bow to him and they shall worship one day at the Saints feet and shall know that God loves them and God makes use of these vessels of dishonour to fan and purifie his people 2 King 21.13 I will wipe them as a man doth a dish and I will shave them with a rasor that is hired even the King of Assyria And some vessels of honour God uses for the good of his Saints and so do the Angels as well as all other creatures serve their graces or their necessities they are ministring spirits to the heirs of salvation 4 By this Covenant all their sins are pardoned and God remembers them no more the foundation of pardon is not only laid in the satisfaction of Christ the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 price that he hath laid down but also in the free grace of God in making of the Covenant and in the gracious acceptation of the payment of the surety for you see that God is in Christ reconciling the world there is Covenant grace that runs along with all the fruits of the death of Christ so that even Meritum Christi habet in se gratiam invisceratam The merit of Christ hath grace imbowelled it 5 It is a Covenant of Communion for it is conjugal and in it is the nearest Union and Communion that can be between creatures it 's a Covenant of friendship and the proper effect of friendship is fellowship 2 Cor 6.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will dwell in them and walk amongst them which is a high degree of condescension There are two ways of Gods communicating himself the one is infinite and to us inconceivable so God doth in the mystery of his eternal generation communicate himself unto his son and as the Godhead doth communicate it self unto the man Christ Jesus in a personal union so there is a communication of himself unto the Saints and the highest communication that is is in a Covenant way there is but little that God doth impart of himself unto all the creatures in comparison of what God doth unto his Saints there is more of his wisdom holiness goodness and all his attributes that is to be seen in these than in all the world besides 't is the Saints alone that can shew forth the vertues of him that hath called them 1 Pet. 2.9 6 By this Covenant he doth dispense Grace and Glory 1 For Grace To make room for that in the Soul He will take away the heart of stone and he will put his law into their hearts Jer. 31.33 And that grace shall teach them to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts c. And 2 for Glory hereafter that also is dispensed by this Covenant for the inheritance is not by the Law not by the first but by the second Covenant they only that are heirs of promise are the persons that are ordained to Glory and they only are the sons of the Resurrection their services only are accepted of God and all the glory that he hath in this inferior world comes in by them and it is whatever they do even the meanest services not only their religious works but their civil and natural works which they do out of necessity of nature yet having a tincture of the blood of this Covenant upon them they are in order to an eternal reward and whereas to all other men may be said to what purpose is the multitude of your services Summo dedecore vos afficiam I accept them not Mal. 2.3 I will spread dung upon your faces that is the dung of your fasts and of your solemn services they shall make you but the more hateful and abominable and vile and become a dunghill before God that 's all the fruit you shall have of your religious duties But now men that are in Covenant they can say We will be abundant in the work of the Lord for we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15. last 2 Chron. 13.5 2. Have an eye unto the stability of the Covenant it is a Covenant of Salt Sal est duraturae amicitiae symbolum Salt is a symbol of lasting friendship and signifies here that the Lord will never turn away from them to do them good Jer. 32.10 it is a Covenant that we can never break because the righteousness thereof can never be spent And the stability of the Covenant lies not only in the love and mercy of God that made it but 1 in the faithfulness of God who is ingaged and cannot go back for he is not as man that he should repent Dan. 9 4. and therefore in the Scripture he is every where stiled the faithful God that keeps Covenant and mercy for ever and the Apostle says God is not unfaithful to forget your work and labour of love God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins for God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able It is said Mic. 7. last He will perform his mercy to Abraham and his truth to Jacob and he is ingaged by a double Oath That by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lye we may have strong consolation 1 By an oath to Christ for he is made a Priest by an oath Psal 110 3. 2 By an oath unto us and therefore it is
earth 5. Creatures and promises could never make a man happy if a mans interest in them were never so clearly discovered to him for it could never put his soul into a fruition of the chiefest good it would only make all to be faith and we should rejoyce in the hope of the glory of God 1 Pet. 1.9 and it is true that this is a joy unspeakable and glorious Fruitio est actus voluntatis circa finem importat quietationem delectationem anima in amato Fruition is an act of the will about the end and it imports the quietation and delectation of the soul in its beloved Medin But the soul would be for ever unquiet and always full of restlesness still tending towards God Heb. 12.23 therefore it enjoys him as the end of faith and hope and thence souls in Heaven are made perfect not only because their image is perfected by the beatifical vision but also because they are put into a fruition of that which was the highest and ultimate object of their faith and love and fruitio est nobilissima actio voluntatis the most noble act of the will and it 's this act upon the highest object that doth perfect the will and the perfection of the will is the perfection of the man as the act of the will is the act of the man Vse 1 § 4. From hence see the misery of all those that are out of Covenant with God they have all the Attributes of God against them and they have no inheritance in him thou mayst have large revenues amongst the creatures for God doth give Kingdoms unto the basest of men but it is but mica canibus projecta a crum thrown to a dog as Luther speaks of the Turkish Empire and in them all thou shalt but inherit the wind Prov. 11.29 for thou hast no inheritance in the Lord he is no God to thee tolle meum tolle Deum take away my and take away God it is unto thee as if there were no God And here it 's good to consider 1. If a man had all the creatures armed against him for his destruction as all men out of Covenant have for the Creation groans under their service that is the bondage of corruption spoken of Rom. 8.21 but also they are very ready to make war upon thee for when a man is taken into Covenant with God there is a league made with the beasts of the earth the stones of the field and the creeping things of the ground And God will hear the Heavens and the Heavens shall hear the Earth Hos 2.21 and the Earth shall hear the corn and the wine and the oyl and they shall hear Jezreel and I will sow her unto me in the earth and will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy c. All the creatures shall work together for their good and yet if God arm the meanest of the creatures against a man they shall destroy him Pharaoh the great King of Egypt that durst presume to war against God cannot contend with Flyes nor with the Lice and the Frogs he cannot fight a pitcht battel with the waves Now if a man cannot stand out a battel with the smallest of the creatures how can he fight against God Therefore I would a little reason with you as God doth with his people if thou hast run with the footmen Jer. 12.5 and they have wearied thee how wilt thou contend with horses and if in a land of peace they have wearied thee what wilt thou do in the swellings of Jordan if thou canst not stand it out against creatures how wilt thou be able to endure when the Lord shall rise up and all his Attributes shall be armed against thee For as this is the great comfort of the Saints and their last refuge so it 's the great terrour unto wicked men and their last destruction 2. Consider if it were but a threatning what a miserable thing it is to lye under any evil aspect thereof the Lord has spread out the Expansum of his Word over the rational world and the Lord rules all by it and according to it he will judge them all Zac. 1.6 Did not my word overtake your fathers for the Decree will surely bring forth it will not always carry the judgment in the womb of it and if it be so terrible a thing to be under the power of any one threatning of God Zeph. 2.2 what is it to lye under the evil aspect of all the threatnings of God that there is not a word in this book but speaks terrour unto the man much more under the evil aspects of all the Attributes of God 3. This is the happiness of the Saints that they have something in God to plead for them they have as it were a threefold Advocate 1 within themselves and so the Spirit pleads the causes of the soul 2 without them and so Jesus Christ is an Advocate with the Father 3 they have something in God himself I say not that I will pray the Father for you for the Father himself loves you c. So here is the misery of wicked men not only the Spirit pleads against them and will strive with them no more but becomes unto them a spirit of bondage in themselves and binds them over unto wrath and Christ pleads against them as Luther tells a story of one Doctor Krans in a Tract of his De Fascina spirituali in Gal. 3. Ego Christum negavi ideo stat coram Patre accusat me illam cogitationem tam fortiter conceperat ut nullâ adhortatione aut consolatione sibi pateretur excuti atque ita desperavit seipsum miserrimè occîdit c. I denied Christ and therefore he stands before the Father and accuseth me c. The learned do for our understanding frame a holy kind of conflict between the Attributes of God according to the liberty allowed them in Scripture speaking of God after the manner of men in the work of our Redemption as if the Lord were reduced into some straights by the cross demands of several Attributes Justice calling for vengeance upon sinful and cursed creatures and with Justice the Truth of God doth joyn to make good his threatning the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye and mercy on the other side pleads for compassion towards miserable and seduced man and this sets infinite wisdom on work to reconcile the different pleas of the Attributes of God in mans redemption but what a misery will that man be in that shall have no Attribute of God to plead for him but they shall all joyn in their pleas and demands against him not only those terrible Attributes that the soul is afraid of as Justice and Truth and Holiness but also the Attributes in which a mans hope is Men cry out God is merciful Oh but mercy is set against thee O sinner and thou hast no interest in his mercy
them to have the Remainders of sin in them in this life and they shall never be freed from it till their dissolution We shall easily see that he as the Lord of all has ordered this by his Sovereignty and Supremacy for the good of his people and that it was for their sakes 1 That hereby he may exalt the Grace of Justification unto the Saints for God to pardon sins past it were rich mercy infinite mercy but for the Lord to leave sin remaining in a man and while he is conflicting with it and fears he shall be overcome with it every moment sees himself still to remain a sinner and yet the grace of Justification still to hold out that as there is in me a Fountain of sin so God is the Father of mercies and he doth not only pardon at first but when I sin and endeavour to make a breach upon my Justification again he shews mercy still and doth multiply to pardon Isa 55.7 this exalts the Righteousness of Christ imputed in justification for tolle morbos tolle vulnera nulla erit medicinae causa Dam. Therefore a man doth daily wash his feet and sees the Sun of Righteousness to rise upon him daily that he may be justifi'd not only from the Acts of sin but also from the remainders and Reliques of sin that are in him Joh. 13.10 And this also doth exalt the grace of God the Father justifying When the Apostle had had more than ordinary experience of the remainders of corruption in him and was much afflicted looking upon himself as a miserable man by reason thereof and judging himself worthy to be destroy'd for it and might by reason thereof have expected the sentence of death every moment now he looks upon the grace of the Gospel as justifying and he finds a new sweetness in it there is now no condemnation unto them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8.1 Not only the sins committed before Conversion but the sins remaining after do justly make the soul liable to condemnation but such is the grace that justifies us that there is no condemnation unto them that are in Christ Jesus 2 That there may be a continual Conflict kept up in us our life is a Warfare and therefore Job 14.14 it is said all the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the days militiae meae of my warfare this is not against enemies without against spiritual wickednesses in high places only but against enemies within in a special manner the Flesh lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh and by this means the war is maintain'd The Lord will have the time of this life to be tempus militiae a time of warfare and the other life laetitiae of triumph as Bernard speaks this laboris of labour that mercedis of reward and there is no conflict in the world like unto this to have two contraries in the same place each of them striving to destroy one another and yet neither of them compleatly and totally prevailing for they are contrary Gal. 5.17 and there is a greater opposition against sin than there is against the Devils themselves or any enemies without there are the sorest battels fought between flesh and spirit in the same soul and with greater displeasure and indignation against them than Saints against the Devil himself for this is the greatest evil to them because it is in them and because the Lord will have a conflict that so the graces of his People may be both exercised and also tryed and improved the power of Grace and the truth of it would never have been so gloriously seen if there had not been such a principle of corruption drawing it forth daily 3 That he may keep his people humble there is no one thing that the Lord takes more care of than that the Saints should not be lifted up it is the end of Affliction to hide pride from their hearts and of temptations and desertions in the flesh that they might not be lifted up in themselves and exalted above measure Now it 's true it 's matter enough to humble one if duely considered to call to mind what he has been as it did Paul I was a persecutor and a blasphemer and injurious 1 Tim. 1.13 As some of the Heathens having risen to be Kings from small beginnings would keep something still to put them in mind of their Original as one being a Potters son would be served only in Earthen Vessels all his life-time The remembrance of what is past might humble a man to say Such were some of you such were ye but it is much more effectual to humble a man to consider that very iniquity is not fully purged unto this day but there are still some remainders of it upon me there is still a law in my members that rebells against the law of my mind that when I would do good evil is present with me and this makes me to look upon my self as a wretched and a miserable man and makes me to loath and abhor my self the same sore is running upon me still I am sensible I have the leprosie and therefore I can take no pleasure in my self the Devil comes and hath something in me there is a Principle that is prone to close with any temptation there is a sea of corruption that doth but wait for a wind nay if the Devil should never disquiet it yet it is a Fountain that will cast mire out of it self c. 4 That the Saints may be exercised in Prayer and Repentance daily Now it is that which the Lord requires of them every day Pray without ceasing and a man is Nulli rei nisi poenitentiae natus c. Now that there may be something that we may ask of him daily to give us that is a further degree of Grace a greater measure of purging and that we may apply the Righteousness of Christ for to mortifie sin in us as well as to satisfie God for sin and that there may be always something that we may confess and bewail before God and repent of and mourn for this sin is still left in us And look what benefits the people of God do receive from these constant and daily exercises all these do flow from the Sovereignty of God towards them in leaving of the remainders of sin in them and by this means we come to have a part in that great honour which belongs to Christ and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taking away of sin It 's true Christ only doth it by way of satisfaction and he is the only original of our sanctification but yet we do it as having our spirits also acted by the Spirit of Christ and so our wills and desires joyning and concurring with him in that work therefore we are said to mortifie the deeds of the body and to crucifie the flesh with the affections and lusts to purge
Charter by which he has a Law-right to all the Priviledges and Blessings of the Gospel Doth not this Covenant give us assurance not only of Gods gracious and merciful Nature but also of his good will towards sinners It 's true Gods Nature gives us full assurance that what he has promised shall be performed but what gives us assurance of the Promise but the Covenant of Grace Yea what are all the Promises but so many lines of the Covenant concentring in Christ the Prince and Mediator thereof Do not all the Promises spring from that mother-root the Covenant of Grace in Christ Yea what is the New-creature but a conformity to this New Covenant Is there any condition that a Believer can fall into but he may find some Promise in this Covenant to relieve him therein Yea is there any excellence in God or his creature which is not made over for your use in and by this Covenant Are not all Gods good things yours and all your afflictive things Gods by this Covenant May you not then lay the stress of all your cares and burdens on this Covenant Are you Bondslaves of the Law will not this Covenant make you Freeholders if you come unto it and embrace it Is there any thing commanded in the Law which this Covenant doth not enable to perform The Law may fret and grind your spirits to powder but what can melt them but this Covenant The Law weighs Obedience by the Ballance and if there be the least grain wanting doth it not reject all But doth not this Covenant examine all by the Touch-stone and accept what is sincere albeit imperfect Art thou very unlike to God and is this thy great burden consider then has not this Covenant a transformative spirit to make thee like him What is the scope of this Covenant but to make God thine and thee Gods And dost thou not hereby acquire an interest in all the blessings of God Doth not this give thee the best assurance thou canst desire for any desired or enjoyed Mercy Doth the first Covenant stop thy mouth before God and doth not this second Covenant stop the mouth of the first Are not the riches of free Grace laid up in Christ and are not the riches of Christ laid up in the Covenant of Grace Doth not the believing Soul by cleaving to this Covenant grow out of it to the stature of a perfect man Whence come all the hopes comforts and happiness of the Saints but from this Covenant as 2 Sam. 23.5 O! what glorious Relations between God and Man arise from this Covenant what an interest doth man acquire in God as well as God in man by this Covenant yea are not the smallest mercies by this Covenant made exceeding great and sweet O the infinite boundless Dimensions the invisible Miracles and wonders of free Grace lodged in the Covenant of Grace Are there any banks or bottoms to this Ocean of free Grace Can the sins of the vilest men sink them beyond the depths thereof could they by faith swim thereon What wonders are here for Faith's Contemplation Admiration and Adoration Are not these ways and methods of free Grace comprehended in the Covenant of Grace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imperscrutable such as all the wit and sagacity of Men and Angels cannot prie into Rom. 11.33 as also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impervestigable such as leave no Vestigia or foot steps for carnal Reason to trace out as Rom. 11.33 Ought we not then with Paul that great Miracle of Grace to stand on the banks of this Ocean of free Grace expressed in this New Covenant and crie out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O the Depths of the Riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God! So great and excellent are the Benefits of this Covenant 3. Let us a little inquire into the Mediator and Prince of this Covenant 3. The Covenant of Grace made primarily with Christ which also will give us a further Demonstration of its excellence The Apostle instructs us Gal. 3.16 that Christ is the Seed to whom the Promises or Covenant was primarily made by seed some understand Christ Personal others Christ Mystical but we may with our Author Gal. 3.16 very safely take in both senses understanding it primarily and principally of Christ Personal who is the prime Federate and thence of Christ Mystic Abraham and his believing seed considered as members of Christ with whom the Covenant was primarily made Now this Covenant as made with Christ terminates on him under a two-fold respect 1 In relation to his own Mediatory Office 2 In relation to his Body the Church as he is Head thereof 1 As it regards Christs Mediatory Office and his more compleat discharge thereof so God the Father by donation and stipulation constituted him Mediator and Surety of this Covenant gave him a promise of Assistence Deliverance Acceptance Justification Exaltation and success in the management of his Mediatory Kingdom This part of the Covenant belongs solely to Christ wherein his members have no share albeit much benefit thereby 2 There is another part of this Covenant made with Christ primarily which regards him as Head of his body mystic For look as the first Adam as a public person and representative head received both a Covenant and Image to communicate to his posterity who were both legally and naturally in him so also this our second Adam received both a Covenant and Image for his seed to be imparted to them Are not all the promises made primarily to him and in him to his members And if there be any promise to be fulfilled must not thy soul look up to Christ and his worthiness alone for its fulfilling Is not the righteousness of the Covenant laid up in him and by virtue of union with him made ours Is there any dram of the holy oil of Grace imparted to us but what was first poured out on the sacred head of this our High Priest Do not also all the priviledges of the Covenant primarily belong to him and to us only as in him Hast thou any duty to perform and must thou not look up to Christ for strength to perform it Doth it not belong to him only to â—ive supplies Or hast thou any service to be accepted and can it be accepted any other way than as perfumed with the Incense of his Merits Are not all the sons of the first Adam by sin cut off from all communion with God the Fountain of all good Can they then receive any good thing from him but by the hand of this Mediator Doth God give the least good to any sinner immediately Have sinners any thing to do with God in a way of mercy immediately in themselves If we speak a good word of prayer to God or he speak a good word of comfort to us must it not be in and by the Angel of his presence Are not all debts paid in him all duties performed by him all blessings conveyed
of God is renewed None of us lives to himself Rom. 14.9 1 Cor. 10. ult nor dies to himself Whether we live we live to the Lord and whether we die we die to the Lord c. But nature never aims at God in any thing makes him neither the end of his being nor of his working if he labour in his Calling and get an Estate he is laying up treasures for himself and is not rich towards God and in his Religious duties if he pray he howles for Corn and Wine If he fast Have you fasted to me says the Lord and when you did eat and drink did you not eat to your selves And when they preach it 's to themselves some preach Christ out of envy and to draw disciples after them Some self-end or other is the great wheel in all they do that acts them and carries them on and if they do reform with Jehu it 's upon a politick principle and not a pious not for God but for themselves and so dum obtemperant non obsequuntur whiles they obey they obey not and in all the duties of Religion Self is at the bottom Hos 10.11 They are as a heifer that loves to tread out the corn And if like the Pharisee they fast or give almes it is to be seen of men God is not in all their thoughts nor his glory in all their aim and they are said to serve other things as Mammon and serve divers lusts and pleasures Now what is service but to do anothers work and to do it to their ends to be wholly theirs therefore Christ is said to be God the Fathers servant because he did the work that God gave him to do and he aimed at Gods ends also he did not seek his own glory but the glory of him that sent him and Grace is in this respect in a special manner call'd self-denial Mat. 16.24 Let a man deny himself and Self in ends is hardest denied of any other This is great Babel that I have built for the honour of my Majesty And thus the soul is taken off from God it has no happiness in him as the chief Good they live not to him they act not for him as their utmost end he is neither the end of their being nor of their working 2. The Soul has lost his interest in God There were glorious relations between God and man by Covenant so that as God had an interest in man so had man also an interest in God Luk. 3. ult Adam was the son of God and had that interest in God that became that relation as a child has an interest in a father and he could truly call him his God and this is the glory of the second Covenant that our interest in God is restored and increased I will be their God and they shall be my people Jer. 31.33 And he that has an interest in another may claim him according to his relation as truly as if all were in his own power as the Wife has an interest in the Husband and she may expect that love care and protection and provision that that relation does intitle her to as truly as if it were in her own power and the Husband may expect from his Wife that love service and help that the relation calls for And it 's true of all other relations whatsoever when persons have a relation and an interest one in another and though the persons be of the highest rank as between a King and a Subject a Master and a Servant a Father and a Son yet the relation gives them a mutual interest one in another and so man had in God at the first he was his God and the Saints now call him in Christ the God of my mercy and the God of my life and so man had an interest in the Wisdom of God and in the Holiness of God and the Soveraignty of God over all the Creatures so far as might be for mans good as truly as for his own glory for that 's the nature of propriety Eph. 6.10 Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might I have no power may such a soul say but I am strong in the strength of God and wise by the wisdom of God all that is in God I have a claim to I have nothing of my own but all the Creatures of God are as mine and therefore as having nothing and yet possessing all things having nothing in my self and yet possessing all things in God as Rev. 21.6 He that overcomes shall inherit all things I will be his God And therefore after all Job's great losses the Fathers bring him in looking upon them all and saying I have lost nothing So long as the soul has an interest in God he can lose nothing he can want nothing But sin has broken all relations between you and God but barely that of a Creature thou art no more a Son and therefore the Jews Joh. 8. boasting that God was their father Christ tells them that there was no such relation between God and them but they descended from another stock of their father the Devil And for servants they serve not God but themselves their own bellies and therefore all this interest must be restored unto them in Christ I ascend to my father and your father my God and your God He is no way a God to us but as he is Christ's God else we have no interest in him and if we sin we can lay no claim to his Mercy to pardon or to his Wisdom to direct us or his Power to protect us or his Bounty to provide for us nay all the Attributes of God that work for the good of his people they all work against such a soul his Holiness is a terrour for he is of purer eyes than to behold evil his Wisdom is a terrour for he knows how to reserve the wicked to the day of judgment to be punished his Omniscience is against us for he will bring every work to judgment with every secret thing He does number our steps and does watch over our sins and the mercy of God thou hast no interest in thou shalt have judgment without mercy c. a man can claim nothing that is in God to be for him And though while men are at ease and enjoy the Creatures they find no want of this yet when they come to die and to be in a streight Act. 27. as Paul was when he said the Angel of the Lord stood by me whose I am and whom I serve and at the last day to look up to God and say I am thine save me Lord it will be more than for a man to have an interest and a title to all the Kingdoms of the Earth and other men that have slighted it they shall know what it is to lose their interest in God 3. The Soul has wholly lost the Image of God in which the glory of the soul did at first lie but it
Rom. 4. is directly opposed to the work of faith and therefore we find Abraham denied his reason and shut his eyes against it when he came to believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. he did not judge of it this way and that way he did not dispute it but rested in his word alone And therefore the Apostle asks 1 Cor. 1.20 where is the wise man the scribe and the disputer of this world The more wisdom men have and the greater improvement of reason the greater disputants men are the farther off usually from faith and the greater enemies thereunto 3. All a mans own righteousness either what a man has done before his conversion as Paul or what he can do after his conversion may be so abused and relied upon as to derogate from the righteousness of God for when men are convinced of their sins and see that there is something wanting to their Salvation then they think they will do something more as the young man in the Gospel What shall I do to inherit eternal life he had a confidence in what he had done and fearing lest that might fall short there was something more that he was willing for to do When men are once convinced of their sins they cannot look upon any thing that they have done that will satisfie and their good deeds will not weigh down their bad but then they say Mic. 6.6 Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the high God will he be pleased with thousands of Rams c. As if their after-obedience should make amends for their former sins And so under Popery at this day many do fast and macerate their bodies watch and pray and chastise themselves by scourging and going Pilgrimage give away all their Goods to the poor and betake themselves unto a voluntary Poverty shut themselves up in a Monastery and Hermitage and seclude themselves from all the comforts of this life yea even Princes and Emperours lay down their Kingdoms and cast away their Crowns and betake themselves unto a private life and all upon this ground that these shall be opera satisfactoria satisfactory works Luth. in Gal. 5. and so expiatory for their former sins And hence it is that men convinced of their sins labour as for life to satisfie God and to quiet their Consciences And when men have wrought hard all their days with such expectations as these they are hardly brought off to come to Christ as stript naked of all and to acknowledge that all their righteousness is an abomination And these are the mountains that are to be cast down the high imaginations and presumptuous thoughts of themselves before they can come to Christ and the casting down of these is a preparing the way for the Lord. 4. When mens Consciences are awakened and sin revived by an almighty work of the Law and the second Covenant offered to them then they say the news is too good to be true there is no mercy for them whatever God intends to others surely he can never think thoughts of peace to them he will never take such toads and serpents as they are into his bosom to have communion with him and they say there is no hope While men are in peace and sin lies sleeping at the door so long a mans self-love and self-flattery makes it easie to presume and he says It 's a small matter to believe for God is merciful and Christ died for sinners And if there be but a few men that shall be saved yet he doubts not but he shall be one of that number But when once God discovers his sin and awakens his Conscience then the man says Though the greatest part of mankind should be saved and if there were but one man in the world that should be condemned surely he should be the man If a man had come to Judas after his Conscience was awakened on the sight of his sin before he hanged himself and told him be not discouraged though thou hast committed a great sin Christ is the Saviour of the world and it is but believing in him and this sin shall be pardoned and thy soul saved He would have answered you as Spira did when they did exhort him to believe That they were as good bid him to fulfill the whole Law and bid him lay hold upon a star in the firmament For a man to see sin to be an infinite evil and God to be a provoked God ready to take vengeance and Hell open and himself ready to drop into everlasting destruction and yet now for him to cast himself into the arms of everlasting mercy and relie for his eternal happiness on the favour of an almighty and a sin-revenging God and say If I perish I perish I will rest upon him and trust to his mercy whether he save me or damn me For a man by an exclusive act to shut out all other hopes and ways and confine his thoughts to free Grace alone and to leave himself at the mercy of God Psal 10.14 and at his foot-stool to be willing to be at his dispose it 's that which the unbelief and despair of a mans heart upon the apprehension of the guilt of sin will never be brought unto without an act of Almighty power Ephes 1.19 Therefore we read in Luk. 3.5 to make way for Christ there be vallies to be filled as well as mountains to be levelled and laid low Before men are humbled they are mountains too high to submit to this righteousness and being humbled they become vallies and are too low to rise up and to imbrace the Grace that is offered by the Prince of the second Covenant Now so far as a man does not submit to the righteousness of God so far he desires to stand under the first Covenant still § 4. In a man under the Covenant of Works there are two things 1 An answerable spirit 2 Suitable fruits And if a man desire both these then we may conclude he desires to be under this Covenant 1. They that under the Covenant of Works have an answerable spirit a spirit that does always accompany this Covenant Rom. 8.15 We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear c. Now this was the natural fruit of this Covenant Gal. 4.24 for it has only gendered to bondage since the fall unto Adam in innocency it was a Covenant not of bondage but of freedom but being broken all that come under it are children of the bond-woman and the spirit that does accompany it is a spirit of bondage For there is a twofold spirit that is answerable unto the twofold Covenant and with the change of a mans Covenant there follows a change of a mans spirit and never till then now this spirit is a spirit of fear to witness guilt a fear of Gods presence and a fear of Gods judgments Amos 1.10 Heb. 2.15 Isa 33.5 Fearfulness has surprized the hypocrite and as Cain says
shall be effectual to a mans pollution Vse 1 § 5. See here the malignity and the vile nature of sin and what a deadly disease it is when that which God did give of purpose to destroy it will increase it We say that is a very deadly disease that you can apply no physick but it does stir up the disease and it 's increased by it and all that you can take feeds the disease so here sin must needs be a deadly thing that the law should increase it which in its own nature should abate it There are two truths that should be always in a mans eye God to be the chiefest Good and Sin to be the greatest Evil. There is no one thing that does set forth the evil of sin more than this that the Commandment of God which doth forbid it curse it condemn it should improve it It 's no wonder then if mercies make men more wicked and if crosses add to mens sins for the very Law of God and his threatnings and restraints thereof will do it if any thing make sin appear to a man to be out of measure sinful and a disease incurable in it self this will 2. See hereby the vanity of that Doctrine that says Moral perswasion is sufficient unto conversion God enlightning of a mans mind and shewing him what is his duty and what is required of him and perswading of his will it is according to these able to imbrace it and so turn unto God and duty and herein is the drawing of God the Father when as we see that when God does set a mans duty before him in the Law with all the threatnings of it and all the promises of it this is so far from converting the man that it improves his sin sin and makes it the more to rage against God and become out of measure sinful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore there is an inward work of God an Almighty Power put forth in changing the heart and converting of the will Moral perswasions may make a man more wicked but they will never convert him or make him the more holy without this inward work put forth by God in changing the heart 3. See here what is the proper rise and ground of that unpardonable sin the sin against the Holy Ghost It is by a curse of the first Covenant coming upon to the word of God that it is an occasional means lust opposing it to make sin rise the higher and first it brings forth in a man sins against knowledge and afterwards sins with malice and despight If the Law had never been revealed again but man had been left as many of the Heathens are who have but that small glimmering of light which some do call the remainders of the Law within them which the Apostle speaks of Rom. 2. They shew the works of the law written in their hearts this sin had never been heard of in the world it is a sin proper unto the Church of God and cannot be committed out of the Church where men are enlightned in the truth and sin takes occasion from the Law to break forth into despight against it 4. See what a vain thing it is for a man to glory in any Church-priviledge The Jews did stand much upon it and doubtless it was a great mercy that unto them did belong the giving of the Law and the Promises and unto them were committed the Oracles of God and therefore they rested in and made their boast of the Law c. Rom. 2.18 19. And what fruit had most of them by the Law it did aggravate their sins in the guilt of them and drew forth their sins in the power of them unto the greater height and in many of them even to the sin against the Holy Ghost And so it does many men that live under the Gospel at this day they have no other fruit by their ordinances and of the word of God amongst them but to make them more exceedingly wicked 5. See what a misery it is to be in a state of unregeneracy he that is so is wicked by nature and every thing wâ—â— make him worse See also what a mercy restraining grace is to a man that is unregenerate when we read of Judas and how Christs reproof did heighten his malice and of the Pharisees how by Christs Sermon their rage was drawn forth and they gnashed their teeth upon him c. What a mercy is it should every soul say that all the Sermons that ever I have heard of Christ c. should not have wrought the same effects in me long ago Luther saith that reading that place Rom. 1.17 The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith and understanding it only de justitia activa scilicet punientè of Gods punishing justice Non amabam imo odiebam justum punientem Deum tacitaque si non blasphemia certe ingenti murmuratione c. odi istud vocabulum poenitentiae I did not love but hate the just and punishing God and by a silent great murmur if not blasphemy I did hate that word Repentance Now that it has not been so to every one of us and we sinned against the Holy Ghost and in the highest acts of direct enmity that there had been no hope of mercy seeing that we cannot say that we have done it ignorantly Oh what a mercy is restraining Grace 6. Lastly how should it engage the people of God to thankfulness that God has freed them from this great misery that now the Law should subdue their lusts and not enrage them and if it does at any time yet it 's not to bring forth fruit unto death not to have a full dominion over them how should it make them fear when they read or hear the Law lest it should add to the disease Oh! how ought people to pray and Ministers pray that they may not be a curse and that the word which they hear and preach may not ripen their sins and draw out and improve their corruptions but their graces and make them holy CHAP. IV. The Rigor and Coactive power of the Law Gal. 5.18 But if you be led by the Spirit you are not under the Law SECT I. Wherein the Coactive power of the Law consists § 1. THere is a double sense of these words given by Interpreters and both may very well be put together The Apostle having said before That in a godly man there are two contrary principles flesh and spirit and they lust and act one against another so that they cannot do the things they would but when they would do good evil is present with them he adds here a consolation to bear up their hearts in this which is the greatest conflict upon earth between flesh and spirit in the same heart and that which made them to look upon themselves as miserable men all their days Rom. 7.24 but if you are led by the spirit you are not under the law that is though there
shewed many ways â—â—w we will speak a little to the sin of it and that in these Particulars 1 Hereby thou endeavourest to make void the Covenant of Grace and all those gloriâ—us thoughts that God had towards sinners from everlasting as the highest way to glorifie himself He did therefore purpose it in himself and from himself Prov. 8.30 Psal 40.5 that he will gloriefie himself this way by a second Covenant and God delighted in it and spent infinite thoughts about it it 's the pleasure of the Lord and all this thou dost make void to thy self by continuing under thy former Covenant and if thou accept not the Grace offered in the second Now the Apostle speaks of it as a fearful evil to make void the Law but how great is their â—vil that do their utmost to make the Gospel void 2 Thou hereby at once frustrates the whole end of Christs coming into the world for â—he came into the world as a second Adam with a Covenant and an Image and no man can partake of his Image unless he have an interest in his Covenant for all the Promises of renewing the Image of God in man are not the promises of the first but of the second Covenant Mal. 3.1 Heb. 12.24 Heb. 7.22 and it 's he that is in Christ that is a new Creature 2 Cor. 5.14 For he is given as a Covenant to the Nations The Lord shall come speedily into his Temple even the messenger of the Conant in whom ye delight So that the great end of Christs coming into the world is that he might bring in a second Covenant by which God and man may be reconciled sins pardoned and the sinner saved and whosoever is not translated into this Covenant Christ is come and dead in vain as to him 3 Thou dost hereby reject and despise the greatest grace that ever was shewed to the sons of men for God to enter into a Covenant with man in his Creation was an act of meer Grace God might have required obedience and have promised no recompence for all was by right of creation due from man to God but God did not owe any thing to man again and yet this was but faedus amicitiae a Covenant of Friendship but when man had sinned and become faedifragus a Covenant-breaker now for God to try man again by a second Covenant that it should be a Covenant with man as a sinner is a far greater act of favour to be engaged to him Isa 26.18 19. and that upon higher terms and better promises it 's the admiration of all the Angels in Heaven that God should so far honour a sinful creature as to take him into Covenant with himself Jer. 13.11 Zac. 11.10 4 This is much heightned by this that the Angels that fell were as capable of mercy as we and Christ and his Righteousness as proportionable a good for the Salvation of the Angels as he is for man though they did sin ex destinata malitia maliciously and without temptation Bernard and so perire necesse est poenitere potentes yet had the Lord set his thoughts of mercy upon them and sent his Son with a Covenant to them The same Omnipotency that overcomes the heart of a man could have also overcome the heart of a Devil but he did catch at Mankind when he let the Angels go and never made them the offer of a second Covenant and this mans sin is beyond that of the Devils in that he refuseth to come under this Covenant of Grace 5 Hereby thou takest the name of God in vain and receivest no benefit by all his Ordinances and Promises and motions of the Spirit that thou enjoyest 1 All his Ordinances for to what end is the Ministry of the Gospel set up and appointed by God but only in the first place to bring men into Covenant with God God is in Christ reconciling the world and how is that done why by making a covenant of peace as this second covenant is called Ezek. 37.26 And by perswading men and treating with them to bring them under the bonds of this covenant 2 Cor 5.18 19. for as the Apostle says He has made us the ministers of reconciliation and all the offers that we make unto you of Christ it is but to perswade you to accept of him as God has given him as a covenant to the Nations and until you do accept of Christ in his covenant and consent to that you can have no other benefit by him that will be effectual to the saving of your soul And as for all other benefits of the Ministry without this they will never answer the great end for which the Lord appointed it It were but a low end in a Minister to propound no higher thing to himself than this that he might inform the judgments of men and draw them to some outward conformity or civilize men and to do some duties to satisfie their consciences but our end should be that which God did send us for and to count that we have laboured in vain Act. 26.18 if we miss thereof and that is to turn men from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God to translate men out of the kingdom of darkness into the glorious kingdom of his dear Son the greatest mercies of your lives be offers of Christ and his benefits which are all grounded upon the covenant of Grace 2 All the Promises do belong unto the second covenant and he has given us exceeding great and precious promises 2 Pet. 1.4 whereby we are made partakers of the Divine nature There are promises of pardon and of grace and holiness and happiness promises of the life that now is and that which is to come There are conditional Promises and there are absolute Promises I will be thy God I will give thee my Son and my Spirit I will take away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh But the bottom of all these is the Covenant and thereunto all the Promises of the Gospel are referred and therefore he that has no interest in the Covenant he in applying a promise takes the name of God in vain for if you be Christs you are Abrahams seed Gal. 3. ult and heirs also of the promise If you are Christs and are in him your Covenant is changed you then come under Abrahams Covenant for it is in respect of this Covenant only Rom. 4.16 Gal. 4.28 that he is said to be the father of us all and if your Covenant be changed you are heirs of the Promise We as Isaac are children of the promise c. And till a mans Covenant be changed there is not a promise in the Book of God that belongs unto him and whensoever he does apply them unto himself he doth wrest the Scripture and he takes the name of God in vain c. 3 As for the Sacraments whosoever has not his Covenant changed they can
happiness of all those that are in Christ even in this that their Covenant is changed and it was unto David the ground of all his comfort that God had made with him this Everlasting Covenant and well it might be for it was the foundation of all his happiness and his salvation But you 'l say Wherein lies the glory of this condition of a souls being translated from their former root 1. Being translated into this Covenant God is reconciled to thee for the Covenant of Grace is a Covenant of Peace and Reconciliation so that the enmity between thee and God is taken up and he looks upon thee as an enemy no more 2. Being taken into Covenant with God again there do many sweet relations grow out of the Covenant for the Lord saith I will be their God and they shall be my people and the Lord is not ashamed to be called their God he is our father and husband and our friend we have as truly by Covenant an interest in all that is in God for our best good as the Lord himself hath for his own glory his power is made over to us as truly as if we had infinite power and his mercy as if we had infinite mercy and grace and wisdom c. 3. Being once in Covenant he becomes the son of God a mans Covenant is a Covenant of Sonship I will be their God and they shall be my sons and daughters c. 1 Joh. 3.1 Behold what manner of love the father hath shewed unto us that we should be called the sons of God Gal. 4.18 and if sons then heirs in all the inheritance of Christ Being sons of the free-woman it is thereby that we become heirs of the Promise the inheritance is not by the Law but by the Gospel if they that are of the Law be heirs then Christ were dead in vain 4. Hereby a man has a ground for his faith upon all occasions and a bottom for his prayers it is the Covenant that is unto faith the Magna Charta where all the priviledges and liberties of a Believer are found and this Covenant is sure God is a faithful God a God that will not lye that cannot deny himself Jer. 31.18 Turn thou me and I shall be turned for thou art the Lord my God Lord do not abhor us for thou art the Lord our God Jer. 14.21 And the Psalmist hath respect unto this Covenant For all the earth are full of the habitation of crueltieâ— Isa 64.9 Remember not our iniquities for ever behold we beseech thee we are all thy people And take them in the worst terms and when a man has even suffered shipwrack yet the Covenant is tabula post naufragium a plank after shipwrack by which the soul is kept from sinking see it in our Lord Christ himself in that hour of the power of darkness My God my God c. how did Christ call the Lord his God for as Christ is God so he has the same essence with the Father and he thought it no robbery to be equal with Him but as Mediator he is God the Fathers Servant and so the Lord is his God by Covenant Psal 89.36 Christ says Thou art my Father and my God And Joh. 20.17 And he is no other way Christs God and Father but by Covenant for Christ took a new Covenant-right unto God as Mediator And as we come under the Covenant so doth the Lord in him become our God also and we have a right unto him and by looking unto God in Covenant the spirit of a Christian is upheld in the greatest sense of wrath when the Lord did bruise and grind him to powder making his soul an offering for sin A man out of this Covenant has no ground for his faith nor bottom for any of his prayers 5. It is a Covenant that can never be broken an Everlasting Covenant a Covenant of salt Heb. 7. a Covenant that has a surety Christ says If he fail in any thing put it upon my account And Isa 56.7 I know I shall not be ashamed One sin did break the first Covenant and it being broken could never be made up by one offence condemnation came upon all but by the free gift righteousness comes upon all for many offences to justification because the righteousness of the Covenant is a perfect and an everlasting righteousness and upon this is a godly mans comfort mainly grounded David by his sin foresaw that he had undone his Family the Lord threatned him by the Prophet That the sword should never depart from his house yet he comforts himself in this that his Covenant remained sure A godly mans comfort mainly comes in by his state much more than by his actions and he comforts himself in the one when he abhors himself for the other and though God will judge for both yet he will judge of mens actions according to their states Therefore whatever you do give diligence to make your calling and election sure which can never be without a Translation into the Covenant of Grace CHAP. VI. A Mans Translation out of the first Covenant is by Vnion Gal. 3.29 And if ye be Christs then are ye Abrahams seed and heirs according to the promise SECT I. How our Translation is by Vnion with the nature of this Vnion § 1. HAving thus far opened the necessity of a Translation the change of a mans Covenant as well as of his Image we come now unto the Second Head propounded and that is Wherein this Translation doth consist For which I have chosen this Text Gal. 3.29 And if ye be Christs then are ye Abrahams seed and heirs according to the promise In the opening hereof there are Three things that I must lay down as grounds 1. That God will deal with all men not only in a way of Dominion but in a way of Stipulation So that men in Covenant with God are of two sorts either regenerate or unregenerate Sons or Servants Children of the bond-woman or of the free and they that are unregenerate â—emain under the Covenant of Works they that are regenerate are under a Covenant of Grace There is a twofold universal Covenant made with all mankind which Divines do call faedus universale one made with Adam before his fall and with all man-kind For the Curse of his Covenant transgressed coming upon all does plainly prove that the blessing of â—he Covenant should have belonged unto all if it had been observed and the blessing and â—urse of the Covenant does come primarily upon none but those with whom the Covenant â—as made There is another universal Covenant made after the fall made not only with â—an but with all flesh even with every living creature that is upon the earth oâ— Foul and â—attel and every Beast of the earth and it contains in it two Branches 1. That all â—sh shall be no more cut off by the waters or a flood 2. That while the earth remains Sâ—ed-time and Harvest
to convey the same nature and having transgressed his will being wicked it is a guilty cursed and forsaken nature that is conveyed unto all mankind from him they all sinning in him else corruption of nature might be their punishment but their sin it could never be 2. All Adams posterity comes under the Curse even they that never sinned themselves â—ctually and knowingly as Adam did after the similitude of Adams transgression even Children of a span-long Now the Curse is a Curse of the Covenant Death is a part of Juâ—tice and that must suppose sin upon the person upon whom it is inflicted and no man can â—ome under the curse of the Covenant who is not himself under the Covenant Now â—ad Adam stood Life should have been conveyed unto them and holiness but he falling â—in and death takes hold of them and the Scripture doth speak not only of death entring â—pon all but sin upon all and guilt Rom. 5.12 17 By one man sin entred into the world â—nd death by sin poena mediante reatu Thus if God will deal with a man in a Covenant-way it was necessary if they grow out â—f one common root that a Covenant be made with the first man for all his posterity and 〈◊〉 by Union they become guilty of this sin and come under the curse of the Covenant Now the Lord will have the grace and righteousness of the second Covenant conveyed the â—ame way by a second Adam a publick person Isa 9.6 that should stand in the stead of all his poâ—terity and become an everlasting Father and he will have Adam in all this to become â—he type of him that was to come Rom. 5.14 That as by one man sin entered into the world â—nd death by sin so by one man righteousness and life might enter by one Christ Jesus Reas 2 § 2. Herein our happiness lyes under the second Covenant that it is not made with us imâ—ediately but made with him who is the common head the second Adam and with us in â—â—e second place as we are one with him and no otherwise 1 Herein consists the chief â—â—nour and glory of this Covenant beyond the first because it is made with a more gloriâ—â— head and therefore though the first Covenant had much glory in it yet the second â—â—h far exceed in glory for the first man was but of the earth earthly and the second 〈◊〉 was the Lord from Heaven heavenly 2. And hence it is that the Covenant is sure and everlasting and an unchangeable Covenant because made with an unchangeable head and grounded upon an everlasting righteousness and therefore Rom. 4 it is of Faith that it might be sure 2 Sam. 23. because that makes us one with him with whom the Covenant is established and in whom all the promiâ—es of it are yea and Amen So that it being made with him and he being the surety of it â—nd we one with him it can never fail 3. Hence it is also an Ordered Covenant Heb. 9.12 Lu. 9.24 and therein David takes a great deal of comâ—ort that the mercies of it were the sure mercies of David How Because his Covenant was ordered in all things and sure That as the first Adam in the Covenant of works entred â—nto a Covenant in an order not only for himself but for all his posterity also but so as he himself was primus faederatus and all mankind in him So is Jesus Christ also and the Covenant made first with him and then with all his posterity in him so that it is in the mercies of the Covenant as it is said of the resurrection of the dead all shall rise but every man in his own order first Christ then they that are Christs at his coming c. So it is here all the people of God are in Covenant with him and they are all his Covenant people for all that are in Christ are Abrahams seed but yet every man in his own order first Christ and then they that are in Christ by reason of their Union and no small part of our happiness and comfort comes in this way from the order of the Covenant as will appear afterward if ever we come to handle this property of the Covenant of Grace Reas 3 § 3. Supposing man to be a sinner God cannot enter into Covenant with him immediately any more unless we do suppose that the Lord should forfeit the truth of his threatning and so deny himself for he said Gen. 2.17 The day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye Now while this stands in force against a man God cannot deal with him in any way but to destroy him therefore if he will bring in a second Covenant that must be a Covenant of mercy and reconciliation and in that there must be satisfaction to God as well as sanctification of man the sin must be sent to Hell as well as the sinner to Heaven Now this satisfaction man of himself can never give it cost more to redeem his Soul than if he had offered thousands of Rams and ten thousands of Rivers of Oyl or his first-born for his transgression and the fruit of his Body for the sin of his Soul as Mich. 6.6 7. But we cannot be redeemed by corruptible things and therefore if God will have satisfaction answerable unto the wrong the creature has done him it cannot be had from any creature wherefore he finds out one that is able to bear it one that is mighty the man of his right-hand that he should be made sin and become a curse And how doth the satisfaction that Christ gives to the Lord become ours It can be no other way but by Union and this union must be 1 Natural he must take upon him our nature for our debt was a debt of body and soul to be offered as a sacrifice unto the wrath of God And therefore it is said Heb. 2.1 He that sanctifies and they that are sanctified are both of one He must take our nature and in that nature suffer as being one with us for without shedding of blood there is no remission 2 Voluntary and by consent he becoming our surety and so under our Covenant putting his name into our bond Gal. 4.4 and voluntary on our part accepting of him as our surety and consenting to his Covenant and the terms of the agreement and the consent of the Judge to whom the debt was due and against whom the offence was committed Sin must be condemned by the ordination of the Judge and the Surety must accept and submit to what was required of him in order to a satisfaction and the consent and approbation of the delinquent also and by this is the Union made up and all that Christ hath done becomes ours And thus as man is a sinner God cannot enter into Covenant with him immediately but it must be a Covenant in the hand of a Mediator which can be no otherwise but as we are one with him and consent
unnecessary He that appointed the city of refuge did as necessarily appoint an avenger of blood to pursue or else men vvould not have fled unto that city Will you say this is preaching damnation and driving men to despair vvas it not preached by Christ whose heart was so full of love and thoughts of Grace and who wept over Jerusalem he preached the Law and published it for his seeds sake Truly when we preach the Law we preach Salvation and not damnation intentionally the Lord did deliâ—er the Law for Salvation to serve the ends of the Gospel and so we do preach it and â—et if it proves not so it is by accident by reason of the corruption of the heart of man â—he damnation that it meets withal is thence Therefore see your folly and be ashamed of your ignorance It is a high act of Grace and one of the greatest priviledges that Believers have by Christ that the Law is a servant to the Gospel and yet that Mercy you despise and that Grace you do not love you are to be ashamed of your folly and unthankfulness herein 3. It should teach Ministers that the Law must be preached to the same intent that it was revealed and delivered in the hand of a Mediator and to the ends of the Gospel and that not only the curses and threatnings of the Law but the precepts and duties of the Law also In the curses and threatnings of the Law our Divines have usually sent men to Christ to bear those but duties have been pressed though not without Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazian Orat. 17. but that a sufficiency is to be had in him and acceptance from him yet not laying Christ as the foundation of duties as he should have been in time past but men have been prest to duty without a through discovery of a mans Union with Christ as the ground of his assistance and acceptance as there should have been and so men have been put upon duties in a Moral or Legal way as if they had wrought them by their own strength and had a power in themselves though without Christ by reason of their imperfection they could not be accepted and so the way of the Gospel hath not been so clearly discovered and the subserviency of the Law unto the Gospel-grace as it should When the Law is so preached that men are stirred up to seek for Grace in another and to obey him and when the Grace of the Gospel is thus offered as that it inables a man to walk in the way of the precepts of the Law this is indeed to preach the Gospel when a man does so publish the Grace thereof that he does also publish the Law as a servant thereunto 4. See how the heart of God is much in the Salvation of Sinners and to exalt the Grace of the Gospel and honour and magnifie Mercy Isa 53.10 it is now that he would force men to accept of it If men were left unto themselves Christ should never be accepted but die in vain and not a man ever be saved though there were a city of refuge unless there were also an avenger of blood it is not enough for to offer mercy a moral perswasion will not do it but there is without a Law compelling breaking and within there is a spirit drawing and the drawing of the Father Joh. 6.44 lyes in a great measure in this work of the Law the Lord bringing the soul so low that the Blood of Christ and the Grace of the Gospel is precious and a man will accept him upon his own terms and say This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ came into the world to save sinners Thus is the Son a servant unto the Father Isa 42.1 and the Law also a servant to the Son and put into his hand and this shews how much the heart of the Lord is on this work and next to the subjecting of his Son is the subserviency of the Law thereunto Vse 2 It should stir us up to make use of the Law in subserviency to the Gospel for so long as we are in this life the ends of the Gospel are not accomplished there is still sin to be discovered and restrained and condemned there are inward principles the Law in the heart to be perfected and there are duties in which men are to be directed in their whole course and so long as the ends of the Gospel are not attained so long the Law is still to be used and this is that mentioned 1 Tim. 1.8 1 Tim. 1.8 The Law is good if a man use it lawfully that is when it is used by us as it was delivered and published by Christ not for Justification so as to exact righteousness and acceptation from it not to set it up against Christ and the Grace of the Gospel to make the way of the Gospel void as the Jews did Rom. 10.3 but in the hand of a Mediator and for the ends of it and they are the great things of the Law it is the Royal Law and therefore it is a dangerous thing to abase it and therein to take the name of God in vain And as to neglect the Salvation of the Gospel so to despise the convictions or instructions of the Law When the Law is used to discover sin and to keep a man always low and humble in the sense of his own vileness it makes him set a high price upon Christ and the Mercy and Grace of God in him and makes him to keep close to him to keep in the city of refuge because the avenger of blood is without the gate to expect him and that which did at first bring a man in will keep him in for Christ is made a curse for us There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8.1 And when a man comes once to delight in the Law of God it is sweeter to him than honey and dearer to him than thousands of Gold and Silver upon this ground because it furthers the Salvation of the Gospel as Paul says I delight in the law of the Lord in the inward man so far as a man hath an inward principle of conformity to the Law and is regenerate so far the Law is his delight the more a man is sanctified Mat. 11. ult the more precious and sweet it is to him the Commandments of Christ are not grievous but he doth willingly take up the yoke of Christ because it is sweet and light and profitable There is a sweetness in obedience as vvell as an ease and there is a profit also for there is a fruit unto holiness here as vvell as the end everlasting life and vvhen the Lavv does bring a man dovvn to follow the Lamb whither soever he goes and to vvalk humbly vvith his God and say Lord what wilt thou have me to do this is properly for a man to use the Law lawfully for the Law
sent which is a term of Office the Father sends the Son and the Son from the Father sends the Spirit Joh. 14. When the Comforter is come which I will send from the Father Now Christ is the Mediator of the Covenant Heb. 12.24 and the Spirit the seal of the Covenant Ephes 1.13 the Covenant is the Covenant of Promise and the Spirit of the Covenant is the Spirit of Promise and the Person that transacts all from each Person within us in reference to this Covenant as Christ does all with God without us in reference to this Covenant Thence in Prayer we are said chiefly to pray to God the Father and Christ teacheth us to say Our Father c. not that we are not to pray to all the Persons but because the other Persons have undertaken their peculiar Offices in reference to the Prayers of the Saints the Spirit within us as a spirit of supplication indites our Prayers and stirs up affections answerable to our Petitions and groans unutterable and Christ as our High Priest receives this Incense and offers it and as the great Master of Requests tenders our Prayers unto the Father and they are received out of the Angels hand therefore in Scripture we are chiefly directed to pray unto the Father so though all the Persons Father Son and holy Spirit do enter into Covenant with the Saints yet the Covenant in Scripture is said to be chiefly made with God the Father because of the Offices that the other Persons have undertaken in the administration of this Covenant and the Grace thereof 3. It will appear by this because all things in this Covenant are from him and the other Persons in all the Offices that they undertake do it by his appointment the original of all is in the Father 1. The plot and the project was his to reconcile sinners to himself by a second Covenant and all that the Son does therein is not his own will but the will of him that sent him and it is by this will of the Father that we are sanctified the original and foundation of all the benefits that we have from Christ in this Covenant is from this will of the Father Heb. 10. the Son can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do The plot and platform was by him laid and as with reverence be it spoken David said the platform of the building of the Temple was shewed unto him and the design was his though Solomon his Son built it so it is here the plot and the form was laid by the Father but it was the Son that did build the Church 2. The Person with whom he would make this Covenant he did design Joh. 17.6 Thine they were and thou gavest them me And he shall give eternal life to as many as thou hast given me Rev. 13.8 2 Tim. 2.19 And therefore there is Gods book of Life and the Lambs book and they do exactly answer one another the latter being but a transcript only out of the former The foundation of the Lord remains sure and hath this seal c. 3. He doth appoint how much Grace and how much Glory he will dispense unto every one of them by this Covenant the Lord has made Christ the Treasurer 1 Joh. 5.11 and as it were a Feoffee in trust Ephes 4. but Christ does not dispense Grace unto all alike there is a fulness of the age of the stature of Christ but all Saints do not attain to the same stature in Grace neither shall they in Glory the difference is in the appointment of the Father for in dispensing of Grace as well as in meriting of the same Christ is but the Fathers servant and does his will To sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to give but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father 4. It was the Father that employed Christ in this great work to be the Mediator of this Covenant he did not take it of himself and of his own motion but as the Father enters into Covenant so he appoints the Mediator of the Covenant Isa 49.8 He gives him as a Covenant and he did call him to be a Priest therefore you read Mat. 12.18 My servant whom I have chosen 5. He did confirm this Covenant by an Oath and thereby made it unchangeable or else it could never have been And there is a double Oath 1 An Oath to Christ Psal 110.4 making him a Priest by an Oath 2 An Oath to all his federates Heb. 6.17 18. 6. He has delighted in this Covenant and spent infinite thoughts upon it and it is therefore called the pleasure of the Lord. Isa 53.10 How many are thy thoughts to us ward c. Psal 40.5 it is the speech of Christ unto his Father as appears afterwards If I should speak of thy thoughts unto us they are more than can be expressed and all these thoughts are in reference unto this Covenant and his thoughts of peace towards the Elect which he delighted in from everlasting And by all this it will appear that though all the persons be in Covenant with the Saints under the second Covenant yet it is chiefly God the Father § 2. God will after the fall deal with his people in a Covenant-way though mankind did prove unfaithful and break the Covenant of their Creation and so should have perished for ever under the curse of it Covenant breaking being the great aggravation of all transgression and therefore though it was an act of grace and meer goodness before yet now a man would have thought the Lord should have tried man in a way of Covenant no more but only have ruled him in a way of Soveraignty and given him a command and if he did not obey to have taken him away as he saw good but God will deal with man in a Covenant-way Mic. 7. ult Rom. 15.8 1. The Lord will do it thereby to make known his mercy and his truth and he doth manifest both these in the Covenant there is mercy in making the Covenant and mercy infinitenitely the more because it is now with a perfidious and sinful people whose hearts have not been stedfast with the Lord and there is truth and faithfulness in keeping it and there was no way for God to shew forth his faithfulness but this by continuing a Covenant and to be constant in it from a mans conversion unto his glorification for spiritual mercies and for temporal Psal 111.9 he is always mindful of his Covenant he has commanded his Covenant for ever that is to stand fast for ever his Faithfulness is as the Mountains and as the Ordinances of Heaven and you may as soon change the one as the other and this Faithfulness under the second Covenant is so much the more seen because of our unfaithfulness unto him when the unfaithfulness of man cannot make the faithfulness of God of none effect 2.
it that is in himself from his own will only for all is done according to the good pleasure of his will Ephes 1.9 Rom. 9. and he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy so that the whole purpose and plot of it is in the bosom of God alone and according to this plot all things are done in this Covenant As in the Creation all things are done from an Idea in the mind of God and according unto that platform Heb. 11.3 Joh. 1.18 as the Temple was built according to the pattern so in the Covenant also and therefore Christ is said to come from the bosom of the Father being from this gracious intention and purpose of God himself from everlasting 2. He entred into Covenant with Christ the second Adam that he should be the Mediator of the Covenant and the person that should do all the great works that he had intended in this Covenant 2 Tim. 1.9 and therefore we read of a promise of eternal life made unto us before the world began God did not content himself with a purpose but he added thereto a Promise and Covenant to his Decree which could not be unto us because we were not therefore it must be unto one that did represent our persons and was lookt upon as in our stead for a purpose might be in himself but a promise cannot be but unto another and there was a glory and a posterity that God did promise unto him in this Covenant and that he would carry Christ through the work that he had to do Psal 16. as appears afterwards and therefore Christ says He is my God and the lot is fallen to me in a fair ground which is the speech of Christ and therefore Prov. 8.22 he says The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way The Covenant that he made with Christ was the first of his going forth unto the Creature Prov. 8.30 31. and upon this were grounded those true delights of Christ mentioned Prov. 8.30 31. And my delights were with the sons of men 3. By vertue of this Covenant are all those Legal acts past in God In the work of Redemption there are some acts spiritually natural and they are acts of God within us which do imply a real and physical change Phil. 1.6 when our natures and principles are changed and of unholy are made holy but there are also some Moral acts and they are acts of God upon us as if a man be a guilty person or accused as such and there be an act of pardoning and accepting this is a Moral act an act upon him and if he be a sick person and there be a Physician to cure him or blind and his eyes be opened this is a natural act in him and if a man be a captive and he be made a free man by a ransome paid this is a change of his state the one is in Justification and the other in Sanctification the one is mutatio moralis and the other naturalis Now the main acts of God in this Covenant and the main of the Covenant consists in acts done without us and upon us as by soveraign imputation he doth count our sins Christs Isa 53. and he makes to meet upon him the iniquities of us all he died as the second Adam and all the Elect died in him and so his death took place for all the Elect that ever were or shall be by vertue of the Covenant of God and the soveraign imputation of God immediately after the fall Rev. 13.8 therefore is he said To be a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world that is in respect of efficacy grounded upon the imputation of God who can call things that are not as if they were Rom. 3.25 and so all the sins of the old world and the ancient Saints were pardoned the sins that were past through the forbearance of God Tanquam in capite 2 Cor. 5.21 and so Christ rose as a publick person as a second Adam and he being justified all the Elect were justified though there be an actual Justification when they do believe and so with him we ascend and sit together with him in Heavenly places c. And as he is made sin for us so we are made the righteousness of God in him as our sins are laid upon him so his righteousness is imputed unto us and truly accepted for us as our Surety For the debt paid by a Surety is in the esteem of the Law said to be paid by the debter and he for that cause is acquitted And so it is in Adoption Now we are the sons of God that is God accepts us as Children and Sons and because we are Sons he has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our heart we being by God counted members of Christ and so by our Union with him we do partake with him in his filiation and all these are acts of God upon us but without us and therefore the main benefits and acts of the Covenant are transacted by God without us and that is as truly and as perfectly done now as ever it shall be 4. There is not a soul that is brought into this Covenant but it is by God the Father he hath said Ezek. 20.37 Joh. 8.44 I will bring them into the bond of the Covenant No man can come to me except God the Father draw him What is the meaning and intent of the preaching of the Gospel without and all the tenders and offers of Christ to the soul by the Spirit within It is only to this end that they might be a people in Covenant with God and all things that Christ doth he doth as God the Fathers servant to draw men into Covenant with him that by Christ we should come unto God The expression of drawing does set forth unto us its efficacy and certainty and therefore drawing and coming are put together to shew that man by nature is not willing but an enemy unto this Covenant but ex â—olentibus volentes facit he makes men of unwilling willing he does powerfully work as if he did draw and men do as certainly come as they that are drawn Grace works strongly and therefore God is said to draw and it works sweetly and therefore men are said to come it is an act of power in God and yet an act of will in man it is a noble thing to consider how man is drawn to God never any man did come into the bond of the Covenant but he that was before drawn by the Father and there is an Almighty power that goes to the work even the same power that raised up the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead to glory Ephes 1.19 5. All things that are within us or performed by us he has undertaken to work in us to will and to do the beginning of it and the finishing of it belongs to him Phil. 1.6 and here lyes the happiness of
be like him for we shall see him as he is answerable to our vision of him such will be our conformity to him Mercies unto wicked men are suitable to their services they give to God unsanctified services and God does give them unsanctified rewards and their services are seemingly services but really sins so are the mercies that God gives them seeming blessings but really curses they are indeed blessings in the thing but as they draw out their corruptions so they are curses unto the men So Iratus dat amanti quod malè amat as Austin saies God gives it in wrath as he did to them Quails c. and though they were fed to the full yet he sends â—anness into their souls he gave them their hearts desire in wrath 5 By this Covenant you do ingage your selves that whatever God bestows in mercy you will return again in duty that you may injoy nothing apart from God but as the Lord saith of his people in Covenant they are his portion so you also say of God he is your God and as all that is in him is made over unto you so you will be his people and all that is in you shall be made over unto him and should be laid out or laid down for him and you shall resign to him whatever he shall call for and this is for a man to hate Father and Mother and his own life and acknowledge as David did of thine own have we given thee God gave it unto them and they do return it willingly unto God again that which is a Samuel asked of God shall be also lent unto the Lord and the soul never desires or expects good from any mercy from which God hath no glory for a man is a servant to God and it is all the Master 's that the servant hath of gains as the Law saith Cant. 8.11 Servi sunt res Domini quicquid acquirunt acquirunt domino c. Solomon had a Vineyard and he let it out to keepers and he expected the fruits thereof even a thousand pieces of Silver and of the Husbandmen to whom the Vineyard was committed the Lord expected fruits c. a soul is never so well pleased as when it brings forth fruit for God and lays out his strength to the uttermost that he may bring in a revenue of glory to the Lord his God 6 When all the duties of the Covenant are performed by us in the fittest time and in the highest and the best manner 1 In the fittest time as the Lord takes the fittest time to show us mercy so should we also take the fittest time to perform our duty to him and it 's a great matter to know the season there is an accepted time there is a day of salvation 2 And also we must perform it in the highest manner as David said It is for the Lord and therefore the house must be magnificent this have I done out of my poverty though he offered the wealth of a kingdom And the Lord says to Israel Wouldest thou offer this to thy prince I am a great king God expects we should perform all our duties with that reverence and exactness as we do when we offer any gift or present to a Ruler over us 2. We are to improve the Covenant in reference unto God for the obtaining all the mercies of the Covenant because therein the Lord hath in faithfulness ingaged himself Debita reddit nulli debens c. God pays debts and yet is debtor to none but to his own faithfulness So do they Isa 63.18 19. The Lord was departed and had sold them into the hand of strangers and they possessed their Land they pray Return for thy servants sake the tribes of thy inheritance the people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while we are thine thou never barest rule over them and thy name was never called upon them they were never a people whom thou tookest into Covenant as thou hast done unto us And so Isa 63.9 Be not wroth very sore nor remember our iniquity for ever behold I beseech thee we are all thy people Jer. 14.8 9. O thou the hope of Israel the saviour thereof in the time of trouble why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land why shouldest thou be as a man astonished as a mighty man that cannot save if thou O Lord art in the midst of us and we are called by thy name Thy name is called upon us we are thy people in Covenant The Lords portion the lot of his inheritance for God is always mindful of his Covenant and in pursuance thereof he doth whatever he doth in the world if he give Christ it is with respect to the Covenant he hath raised up an horn of salvation Luk. 1.72 that is a strong and powerful Saviour for he has laid help upon one that is mighty And all is that he might perform his Covenant unto our fathers and to remember his holy Covenant Christ and all the mercies by him which are given to us are a fruit of the Covenant that was made with Christ before the world was Lev. 26.41 42. if their uncircumcised hearts be humbled and they accept the punishment of their iniquity then will I remember my Covenant with Jacob and with Isaac and with Abraham and I will remember the land Now How should a man improve his Covenant in reference unto God 1. Consider rightly the latitude of Covenant mercies and the greatness of them for it is in this Covenant that all your salvation lies that your hearts may be carried out answerable to the vastness of the loving-kindness of God and that no mercy of the Covenant may be left unconsidered and untasted of but that you may have a taste that the Lord is gracious in every one of them and that a man may see that it is the weakness of his heart and the lowness of his spirit that he doth not press towards them all for the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.9 He labours whether present or absent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are ambitious c. habet sapientia sui generis superbiam and therefore a godly man is not willing to leave out any thing either of the graces or the priviledges of the Covenant for they are Covenant mercies that are the precious mercies of your lives the flower of all the mercies of a mans life it is therefore said to be a Covenant stablished upon better promises the first Covenant did promise life for ever in Heaven as it did threaten death for ever in Hell but yet there are better promises as he said Est aliud in Christo formosius salvatore There is something in Christ more beautiful than a Saviour so there is something in the Covenant that is better than Heaven 1 The Lord hath made over himself to us in this Covenant He is not ashamed to be called our God to be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee
easier for the Mountains to remove out of their place and to stay the Sun in its course to change the Ordinances of Heaven than for the Covenant of peace to be broken with his people 2 Unto the surety of the Covenant for though we fail yet he does not fail he did undertake under the first Covenant to pay all the debt we owe and it is his righteousness alone by which we stand righteous before God and in the second Covenant he hath undertaken to present us without spot and to make all our services acceptable and well pleasing in his sight and the argument is a good one that Moses uses in behalf of the people of Israel pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of thy mercy as thou hast forgiven them from Egypt even until now for the sins of men cannot make void the faithfulness of God 3. Rejoyce in the Covenant and make it the matter of your delight even Covenant-mercies for 2 Sam. 23.5 This is all my salvation and all my delight that the Lord hath made an everlasting Covenant with me in all things ordered and sure the sweetness doth not lie so much in the mercy as in the tenure by which we hold it it is in the Covenant and this is the only true ground of all a Christians joy it is his whole salvation and therefore should be all his delight Exod. 24.7 8 9. the people of Israel did enter into Covenant with God Moses read the book of the Covenant to them and they consented and said all that the Lord hath said we will do and then the glory of the Lord appeared and they â—aw the God of Israel not as we shall see him in Heaven face to face but some visible manifestation of his presence amongst them there was and he laid not his hands upon them that is he did not destroy them but they saw God and did eat and drink that is they rejoyced in the Covenant that they had made with God and they saw that God did manifest unto them the signes of acceptance in this Covenant and therefore they kept a holy feast and did rejoyce exceedingly before the Lord and when they entred into Covenant â—n the time of Asa 2 Chron. 15.15 all the people rejoyced at the oath for they had sworn with all their heart and they sought God with their whole desire and he was found of them it is that which the Lord expects that men should glory in him and make their â—oast of him that he is pleased to be confederate with them 4. Plead your interest in Covenant mercies for it is in the Covenant that the power of all your prayers does lie God is not indebted unto any men in the world but the children of the Covenant or not so much unto them as to his own promise Austin Conf. dignaris eis quibus â—mnia debita dimittis etiam promissionibus tuis debitor fieri and therefore the Lord saith â—ut me in remembrance plead thou Esay 43.26 Psal 74.20 c. you that are the Lords remembrancers keep not siâ—ence have respect unto the Covenant for all the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty there is all manner of cruelty executed and yet men hide it under â—ir and specious pretences and these latibula impiorum lurking places of wicked men are â—alled the dark places of the earth c. Now in such a time as this when there was nothing â—ut cruelty executed the enemies did roar in their Congregations and did triumph in their wickedness and the more spoil any of them could make upon the Temple the more famous he was it was when Jerusalem was taken now what have the poor people of God to look upon nothing but put God in remembrance of his Covenant have respect unto thy Covenant and so should all the Saints do in their prayers go to God and plead the uprightness of thy heart in the middle of all thy failings Lord though thou hast smitten us in the place of Dragons and covered us with the shadow of death yet have we not gone back from thee and so doth Hezekiah when he comes to die remember Lord that I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and it is this that is the condition that thou hast made of the Covenant of Grace not a perfect way but a heart perfect with God and therefore men in Covenant are said to plead with God for themselves and for the Churches because they only have an interest in him and they can by grace claim mercies from God but other men cannot and so doth Christ manifest his desires to the Father according to the Covenant Zech. 1. And the Lord answered the Angel with good and comfortable words and so a poor soul shall find the Lord will do with him also in all his supplications to God and pleadings with God He will answer him according to his hearts desire 5. Expect that God shall deal with thee according unto this Covenant and so thou maist judge of all his wayes towards thee for God does always dispense himself unto a person according to the Covenant under which he stands and this is that which deceives most men in the Church because they hear of the Covenant of Grace and do live under the outward priviledges thereof though for the state of their persons they be under the Covenant of works yet they expect that Gods dealing should be to them according to the tenour of the second Covenant and therefore if they do sin and afterwards ask pardon they conclude that God will give pardon and grace and that what services they do find acceptance with him and shall have from him a reward It is true with them that are in the Covenant of grace it is so but this is the great deceit when a man doth transire de genere in genus and from the priviledges of the one Covenant apply them unto a person that is under the other Covenant If thou sin thou maist expect pardon and if thou do duty thou that art under the second Covenant maist expect acceptance and if thou be afflicted thou must look upon it as an act of the Fathers love whom I love I rebuke and chasten and if thou dost sin look that God should visit thy offences with a rod for God in faithfulness doth afflict his own children and if the frowardness of thy heart be not overcome by it he will put forth an almighty power of loving kindness to draw thy heart to him with the cords of thy love Esay 57. I have seen thy wayes and I will heal thee Some promises of the Covenant are absolute the immediate fruits of free grace and the soul may expect these without preparation or condition but some promises are only upon condition now in the Covenant thou hast no ground to expect them without the condition be performed Vse 4 § 4. Having given up
his wisdom and industry could not find out And what is that secret of the Covenant The Covenant is the secret and it is with them that he may make it known unto them therefore there is a mysterie in the dutys of the Covenant that is not revealed unto all but it is unto them that fear him and the Lord will do it suitably unto our frame as our grace comes in by constant supplies of the Spirit of God so doth our knowledge also and all by a daily increase of light from the Spirit and this is by a frequent repetition of the same act of faith and therefore the people of God love to repeat it and thereby they see farther into these mysteries from day to day and they do the more exceedingly prize the mercy of the Covenant as the greatest mercy they can injoy 3. How is this work to be done and what is it for a man to renew his Covenant 1. He that will renew his Covenant with God must be deeply sensible of the breach of Covenant and of the unfaithfulness of his heart therein It should deeply humble us to consider that no bonds should hold us If there were no other tye upon us but that of our creation that we had our being from him and that out of nothing but when unto this natural and necessary bond we have added a voluntary and have consented unto the Lord yet now for us to forget the Covenant of our God and prove perfidious to him and draw back is this your return unto God for his Grace in taking you into Covenant and who doth always remember Covenant mercies for you even then when you forget duty to him Is this your requital of the Lord who in the performance of the Covenant did not spare his Son when he cryed that he might be saved God was so resolved upon his Covenant with you that the death of his Son was a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour and he was delighted in it in performance of the grace of the Covenant made with you And also the Lord Christ met with variety of discouragements not only the weight of sin in the guilt of it which he complained of as his own though he knew no sin Psal 40.12 but the wrath of the Father the rage of his enemies the hour and the power of darkness the falshood of his Disciples and yet when he was tempted to come down from the Cross he doth hold it out that he might thereby shew that he loved you to the uttermost and would save you to the utmost And now for you Prov. 20.25 after vows to make inquiry whenas no man doth receed or go back from the Covenant in which he hath ingaged himself without infamy and it 's as odious as for a man to prove false to his friend and betray him and as unfair dealing it is as for a Servant to run away from his Master or a Soldier from his Commander and as David says by way of reproach he hath broken his Covenant and laid his hand upon him that was at peace with him yea for the Wife of a mans bosom to betray a man and to forget the Covenant of her God for a man to forget his Oath that he took at his Baptism and as the Jews did labour to make their circumcision uncircumcision and to do this unto a God that was never a Wilderness to you nor ever gives you cause to repent of your ingagement surely hereby you see not only your perfidiousness and unthankfulness but also fully to make forfeiture of all Covenant mercies to bring upon your selves all the curses of the Covenant Gen. 2.28 Num. 14.34 and to put God upon breach of Covenant with you who have behaved your selves so unfaithfully towards him and thereby you acknowledge though you have subscribed your names in the register of Zion yet you deserve unto your perpetual ignominy to have them expunged thence and to be written in the earth and given up to an everlasting forgetfulness So it was with Josiah when he made his Covenant his heart was tender and he did humble himself before the Lord for their Covenant-breaking 2 Chron. 34.27 31. Neh. 10. And Ezra 10. it doth follow upon a great humiliation a man that is not sensible of and his heart not affected with the breach of Covenant that man is not fit to renew his Covenant with the Lord. 2. It must be with a resolution of heart to break all other Covenants men are said Isa 28.15 To make a Covenant with death and hell that is they were as secure Isa 28.15 and as fearless of it as a man that hath a person in Covenant with him whom he looks upon as his friend and fears him not and thus they make a Covenant with sin and ingage themselves to serve other gods and so when the people renewed the Covenant in Joshuah's time you see the Command you have chosen the Lord to serve him Josh 24.22 put away therefore your strange gods and so the command was to put away their strange wives Ezra There are cords of vanity and there are bonds of iniquity by which men do bind themselves Now all these Covenants must be broken if a man come to renew his Covenant with the Lord for the answer you must give to the Covenant must be the answer of a good conscience and that Conscience that reserves to it self any league with sin unbroken 1 Pet 3.21 is not a good conscience before God a Covenant that is sinful is in it self void and a nullity because in every such ingagement there is dolus deceit and error which are destroying to the nature of a Covenant which should be free and deliberate and therefore it is in all such Covenants as with Herods Oath they bind to nothing but repentance for Juramentum non est vinculum iniquitatis and therefore a man must resolve to break Covenant with all sinful ingagements if he do intend to renew his Covenant with the Lord. 3. A man must know the terms and read over the Articles of the Covenant anew for no wise man will set his hand to an obligation of which he is not well acquainted with the condition and if there were no other cause nor ingagement upon man to know the will of God and their own duty this were enough they have bound themselves to serve him and therefore by the same Covenant they are bound to know the rules by which he will be served for Deo serviendum non est ex arbitrio sed ex imperio so doth Josiah 2 Chron. 34.30 he caused to be read in the ears of the people all the words of the book of the Covenant and then he stood up and made a Covenant before the Lord to perform all the words of the Covenant written in the Book 4. It must be with a free and full consent of heart for the Covenant in the renewing of it must
the will of man but of God why will the Lord have the same conveyance still continue for the externals and the priviledges of it when for the graces of it the intail is cut off for ever 9 How far the administration of the old Covenant should as a rule determine the administration of God under the new that we may be able to reason from one to the other he did so with Abraham and his posterity therefore he will do so with the Saints now and whether in Abraham there were not something personal and peculiar to him and his seed according to the flesh that they only that come in by a claim to the faith of Abraham cannot take unto themselves For Abraham in reference to the covenant is set forth two ways either as a begetting Abraham Rom. 4. or as a believing Abraham and whether the priviledges of both the children of Abraham according to the flesh or by promise be the same 10 How far the Jews by virtue of Abrahams Covenant as being his seed and as being taken into a Church-covenant in their parents being the only visible Church unto God on Earth could pretend to a right unto the ordinances and priviledges of the Church of God under the New Testament For if the parents were in covenant so were their children taken in at least into the externals of the covenant 11 How children can be said to be taken into Covenant when they cannot restipulate nor be said to be obliged by their Covenant 12 Seeing there is so much dispute about it were it not much better to leave children out of this claim For if they be elected we may rest quietly in that state and leave them in the arms of Gods electing love and resting upon that foundation for their eternal salvation the Lord knows who are his and to defer their claim to the covenant till they themselves are able to take hold of the covenant and to give their consent thereunto to give the hand unto the Lord and then they may claim it with comfort children from their parents right and parents for their children and then we may with comfort seal up that which we have good ground upon judgment to conclude to be a mans title and interest and then the parents covenant-interest will come in at second hand and a man having himself first taken hold and consented to the covenant in his own person it will be a good argument for a man to plead with God for the mercies and blessings of the covenant Lord thou art my God and my fathers God as Moses did Lord I am thy servant and the son of thy handmaid and so the Church For thy servant Davids sake turn not away c. Remember the covenant that thou hast made with Abraham and Isaac c. And so did Austin after his conversion take a great deal of comfort in his mothers covenant-interest and in all the prayers that she did put up to God for him Confess l. 3.11 Salutem meam sempiternam chariùs parturibat corde casto c. till the Lord in a dream gave her great hopes concerning his salvation but till then a man can have little comfort in it Quest 1 Are all the children of parents in covenant taken into covenant with their parents or only some selected by God himself as he did in the children of Abraham when he said in Isaac shall thy seed be called Answ The parents covenant takes in all their seed and they are all in covenant with God till they be ejected Cain was in covenant as well as Abel till cast out of the presence of the Lord and Ismael as well as Isaac till the sentence upon his mocking cast out the bond-woman and her son and the Jews not only for their children immediately but those for many ages to come Deut. 29.13 14. Joh. 8. 1. If we look into Abrahams posterity we read that they were of two sorts a seed according to the flesh a carnal generation which the Jews stood so much upon and gloried in Mat. 3.9 We have Abraham to our father and there is a seed of Abraham that walk in the steps of the faith of Abraham and in this respect Abraham is called the father of us all here is a double paternity from begetting Abraham and believing Abraham and here is a double sonship children according to the flesh and the heirs of promise Rom. 9.6 7 8. They are not all Israel who are of Israel neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children but in Isaac shall thy seed be called that is they that are the children of the flesh are not the children of God but the children of the promise are counted for his seed and because they are the seed of Abraham they are not therefore all children and this is more fully set forth in that Allegory of the Apostle Gal. 4.22 23. where we have Abrahams family set forth as a pattern and a resemblance of the visible Church of God in which there are two sorts of sons and two sorts of mothers there is the bond and the free woman and so the Apostle says it was then and so it should continue in the Church of God while its militant state did last and yet both these seeds are taken into their parents covenant and therefore all the posterity of Seth are called the sons of God Gen. 6.1 and all without the Church the daughters of men all the Israelites were Jews outwardly Ye are the children of the Lord your God says Moses Deut. 14.1 his peculiar people and treasure called also the children of the Kingdom and the children of the Covenant Act. 3.25 Mat. 8.12 And this is not only so of the Jews but the Gentiles also Gal. 3.26 Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus and yet I suppose no man will say that all in the Church of the Galatians were truly really and savingly so therefore all their children were taken into the same covenant with their parents faith and holiness 2. The sentence of Excommunication hath passed upon such and they have been ejected and cast out of the Church and from all the visible Communion and Priviledges of it Now Church-censures are to extend to none but Church-members 1 Cor. 5.12 13. 1 Cor. 5.12 13. We judge them that be within what have we to do to judge those that are without We see 1 That Church-government is an authoritative thing a power of judgment and so the Authority of Christ is called Joh. 5.25 2 There is a distinction of men some are without and some within and this is a rule Differentia divisiva est etiam constitutiva there is something therefore that makes them to be without and something that makes them to be within and this can be nothing but their own personal consent or their coming in by their fathers covenant 3 This authority is not exercised upon them without they are
mercy to thousands in them that love him and keep his commandments Thus God extends Covenant-mercy not only to parents but to their children also and that to succeeding generations and we must not limit the grace of God for that were to limit the holy One of Israel For Answer hereto 1 if the meaning here be of the priviledges of the Covenant which are conveyed by the parents unto the child then if any of them were godly from the beginning of the world this Scripture will intail Church-priviledges upon them by a lineal descent unto the end of the world for it 's likely there shall not be a thousand generations from the beginning of the world to the end thereof because these are called the latter times wherefore this is but a certain for an uncertain number and therefore in this case we must know where to stop there must be a period put that a man may be able to say none of them was holy in the second third or fourth generation and therefore now the federal holiness that was this mans or this childs is expired 2 If it should be understood of Church-priviledges and a federal holiness that descends upon the child from the parents then how shall this promise and threatning be both made good for it may be some of the Ancestors have been godly but the immediate parents are wicked and profane why may we not as well and much rather say that God will visit the iniquity of the immediate parents upon the children as that he will shew mercy unto the children for the grace and holiness of their remote parents 3 Of what mercy soever it 's thus understood whether of saving mercies or of outward blessings it 's plain that it 's only unto those children which walk in the same ways of holiness with their parents for God will visit the iniquity of the parents upon the children and if his hatred to children to the third and fourth generation be of them that walk in the ways and wickedness of the fathers then his mercy to thousands is upon them that walk in the ways of their fathers obedience So much I conceive the last words imply vers 6. Shewing mercy to them that love me and that keep my commandments if this be the meaning it will be easily granted that the children of godly parents who walk in the same ways of holiness with their parents shall obtain mercy from God unto many succeeding generations but that is nothing to the thing in hand which does suppose children to grow wicked and to degenerate from the holiness of their parents and yet men would infer that their fathers priviledges do unto many generations descend unto them which I conceive is far from the scope and intent of the Holy Ghost Object 2 But the Israelites were circumcised though their immediate parents were wicked of which the instances before given are many and therefore our children should be baptized though the immediate parents be wicked and if the profaneness of a Jew did not prejudice the childs right why then should the profaneness of a Christian take away the childs title are not our priviledges as large as theirs In answer hereto Answ 1 of Circumcision there was no set Officer appointed by God to administer it and therefore commonly the parents did it and it 's plain by those that write their stories that women did it commonly now there being no set Officer to administer it there was no set Officer to suspend it But in the Christians Baptism it 's not so there is a set Officer who is to administer it with judgment and as he is to deny it to none to whom it belongs so he is to dispense it to none but such to whom it belongs 2 The Lord took the whole Nation of the Jews into a Church-covenant and they became a peculiar people unto him and whoever was born of that Nation was therefore born a Church-member and had right unto the priviledges of the Church it is not so with any other people under Heaven there is something more required to make a man a Church-member than barely to be born of such a Nation and therefore while they continued Church-members though they were never so profane and wicked this could not prejudice the priviledge of the Church And though such deserve to be cast out yet as long as the Church doth through negligence or connivence continue such in a state of membership they cannot deny them the priviledge of members but yet it doth appear that now under the Gospel many men that live in the Church are not true members of the Church or if they be cast out then they and their children are justly deprived of the priviledges of members because it doth not belong unto them and though the posterity of Ismael and Esau did use Circumcision after they were separated from the Church of God yet it was unto them only a vain and an empty sign and no Church-ordinance neither was it unto them a Church-priviledge any longer than they continued Church-members 3 This seems to be demonstrative that none are to be looked upon as within the Covenant and to have right unto the seals but Church-members and that the Church-membership of children is a priviledge that they receive from their immediate parents only and that it 's not barely a parents being baptized and making a profession of Christ that doth de jure give him a right to membership and therefore if parents profess Christ and yet are not to be looked upon as members of the Church then Calvins rule I think will hold He that is not a Church-member himself cannot convey a right of membership unto his children Here are three things to be proved 1. That none have a right to the seals of the Covenant but those that are members of the Church This Calvin in an Epistle to Mr. Knox clearly asserts Semper attentè cavendum est ne profanetur hujus mysterii sanctitas quod fieri certum est si promiscuè alicui conceditur vel quispiam recipitur qui inter legitimos Ecclesiae cives numerari nequeat Therefore they that are baptized must be Cives Ecclesiae those that have a title to membership for the Ordinance of Baptisme is profaned if it be applied unto any other and the clear grounds of it are these The scals are the priviledges of Church-members only and if they be administred unto any whose priviledge they are not they are certainly profaned for Christ admitted none but Disciples Act. 2. and his Disciples afterward admitted none but Disciples They that believed were of one heart and they continued in breaking of bread and prayer c. and afterwards when the Church grew more corrupt and more remiss that such were admitted who did manifest they had no right unto this priviledge they were looked upon as spots in their feasts and it was judged a dishonour unto that Church And for this cause in the primitive times
heart hast thou done these great things that is of thy own free grace and unexpected Love because thou wouldst have mercy and yet it is Mercy to Abraham but it is Truth to Jacob c. Mic. 7. v. ult and therefore Austin calls the promise Chirographum Dei Gods Bond it is the bond or hand-writing that God has given the creature to assure him of Heaven so that as the Apostle calls the Law Chirographum contra nos Col. 2. a bond against us so are the promises the bond that is for us because they do speak God to be with us 4. All this is through Christ both making and performing 2 Cor. 1.20 so it is in him that the promises are Yea and Amen as all the precepts of the Law though given to us yet they are principally required of Christ as our surety and the transgressions of them are laid upon him so all the promises of the Gospel though they be made unto the Saints yet they be primarily made unto Christ as our head and representative for as we have heard he is the seed with whom the covenant is made and he is given unto us as a covenant so he is primarily the Heir of promise and as in respect of possession Esa 49.8 we enter into his inheritance called our masters joy so in respect of the promise and reversion we come under his covenant and so partake of his inheritance and have no further any promise made to us than as we are one with Christ and no promise is performed to us but by virtue of union with him and therefore it's Christus in aggregato Christ mystical that is the proper subject of all the promises and their accomplishment is to himself as the head and to the Saints as the body § 2. Why doth Gods part of the Covenant in this life mainly consist in promises It 's true that these promises shall end in performances and Heaven is the accomplishment of all the promises it is a promised as well as a purchased possession when the Saints are all gathered home all the promises shall be at an end and therefore in that respect faith shall cease for the object of it shall be taken away and therefore the acts of it must needs come to an end though it 's true that the habit of faith as well as all other graces being a part of the image of God and the new creation of Christ is of an eternal nature but yet the Lord does mainly dwell with his people in a way of promise and the covenant on his part doth run in promises 1 Cor. 2.5 7. 1. The life that the Saints live in this world must be a life of faith and not by sight there is another life though we live by faith and not by sight here that in glory is reserved for us and another manner of living and the main objects of faith are the promises Rom. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4.19 21. He staggered not through unbelief He did not reason pro and con about it because faithful is he that has promised and he will also do it he is able to perform It 's true there is a faith that rests upon the whole Word of God as true and good and so the soul receives it but yet the object of faith by which the soul rests on God is mainly the promise so that as obedience is the Law written in the heart so also the object of faith is the promise written in the heart the Lord lets in the promise and the soul rests thereupon and if the Lord had not dealt so in a way of promises our life could never have been a life of faith 2. They are the great grounds of our hope and thereby the Lord will sweeten our obedience he doth not give forth a bare command as an act of Soveraignty but he adds thereunto a promise as an act of Grace Heb. 6.18 The Lord willing to shew the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an oath that we might have strong consolation who are fled for refuge to the hope set before them which hope we have as an anchor to the soul And the Anchor is cast under water and takes hold of something that is not seen as yet for if I see it why do I yet hope for it Now though it 's true a godly man should not yield obedience meerly for reward yet a man may have respect to the recompence of reward and though it is true that this should not be the great thing that should launch them forth in duties of holiness yet this is a good wind to fill the sails the Lord letting him see that there is an inseparable communion of Gods glory and our good also duty and mercy 〈◊〉 hand in hand and that the Lord requires no duty but it is for our good always t◠he may perform unto us the promise that is annexed thereunto There is an amor merc◠〈◊〉 love of reward that is not mercenary Heb. 12.1 Christ had the joy set before him that did sweete 〈◊〉 sufferings he had a glory and a posterity promised him and Moses had respect also to the recompence of the reward Heb. 11.25 And the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 4.18 While we look at the things that are not seen that is the scope and the main aim of the soul in all our obedience active or passive and by this the Lord doth delight to sweeten our way 3. The promises are the great means of the souls purification 2 Cor. 7.1 Let us purge our selves having these promises and perfect holiness And by these great and precious promises we are made partakers of the Divine nature The promises are the Treasury of all that grace that God doth intend to bestow upon his people and from thence do the Saints fetch it Isa 12.3 for they are the wells of salvation and it is by this that the soul is fitted for the performance there is a being made meet and 't is the promise that made them so as a mans beholding of God in himself doth transform him perfectly into the image of God Col. 1.12 2 Cor. 3.18 so beholding God in the promise does transform a man by degrees into the image of that holiness that is in the promise A man looking upon himself sees his heart as a barren wilderness as empty of grace as the first Chaos was of form and beauty Now he says what is impossible with man is possible with God and the soul sucks a promise and is thereby changed into the image thereof 4. That they may be the rule of the prayers of the Saints for his will must be the rule of our prayers as well as of all other acts of our obedience the precepts of the one and the promises of the other we must ask according to his will if we hope to speed and therefore our prayers should be nothing else but pressing God with
his promises and thereby we put his bonds in suit before the Throne of his own grace so doth Jacob Lord this is that which thou hast said Return into thy own country and I will do thee good and so doth Nehemiah Neh. 1.8 This is that thou hast promised unto thy servant Moses A soul that can bring unto God his own promise and can plead it before God has a certain argument that it shall be fulfilled It 's the great ground of the prayer of Christ and of his Angels and Saints in Heaven for the Angels do pray and so do the Saints in Heaven the souls under the Altar cry Dan. 4.16 17. Zac. 1. How long Lord Rev. 6. and they have no ground to offer a prayer to God but meerly the promise of God and therefore all their prayers are prayers of faith to this day § 3. The promises of God in Scripture are of two sorts some are absolute some conditional and the grounds of these distinctions of promises are these 1. There is a twofold love of God unto the creature 1 antecedent Love that is set upon the creature for love sake and out of his own free choice and election Rom. 9.18 he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and upon this are grounded all absolute promises 2 there is a consequent Love as the Lord delights to crown the acts of his own Love in the creature having wrought his own image he doth love it and delight in it more than in all the rest of the works of his hands and this is the ground of all conditional promises 2. Absolute Promises are not formally made unto us though they be fulfilled in us but unto Christ for no promise can belong unto him that is not an heir of promise and though a man be so in the Election of God yet he is not actually so till he be united unto Christ and therefore it is unto him that all the absolute promises do belong If we look upon man in a state of Nature so there are absolute promises of grace for a mans conversion but look upon a man in a state of Grace and so there are conditional promises that do belong unto him for his consolation and salvation 3. In absolute promises the creature is meerly passive and there is no prerequired condition in the creature for the accomplishment of it it 's perfectly an act of Gods grace to the creature to promise him to be his God to pardon his sin and take away his heart of stone there is no concurrence of the endeavour of the creature in it for all the works of God in this kâ—l are a new creation but in conditional promises there is a condition prerequired in the creature and there is an actual concurrence of the creature to their performance without which God will never perform the condition he that converts thee without thee will not save thee without thee we must be built as living stones in the Church of God 4. There is a double state of Faith a state of Recumbency or Affiance and a state of Assurance and the promises of the Gospel are suited unto both these states A man that can see no grace in his own soul he comes to the promise for grace and resolves to cast himself upon it he does â—e to Christ that he may have life and casts himself upon the promise that his sins may be pardoned and the truth is in this doth properly the application of faith in a mans first conversion lye in leaving a mans soul with the promise that he may receive grace and pardon not in believing that Christ is mine but in relying upon him and giving up my self to him There is a kind of personal Application and that is direct and there is an axiomatical Application of faith when the soul being in Christ and having received grace is able to see and to conclude its own interest Unto faith of Recumbence the absolute promises do fitly suit But there is a state of Assurance when the soul looks into his own heart and finds the image of Christ written there and sees promises made to a broken and a believing heart one poor in spirit and he finds the condition in himself and now all the conditional promises come in with comfort to him who before could taste no sweetness in them because he could not find in himself the condition 5. There are two ways of assurance answerable to the twofold witness of it there is a witness in Heaven and there is a witness also in the heart 1 There is an immediate testimony Rejoyce in this that your names are written in heaven saith our Lord again the Lord says to a man Be of good chear thy sins are forgiven thee and thou art greatly beloved Such immediate testimonies there have been given to the Saints and surely the bowels of the Lord are not straitned 1 Joh. 5.7 Thus there is a testimony of the Spirit that is distinct from the witness of water and blood the Spirit is the seal in both but in the one he is the seal of his Office and in the other the seal of his Officers a particular seal and a privy signet in the one he testifies the love of all the persons and there is testified that his own love and the love of God is shed abroad in the heart there is illuminatio quaedam è montibus aeternis an illumination from the eternal mountains as Gerson speaks 2 There is an Assurance that comes from the witness of a mans own graces the Spirit of God witnessing with our spirits Now the first assurance is in an absolute promise I am thy God thou art greatly beloved thy sins are forgiven thee and the latter kind of assurance is in a conditional promise the Lord discovering to a man the signs of grace in his own soul and the glorious works of the Spirit of Christ upon his inward man conforming him to the image of Christ 6. The great difference between the first and second Covenant lay in this the promises of the first Covenant were all of them conditional being given unto grace received and did suppose grace in the person to whom they were made but there were no absolute promises to give grace that Covenant did suppose grace but it did not give grace But under the Gospel as there are promises of reward of grace received so there are promises of giving grace where there is no grace and herein lies the great glory of the promises of the new Covenant and the grace of them it gives grace and then it crowns grace and therefore they are said to be better promises 7. Absolute promises have their degrees of accomplishment as well as conditional though a man has a right to them all at once yet the Lord doth perform them by degrees to us there is no promise that is fully and perfectly accomplished till we come to Heaven our justification is not perfect
of his love and yet with all this he is never satisfied There is a further promise and that is an inheritance with the Saints in light and therefore he can never rest satisfied till he come there he forgets that which is behind and does reach forward to that which is before Phil. 3.12 Quest But how should we do to attain promises 1. Be sensible of your want of them we should look over all the Paradise of the promises and know that there is not a tree nor a fruit in it but it 's good for food the fruit is for meat and the leaves for medicine See how far thou dost come short look upon duty in the latitude and extent of it for obedience must be universal so you must do upon the promises that your faith may be universal also There should be always in our eyes a sight of something before unto which we should reach out our selves Phil. 3.12 God doth never accomplish promises but he doth use to make men see their need of them before-hand they say Lord increase our faith and Christ shews them the excellency of faith Luk. 17.5 and their necessity thereof that by this means raising their apprehensions of it and shewing to them their necessity of it they might be prepared to receive it as the Lord was ready to bestow it we go without many promises because we see no necessity of them and therefore our souls sit down quietly without them 2. Get a strong faith for it was by faith that they did attain the promises Heb. 11.33 and it must be such a faith as must stay the heart and fix the eye upon the promise and thereby support it under all the seeming oppositions and improbabilities or impossibilities unto an eye of reason or an arm of flesh it must cause a man to close his eyes against them all in the matter of justification there is in faith an exclusive resolution against all other ways and means of righteousness whatsoever so there is in this also against all things that from sense and reason may be offered or pretended to the soul to weaken the power of the promise of God therein Rom. 4.19 20. In Abraham there was enough that he might have taken in to have discouraged him but yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he did not admit a dispute he did not take in a consultation of flesh and blood when men have so consulted flesh and blood their faith has failed them God had promised his people a deliverance but they say our bones are dry and our hope is past Ezech. 37.11.12 we have no more reason to expect the accomplishment of such a promise than that we should see dry bones revive and arise out of their graves And the people of God have had their hearts always to fail them when they have looked off from the promise as Peter when the wind arose and he begins to sink he crys out Lord save me and Martha saith By this time he stinketh and the Israelites say The sons of Anak are there c. As whensoever the people of God begin to turn away their eyes from the holy commandment then their hearts fail them in point of duty so it is when they look off from the holy promise then their heart fails them in matter of faith and they cast away their confidence for every promise carries with it an obligation laid upon the power of God to accomplish it our faith gives us a title to the promise and the promise binds the omnipotence of God for its accomplishment and therefore it 's said They stopped the mouths of lyons and quencht the violence of the fire Heb. 11.13 and raised the dead to life By acts of Gods omnipotence all this was done yet they are attributed unto their faith as the fruit of it by which the omnipotence of God is ingaged in the work Therefore it was a brave spirit in Luther fit for him that shall attain the promises that when they sought his life by all means that might be at home and abroad and at last raised a war against him that small Chaldean war yet he wrote upon the walls of his Study that speech of David I shall not dye but live and declare the works of the Lord. Psal 118. 3. Be much in prayer for the promise is a kind of a debt and therefore it 's said when God doth perform any promise reddit debita nulli debens c. and it 's prayer that puts this bond in suit before the Throne of Grace Jer. 29.10 12. After seventy years are accomplished in Babylon I will visit you and perform my good word towards you in causing you to return unto this place then shall you call upon me and pray to me and I will hear you and this was the very course that Daniel took Dan. 9.1 2. for we can expect nothing from God in mercy that we do not obtain by prayer he leads his people into their own land by supplications In the consolations that we receive from God he speaks to our hearts and in the supplications that we put up unto God we speak unto his heart and the grounds are these why God will have all promises to be nothing else but the returns of prayer 1. That hereby we may testifie that it 's the will of God that we eye in the mercy and not our own will for it's whatsoever we ask according to his will he hears us There is a natural and a carnal desire of mercies when it 's a mans own will that puts him upon it and there is a spiritual and holy desire of mercies and that is when a man has an eye unto Gods will in the promise to bestow them as well as to his own necessity that requires them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hence there is a double importunity in prayer as Luk 11.8 a holy kind of impudency that they will in no wise be put off there 's a being stirred up by the apprehension of necessity Hos 7.14 and a desire of the flesh to attain the thing and so men howl for corn wine and oyl but they are but the crys of beasts and not of Saints and so men ask amiss and attain not as it is in Jam. 1.5 But there is an importunity that is grounded upon the will of God and upon the promise and the soul earnestly desires it because he sees it's agreeable unto the will of God that has promised it it 's not the love of the thing that is so much the ground of his importunity as seeing the will of God in the promise and for this cause the Lord will make the accomplishment of all promises to be the only returns of prayers 2. That hereby we may know that his mercy is free in bestowing of it and that though God has promised it in a way of mercy yet there is no way for us to attain it but in a way of duty
in the God of their salvation Hab. 3.7 and yet at the last day to depart from God and to lose your God to all eternity shall be much more for the greatest judgment that doth befal men is the loss of God and it 's very just with God to take men in their own sin as they in the Gospel being invited to the marriage made excuses and would not come therefore that which was their sin was their judgment and plague they shall not come those that were bidden shall not taste of my supper you will not come you shall not come and so they will have none of God Israel will have none of me that 's your sin and shall be your plague you shall have none of me I will not be your God for ever for he that has not the Lord for his God in this life shall have no interest in him in the life to come It 's the misery of all unregenerate men that they speak of God as another mans God and not as their own as Laban said to Jacob Gen. 31.29 the God of your fathers and Pharaoh I have sinned against the Lord your God But this is the happiness of the Saints that they can say The Lord is our own God as Tertullian said to Marcion Christus in Evangelio tuo meus est Christ in thy Gospel is mine c. 4. He that has not the Lord for his God shall surely have him for his enemy and as he doth rejoyce over his own Covenant people for good so he will rejoyce over you for evil Deut. 28.63 Jer. 44.27 he will watch over you for evil you shall have all evil to befal you here as pledges of eternal wrath Heb. 10.27 As a people in Covenant with God do receive all mercies as pledges of glory in Heaven so do they there is an expectation of wrath c. Heb. 10. All acts of common goodness are in wrath to them if the Lord do suffer them to prosper and they be fed as a lamb in a large place it 's in wrath that their table â—ay become their snare and to fat them against the day of slaughter Nihil est infoeliciùs foelicitate peccantium quâ poenalis nutritur impuritas voluntas mala roboratur c. There is nothing more unhappy than the happiness of sinners whereby their penal impurity is nourished and their evil will fortified August And if the Lord forbear to punish them it 's in wrath why should they be smitten any more And if the Lord do hear their prayers and grant their desires it 's in wrath he may grant their request but send leanness into their souls Qâ—osdam ad utilitatem exaudit quosdam ad damnationem Some he hears for their profit some for their damnation Aug. And if he bestow mercies Iratus dat amanti quod malè amat The whole design that the Lord hath in all his dealings is against such a one for evil Lord who knows the power of thy wrath Psal 90.11 Vse 2 2. We may hence learn what the happiness is of a people in Covenant with God they have the Lord for their God 1. Consider every man has a treasure which in this life he doth lay up one man hath treasure in Earth and another hath treasure in Heaven as that wherein he does place his happiness which is the chief good upon which he sets his heart which if he may attain he says it is enough and by this he values himself and all things else in which he glories the rich man glories in his riches and the wise man in his wisdom and the strong man in his strength c. Now in this a godly man doth glory that he is the Lords treasure For Saints are his Jewels Exod. 19.5 and as a godly man is Gods Jewel so God is his and in him he has full satisfaction and without this chief good they contemn all things else Omnis copia quae non est Deùs meus egestas est All abundance that is not my God is want The Scripture pronounceth a blessedness upon such Psal 144. ult Blessed are such who have Jehovah for their God Now unto happiness as the Philosophers say there are three things required it must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfect proper and eternal good which properties are to be found no where but in God in Covenant 1 It must be bonum perfectum a perfect good a general and universal good extending unto all things and all times and all conditions for the Lord is a God all-sufficient Gen. 17.2 he can make a man happy according to the whole life as Moses said to Israel The Lord alone led thee and there was no strange God with him And the people of God shall need blessings from none but their own God God even our God shall bless us 2 It must be proprium proper good there is nothing can be said to be a mans own that can be taken away from him all a mans estate and riches and honour here are but this worlds goods and they shall cease and fail him and not follow him into another world naked he came in and naked must he go out nay his gifts and tongues will fail I but God is a mans own that he can never lose It was the folly of the Heathens which Austin derided that they tyed their Gods that they might not be stoln such are the dunghil-gods of the world qui non possunt custodire custodes who cannot keep those that keep them But this is our God we have waited for him and he will save us it is our own God 3 It must be perpetuum eternal Esa 25. the eternal God is thy refuge and underneath is the everlasting arms they tempted Basil with money but he replied Da pecuniam quae permaneat ac gloriam quae semper floreat Give me money that will abide c. Therefore you see how the people of God may satiate their souls with fatness and how God has promised they shall be satisfied with goodness Jer. 31.14 for with him is the fountain of life and it will run for evermore there are pleasures at his right hand for evermore 2. This is the ground of all the great things that the Lord hath done and will do for his people as David says The Lord has done great things for us whereof we rejoyce Psal 126. This lets us see 1 the fountain of all the great things that have been done for his people and truly you have lived in the times when the towers fall and the mountains skip and the Sea goes back c. Some trust in chariots and some in horses Psal 107.8 but we will remember the name of the Lord our God they are brought down and fallen but we are risen and stand upright for their rock is not as our rock nor their God as our God our enemies themselves being Judges Therefore say Had not the
might cause his power to be acknowledged 2. God hath made over his attributes to his people that they may take from them all grounds of faith with an assurance that they shall be all exercised for them according unto their necessities Psal 13.5 so the Mercy of God I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoyce in thy salvation Here is mercy the object of faith and an assurance that this attribute shall shew forth it self in a work of salvation and deliverance for him I have trusted in the mercy of God for the bringing me out of this and another affliction and I have been delivered Psal 52.8 therefore I will always exalt the mercy of God So for the Power of God the soul can argue from thence Dan. 3. when men threaten and Devils rage and the fiery furnace may be heated seven times hotter to consume the soul that has no help amongst creatures yet says Daniel and the three Children the God whom we serve is able to deliver us And the Lord encourages the soul from the assurance of his power Is my arm shortned that I cannot save is any thing too hard for the Lord is there any restraint to omnipotence And so also Christ puts them upon it in this With man it 's impossible but with God all things are possible it 's spoken in reference to a work of Sanctification when the Disciples said Who then can be saved Esay 26.4 Esay 27.5 So for the Eternity of God Trust in the Lord for ever for the Lord Jehovah is a Rock of Ages and so men are said to take hold of the strength of God And so of the Holiness of God I have sworn by my holiness that I will not lye unto David and therefore Psal 23.6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life And so Abraham believed God was able to raise him up again from the dead if it might stand with his glory he did not question his will but that his power should be put forth for the accomplishment of his promise We know that the ultimate object of faith is God through Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1.21 our faith and hope is in God now the highest object of faith in God is the attributes of God that he has discovered for we can believe in him no otherwise than we know him and as he has revealed himself and the way of Gods revealing himself unto his people in this life is only by his back parts which are his attributes and therefore this is the way of the acting of faith in this life and all the promises of God and the precepts and the threatnings of God are all of them founded on his attributes and in these doth the strength and stability of them lye because the Lord Jehovah is a rock of ages As it is in ends all intermediate ends work in the strength and the power of the utmost end so it is in objects also Objectum mediatum fidei movet in virtute objecti ultimati ab eo perfectionem accipit The mediate object of faith moves in the virtue of the ultimate object and receives perfection from it Eph. 4.18.23.24 3. That from these the soul may receive all principles of grace grace is called the Life of God and the Divine Nature the Image of God created in the soul it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according unto God Now in an image there are two things required 1 Proportion or similitude and resemblance 2 There is a deduction or a derivation it must be taken from it As there is a resemblance of the nature of God so there is a derivation of it from God Now though the incommunicable attributes of God are so called because there are in the creatures no footsteps or resemblances yet there are of the attributes that are communicable from them the image of God is derived unto us and we are made partakers of his holiness holy as he is holy Heb. 12.10 Jam. 1.5 and merciful as he is merciful and wise as he is wise If any man want wisdom let him ask it of God as all of them shall be employed for man without him so all of them shall work in man an image or a resemblance of himself within him that a man beholding the glory of the Lord is transformed thereby into the same image And this is to be made the rule to judge the measure of our graces by for primum est mensura reliquorum c. The first is the measure of the rest in that kind So far as they do come short of bearing a resemblance with the communicable attributes of God I say of bearing a resemblance for they are in God by nature but in us by grace and by new creation they are nature in him they are not so in us so far we are to bewail the defects of our graces and so far grace is the image of God in us but in part a good work begun and no more and it is a discovery of his attributes which are the original pattern that doth perfect his image in us which is but the counterpane and therefore we shall be perfectly like him when we shall see him as he is 1 Joh. 3.3 4. God hath in Covenant made over his Attributes that from these the soul may take all rules of duty and as the highest objects of faith are in God so from him are the highest rules of duty and therefore Eph. 5.1 the exhortation is Be ye imitators of God 1 Pet. 1.15 and be you holy in all manner of conversation because he is holy and so from the Soveraignty of God it 's the ordinary argument thou shalt do thus and thus for I am Jehovah thy God And David takes his rule from this in the preparation he made for the Temple the house must be exceeding magnificent and therefore all his preparation though the wealth of a Kingdom was but an act of his poverty for it is for the Lord who is a great God and dwells not in Temples made with hands c. And it 's the argument that he himself useth as the rule unto them in their performances Mal. 1.13 I am a great King and my name is dreadful amongst the Heathen As the soul is never rightly bottomed upon a promise till it is carried out into that attribute upon which the promise doth depend so the soul is never grounded in duty till it looks beyond the precept and sees the attributes in God which are the foundation of the duty and this is properly to walk worthy of God Col. 1.10 That ye may walk worthy c. It doth not note exactam proportionem Daven sed quandam decentiam convenientiam not an exact proportion but a certain decence and convenience when a mans duties are done by rules taken from so great a God and proportionable unto the nature holiness and excellency of that God God is a Spirit
caecitatem veluti quodam velo diffusam ignorance and blindness diffused as by a certain veil there is a double veil and God will take both away a veil upon the truth and a veil upon the heart also and both shall be swallowed up that is shall be utterly removed and there shall come a time that the Sea of glass that is now mingled with fire shall be clear as crystal again and the Temple shall be opened so that a man may see into the Ark of the Testimony which formerly had a veil before it Rev. 11.19 that it could not be seen it was in the secret of the Pavilion of God but then the most secret mysteries shall be exposed unto the common view of the Saints but it shall be when the Kingdoms of the Earth shall be given to the Lord Jesus Christ and he shall reign for ever and ever 4. The Father is pleased in Christ his Son he delights in him and so he did before the world he was the delight of God the Father from all Eternity I was his delight daily Prov. 8.30 this is my beloved Son Mat. 3. ult and therefore even amongst men children are called the desire of their parents eyes and that upon which they set their mind their hearts do go out unto them Ezech. 24.25 so in your measure you that are Saints are the delight of God the Father from day to day he loves you as well with a love of complacence as with a love of benevolence and therefore he calls the name of the Church Esay 62. Hephziba my delight is in her the Lord takes pleasure in his people his delight is in them that fear him Psal 147.11 149.4 and them that hope in his mercy Therefore the carrying on of the work of Redemption to the full accomplishment of all the gracious intentions of the Father is called the pleasure of the Lord Isa 53.10 which was to prosper in the hands of Christ it being of all the works of God that in which he doth most delight as when a man sets his greatest love upon any thing or person in that he has the greatest delight to see it prosper and thrive and succeed never did an earthly father take so much delight and full satisfaction in the prosperity of a child and yet we know that a wise Son makes a glad father as the Lord does to see the souls of his people prosper and the ways of his grace to be fully magnified towards them because all the love of the creature is but a drop unto the love of the Father which is in Heaven as the Lord has more delight in Christ than he has in all the Saints so he has more delight in one Saint than he has in all the creatures besides because he bears unto them a greater love and hath from them a far greater glory There is joy in heaven says Christ over one sinner that repents and so there is amongst the Angels why because theirs is a joy in the Lord himself and it 's the happiness of the Saints that they can joy in God and we may well make God our Father our delight when he does make us his delight he that has the Son and the Saints and Angels in glory to delight in that yet he should declare that his delight should be with the sons of men here below what an amazing condescension is this of our God how does it ingage us to delight in him only 5. Jesus Christ as he was the Son had a glorious and a sweet communion with the Father so Christ saith Joh. 14.10 I am in the Father and the Father in me and he dwells in me it notes that constant communion that he as Mediator had with the Father Joh. 16.32 Ye shall leave me alone and yet I am not alone but the Father is with me and therefore upon all occasions he did retire himself unto the Father as his great support in the days of his pilgrimage Joh. 1.3 and so have the Saints also our fellowship is with the Father they have access by one Spirit unto the Father Eph. 2.18 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he leads us by the hand and by our sonship we have boldness with him Pater nomen pietatis potestatis est Father is a name of piety and power Tertul. Oh the infinite sweetness that is for the soul to walk before God the Father in ways of holiness that in these ways he may enjoy fellowship and communion with himself There is a great deal of sweetness in a communion of Saints our Brethren but much more in communion with Christ our Husband but most of all in communion with God our Father he is to be taken as well for a pattern of the one as of the other 6. As God is the Father of Christ so he doth hear the prayers of Christ and therefore Christ says Father I thank thee that thou hast heard me and I know thou hearest me always Joh. 11.41 And though his satisfaction be always referred unto his Godhead Heb. 9.41 yet his Intercession refers unto his Sonship Act. 20.28 Heb. 7. ult the word of the Oath makes the Son who is consecrated for evermore men that know how powerful the name of a father is and what bowels it moves may well assure themselves that it is much more in him who is the Father of mercies as well as our Father and therefore if we know how to give good gifts to our children and will give them suitable to their necessities surely so will he much more and such a man must acknowledge that our Father is Saints may assure themselves that they have not only an Advocate without them which is Christ with the Father and an Advocate within them unto the Father for the same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used of both Joh. 16.27 but they have an Advocate in the Father also and it 's that which Christ puts them upon not only to look upon his Intercession as that which doth prevail only but to the Fathers love and the bowels that are in himself the Father himself loves you 7. As a Father he gives Christ an inheritance Thou art my Son Psal 2.7 8. I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance He has appointed him heir of all things Heb. 1.3 and all that are the sons of God are heirs Rom. 8.16 17. yea all that are sons of God are first-born Heb. 12.23 1 Cor. 3.22 and therefore they have a double portion All things are yours and Rev. 21.7 He that overcomes shall inherit all things c. And it 's such an inheritance as none else have in the creatures for it is one thing to hold it by right of a servant by providence and another by the right of a son 1 Pet. 1.5 for the son abides in the house always and 't is an inheritance in promises of grace and of glory which no other men in the world
because all the fulness of Christ he doth receive it from the Father Therefore whensoever we have recourse unto Christ for righteousness holiness and comforts and see him to live by the Father in all these and when we look up unto him who is our Head and see him exalted above all Principalities and Powers and that he lives by the power of God now say Christ lives by the power and the glory of the Father and the life that I live is by the faith of the Son of God 2 As by the Father he is made the fountain of life unto us for the Father did give eternal life unto us when he laid it up in the Son therefore it is said That they killed the Prince of life Joh. 5.11 Acts 3.25 as he is the King of Righteousness and the Prince of Peace it is said Moses was a man of peace but he could not command peace in the mutinous and murmuring people but if he had been a Prince of peace he could and so Christ as a Prince of life can convey life and dispense it Rev. 22.14 We having fallen and forfeited Paradise and the Tree of Life we were secluded from it Now God the Father hath appointed another Tree of Life which is the Lord Jesus Christ and he will give unto men a right or a priviledge to eat thereof also which they were formerly shut out of So that you see it is the Father that hath given him power to quicken whom he will to have life in himself and to give eternal life to as many as believe in him SECT IV. Our Covenant-Interest in Offices Acts and Relations of the Trinity applied Vse 1 § 1. HAving finished the doctrinal part and seen how God the Father makes over himself in the Covenant of Grace to the Saints for their portion lyes in God not only in the Attributes of the nature but in an interest in the persons also and we have an interest in all the actions that the Father appropriated whether they be eternal or in time and those whether terminated in Christ immediately or in us and we have seen how we have an interest in all the personal relations of the Father that in the same relations he stands to Christ in the same he stands to us also he is his Father and our Father his God and our God he is our Father our King our Friend our Husbandman and the Fountain of our life for he hath given us eternal life and this life is in his Son Now we come to apply all this to our selves and it shall be 1. for Information that so in so great a truth as this we may not be mistaken And here we are to consider 1 that a man hath interest in all the persons at once they all be given together a man hath not first an interest in the Father and then in the Son and then in the Spirit but having an interest in one he hath an interest in them all he that hath the Son hath the Father also he hath the Father and the Son Joh. 2.23 Joh. 2.9 And by this we may see what a glorious change there is in a man when he is converted and made one with Christ he hath an interest in all the Attributes of God It 's true that they do all act for him afterwards successively and according to a mans necessity at several times they work for his good sometimes an act of mercy is put forth for him sometimes an act of power sometimes wisdom sometimes patience but yet the soul comes to have an interest in them all at once and at the same time and when he is intitled to the one he is intitled to the other even to them all and so it is with the Persons also the title Believers have to them begins at once As a man hath interest in Christ the Mediator it 's true that Christ doth exercise all his Offices for his spiritual good successively and he is now to him a Priest to offer his Sacrifice and to bear his iniquity now he is a Prophet to teach him now he is a King to govern him and there are distinct acts of all these offices but yet the soul hath an interest in them all at once As it is in all grace it 's true that the graces of Gods Spirit do all of them act in their places 2 Pet. 1.5 for we are to add to our faith vertue and to our vertue knowledge c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is taken ab iis qui choros ducunt from such as lead the dance in which every one keeps his own place and acts his own part for grace brings the most glorious order into the soul that can be but yet all grace is wrought together even the whole new man is begotten at once And so for all the creatures of God it is true that they do all in their places act for the Saints the Stars in their courses do fight against Sisera but yet a man comes to have jus haereditarium an hereditary right to them all at once And this is the glory of the change at a mans first conversion which a man may admire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man that had before no interest in any Attribute of God in any person in the Godhead or any of the Offices of Christ or any grace of the Spirit or any promise of the Gospel or in any creature of God yet at once in the very same instant he comes to have a title unto all these that though all the promises be fulfilled by degrees and in their time yet the soul hath a title unto them all and that as true and as great as he shall have when he comes to Heaven 1 Cor. 13.10 11. for it is by the same title that he shall injoy Heaven for this is but our nonage and childhood yet a child hath the same title to the land his father left him as when he comes to be a man only he hath not the possession of it and so the title by which you shall injoy God for ever is begun in this life only there are two great changes you must pass through the first is conversion the second is death by the one the soul is intitled to his heavenly inheritance and by the other he is fully put into possession 2. Though the interest of Gods people begin at once in all the persons yet the Lord would have us take notice that there is a distinct interest in them all to be attained unto for the more distinct our apprehensions are the more glory we give unto God and the greater will our own comfort be God delights not in generalities neither in general confessions nor in general apprehensions or thanksgivings As it is in the Attributes of the Nature of God though a soul that hath an interest in God in Covenant hath a title to them all at once yet they are all of them as so many
again yea there is that evil in the satisfaction of it that it will increase the thirst Deut. 29.19 It is adding drunkenness to thirst but this doth allay a mans thirst for ever for there is in the man a well of water springing up to everlasting life Jer. 31.14 Jer. 31.14 I will satiate the soul of the Priest and my people shall be satisfied with goodness there are two words used one is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to be satisfied even to drunkenness in excess as she did Prov. 7.18 Come let us take our fill of love it is the word that is used of Noah Gen. 9. He was drunken and uncovered in the Tent and the other word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to be filled even to weariness and loathing Esa 1.11 I am full of the fat of well-fed beasts it is such a fulness and abundance that the soul cannot desire any more there is such an abundance to be found in God not only to supply our wants but to satiate our desires that if we could extend them to the utmost and as it is said of fear Psal 90.11 Extend your fear to the utmost so it 's true of desire also extend it to the utmost there is something that will fill it still and exceed it for God says Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it which none can do but God alone there is such a satisfaction in God that the soul can desire no more for ever Psal 73.25 Whom have I in heaven but thee and I desire nothing on earth in comparison of thee having the Lord the soul saith there is no place for desires 2. As it is true in this life so it is much more true in the life to come when God shall be all in all immediately and a man shall look upon his parting with the choicest contentments as his happiness they were non in praemium but in solatium and now having done their work I gladly part with them as this worlds goods and therefore it is Cùm mundus undique exarserit cogitat se nihil habere de tanta mole perdendum Sen. quaest nat l. 2. q. 697. being uncloathed the soul seems loth to put on any earthly covering again and the enjoying all more immediately in God he doth rejoyce in it and is satisfied with thy likeness O God Psal 17.15 he that did with joy sell all to buy the Pearl surely will with greater joy leave all to possess the Pearl § 2. This A sufficiency of God is by Covenant made over unto the Saints he is their God as alsufficient and this will appear both by promises and by instances 1. By promises Psal 84.11 The Lord God is a Sun and a shield and no good thing will he withhold from them that love him 1 By Sun is meant all good things all manner of prosperity Solis lux prosperitatis nota sicut Solis occasus metaphoricè omnes calamitates significat The light of the Sun is a note of prosperity as the setting thereof notes all adversity c. Gloss Rhet. pag. 225. See it also in Esa 60.20 Thy Sun shall go down no more it notes a constant and a lasting prosperity a continuing glorious condition Esa 30.26 The light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun sevenfold it notes not only a great increase of spiritual light in the Church but also great spiritual felicity Sed magnam foelicitatem spiritualem metaphoricè significat c. and on the contrary when he speaks of the going away of all prosperity he says Amos 8.9 Their Sun shall go down at noon as you have already heard 2 What is meant by a Shield by it is meant all manner of defence and safeguard be the danger what it will be Psal 3.4 and 18.3 and it is not that he will provide all this but he will be all things to his people and there is no good thing that he will withhold or keep back from them that walk in their uprightness it is being upright is the condition of the Covenant Gen. 17.2 and so it is as much as to say unto persons in Covenant he will withhold no good all good things shall have their free course and their full passage there shall be no restraint upon any good thing unto such a one to other men indeed mercies and good things have not their free passage cessat gratiarum decursus the Lord gives them some good things the dew of Heaven and the fatness of the Earth and plenty of corn and wine c. but there are some good things that the Lord withholds for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies and they do not run out unto men with a full stream but this is the portion of those that are in Covenant they that walk uprightly Psal 34.10 The young lions do want and suffer hunger Psal 34.10 Job 4.11 the old Lion may perish for lack of prey being not able any more to hunt for a prey but the young Lion hath the greatest ability to make provision for himself and therefore it 's strange that they should want any thing either for their hunger or humour Now what is meant by these young Lions 1 Wicked Rulers or men of the greatest strength and of the highest authority as the Lion is the King of the Beasts Take up a lamentation for Pharoz and say Ezech. 32.2 Thou art like a young Lion of the Nations Prov. 28.15 As a roaring Lion so is a wicked Ruler over a poor people and Paul 2 Tim. 4.17 I was delivered out of the mouth of the Lion it 's spoken of Nero. 2 All the great men of the Earth they are compared to Lions for their power for what is stronger than a Lion a Lion is the strongest amongst the Beasts Prov. 30.30 and therefore the Devil is compared to a roaring Lion partly for his power and partly for his cruelty 3 All the subtile Politicians of the Earth that use not only their power but their parts and their policy to oppress others for the Lion is a subtile creature as well as powerful Ezech. 38.13 The merchants of Tarshish and all the young Lions thereof pro negotiatoribus argenteis minis men that know how to take beasts for themselves Muis. Psal 10.9 and to make the best of their market He lies in wait secretly as a Lion men that take the opportunity and the fit season to bring men to destruction and yet men of the highest place the greatest power and the deepest policy they shall lack they shall be brought to poverty and to want they shall not have wherewith to supply themselves but they that seek the Lord and fear him shall want no good thing Who are they you 'l say it is a promise made only unto the people in Covenant with God and so much doth the expression imply as Psal 24.6 This is
and prove a curse and not a blessing 4. Because it is very sweet to God when we follow him through a wilderness and see nothing but an alsufficiency in him through a land not sown Jer. 2.2 then you shew your love to him and he looks upon it as the day of your espousals Hos 9.10 I found Israel as grapes in the wilderness it is a proverbial speech when you have none to look to but God Drusius when you are in a land of drought it is never so pleasing unto God as when we are brought into a wilderness and yet there to follow him and the Lord doth never speak so sweetly to us as when he doth deprive us of these outward things that our hearts may stay upon him alone and therefore Hos 2.14 he says I will allure her into the wilderness what was there in the wilderness that might allure her The wilderness has a double consideration 1 It was a place of affliction and so there was nothing to allure for no affliction for the present is joyous but grievous 2 The wilderness was a place of manifestation where God did shew himself in his Ordinances and in his mighty works and if the wilderness be so there is an alluring in it and then saith God will I speak to her heart O when God brings into the wilderness and gives discoveries of himself there are the greatest comforts and the sweetest speakings unto the souls of his Saints the Lord doth not fail them in their time of need 5. Gods great glory is to manifest his Attributes in the sufferings of his people and it is the great work that he doth in the world and the greatest comfort that the Saints have is to see the Attributes of God drawn forth and to work for them Jer. 2.31 Have I been a wilderness to Israel It 's true says the Lord I brought them into a wilderness and did allure them thither but when they were there I was not a wilderness unto them they found all in me though the earth afforded them nothing yet there was nothing wanting from Heaven it was not a wilderness when they were in the wilderness See an instance of it Jer. 29.22 there were two false Prophets that did strive to make provision for themselves and they pleased the people Jer. 2.29 and said The King of Babylon should not carry them away captive they spoke lies in the name of the Lord and we see what became of them but Jeremiah that made no provision for himself did not as Baruck seek great things for himself we see how he is provided for even in the enemies hand Jer. 39.11 12. Look well to him do him no harm but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee how good is it to look up to God for all our supplies and not to distrust his goodness and power in any danger or strait that we may be exposed to 6. As our supplies do come from God so also there is a special token of love and interest discovered in his sufficiency and that is sweeter than the mercy it self the Lord loves to give unto his people every mercy that they need and as it is lined with love so it shall be faced with love that the mercy shall come in according unto the promise and he can look upon it as the birth of the promises as a pledge and a fruit of interest in the alsufficiency of God it 's a great thing and is much more than the blessing it self if it were a thousand times multiplied that all the promises lead a man to Christ the foundation of them all 2 Cor. 1.20 they do lead a man as beams to the Sun so when the mercy leads a man to his interest in the alsufficiency of God that 's more than the mercy it self when a mâ—n sees it 's given in to the bargain when he seeks first the Kingdom of Heaven all things in this world shall be added to him Psal 6.33 though they are in themselves but small yet they are magni amoris indicium there is a great deal of difference between a kiss and a reward though there may be a greater bounty in the one but there is more love in the other and so far as the people of God taste that the Lord is gracious so far they taste his love is sweeter than all unto them for if there were not love in the gift there were no relish in it we use to despise the gifts only of enemies and indeed the hearts of all the Saints do so far undervalue them as Luther that they can tell God Let thy gifts of this worlds goods only be to another but let me have a smile from thy face one kiss of thy mouth and it shall chear me more than corn or wine and oil as for all other things they are but as Luther said of the Turkish Empire mica canibus projecta a mite cast to the dogs because there was no love in it therefore a little that the righteous hath is better than the riches of many wicked as a little that the righteous doth is better than the pompous services of many wicked persons because there is love in the one and none in the other and without this all is as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal Object 2 You say that none have an interest in the alsufficiency of God but his Covenant-people But we see that the men of the world have great sufficiency Psal 73.7 they have more than heart can wish they enjoy all manner of abundance that one would think the alsufficiency of God were made over to them rather than to the Saints one would have thought it to have been the portion of Dives rather than Lazarus For the wicked fare deliciously every day c. Answ It 's true indeed that many wicked men who are strangers to God and his Covenant have great sufficiency in outward things but yet 1 though it be from the alsufficiency of God for he it is that is the Fountain of common mercies he doth cause the Sun to rise upon the unjust c. he opens his hand and fills every living thing it is he therefore that is said to fill their bellies with his hid treasure Psal 17.14 but yet it is not from their interest in his alsufficiency they have all from God but they have no interest in God it 's one thing to receive mercy from God ex largitate from an overflowing of his goodness and another thing to receive it ex proprietate from an interest in his goodness There are some benefits by Christ that wicked men have that have no interest in Christ there are many works that the Sun doth effect in the earth when it never shines and so it 's with Christ he vouchsafeth good things to many a soul in whose Horizon he doth never rise there is a great difference in the manner of conveyance 2 A sufficiency they have
he lays up that as a choice receipt all his life time and when he sees other men cast the materials of it away as a thing of no value he saith O! there is an excellency in it did men know it they would set a high price upon it I was in such an extremity and it relieved me so it is with all the Attributes of God they are exalted in the soul suitable to the use and experience that a man hath had of them as he that doth undervalue duties doth it because he hath not found the spiritual good that is in them so he that doth undervalue the Attributes of God doth it from want of experience which makes spiritual things great in our eyes and therefore Paul having an interest in the mercy of God we see how it was exalted in him 1 Tim. 1.14 the grace of God was exceeding abundant God who was rich in mercy out of his abundant love and pardoning mercy c. Mic. 7.18 Who is a God like to our God that pardons iniquity transgression and sin And the Saints that have perfection of holiness from him they give him the glory of his holiness from day to day saying Holy holy holy for the highest glory that we can give unto God here is that we honour those Attributes in our hearts which he doth honour in his dispensation towards us whether it be wisdom or holiness or faithfulness or patience c. as he doth honour the word that he doth accomplish so we are to honour the Attributes that he doth put forth Jah is the same name with Jehovah and is a name of Being denoting that God is he that hath his Being of himself and gives being unto all things else he that is the Fountain of Being whence a soul having had experience of him to be such a one lets his glory in that respect arise and be exalted in his soul if you would have any Attribute work for you then exalt that Attribute by trusting in it and when it hath wrought for you then exalt it also by glorifying of it and as you have exalted God by his name Jah so by his name Elshaddi a God alsufficient also for there is no name of God but it will be exalted in the soul suitable to the interest that we have in it and the taste that the soul hath of it For there is a double putting forth of every Attribute of God savingly upon his Elect not only a putting of it forth in his works and administrations towards them but there is also a putting of it forth by exalting it in a man and therein the main sweetness of the discovering of it doth lye He therefore that hath not had the price of this Attribute raised in his soul nor tasted the sweetness of it nor rejoyced in it nor adored and admired it and God as such a one under the apprehension of such an attribute truly that man hath no interest in it If a Saint cannot say that attribute is mine and this attribute I have an interest in yet he can admire the attribute and give God the glory of it as an excellency in himself and he doth not only praise God for his goodness towards him but as it is in himself for the glorious excellencies that are in the Divine nature as we may see it in Hannah 1 Sam. 2.1 2. My heart rejoyceth in the Lord and my horn is exalted in the Lord my mouth is enlarged over my enemies I will rejoyce in thy salvation there is none holy as the Lord c. And as it is exceeding sweet unto the people of God and a Paradise to walk from one Tree to another in the Paradise of God and to say such a truth the Lord fulfilled unto me in such a case and in such an extremity and such a promise at such a time so much more for a man to be able to look over all the attributes of God and to say such a time the Lord did glorifie such an attribute towards me and such a time such a one and to see all the attributes of God as well as all the works of God to work together for a mans good every one in their proper places as the stars in their courses fought against Sisera and the threatnings of God fight against wicked men so to have the word of God the works of God and the attributes of God work for a man is their happiness and their joy 4. He that hath an interest in the alsufficiency of God will be raised up in his soul to an holy self-sufficiency as there is no grace that is in Christ but it will have a resemblance in us so there is no attribute of God but it hath its resemblance therefore 1 Pet. 2.9 we are said to shew forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the vertues of him that hath called us and in this doth properly our conformity unto God in this world lye there is something in us that doth hold a resemblance with the attributes of God that are manifested and put forth for us And in this is the greatest exercise of the attributes of God for our good when the patience of God works patience in us and we be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful and holy as he is holy when the wisdom of God works wisdom in us and there is a resemblance of the power of God in us that we are able to do all things through Christ that strengthens us when the greatness of God works in us a holy greatness of mind and when the alsufficiency of God works in us a gracious self-sufficiency for there is a self-sufficiency that is a duty as there is a self-sufficiency that is a sin 1 Tim. 6.6 Godliness is great gain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 9.8 Every where and in all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and it is that which the Apostle had learned Phil. 4.11 so Prov. 14.14 A good man is satisfied from himself There is self as divided from God which is a sin but self as united unto God is a great duty Self-sufficiency in opposition to the creatures is a duty for a man can be happy without them but self-sufficiency in opposition to God is a sin for if a man be one with God then a mans self-sufficiency is Gods alsufficiency for having God and that sufficiency that is in him he hath all though amongst the creatures he hath no portion no inheritance when a man hath the Moon under his feet and he can say when he sees all the world destroyed Se nihil habere bonum tantâ mole perdendum c. and can look upon the general conflagration of the world as Lot did upon Sodom in the burning without a relenting thought because his portion is not in them this man hath a self-sufficiency grounded upon his interest in the alsufficiency of God for as the Apostle saith of the Fathers Heb. 11.13 That chusing to be pilgrims they did declare
given them upon their understandings from without 4 He doth order all their actions that there is not any thing they do but it is according to the rule and dominion that he hath over them not a sparrow falls to the ground without my Father The lot is cast into the lap but the determination is from God not the smallest or the meanest ordinary and casual things but they are at his dispose all come under his government and are subjected unto his dominion 1 From him all is received 2 Unto him all shall give an account Kings and Rulers he is the Judge of all the Earth and they that now judge shall then be judged and Christ himself shall give up his account unto the Father as he is Gods King he rules from him and for him 3 Unto him at last all shall be reduced it 's true by way of oeconomy and dispensation for a while there is a Kingdom in the hand of the Angels and the Magistrates and in the hand of Christ but Christ shall put down all rule and authority and he shall give up his own into the hand of the Father that God may be all in all so that all Nations shall be returned unto him as of him are all things so to him shall be all things 3 It is an absolute Dominion for it 's wholly according to his will 1 He hath none to give laws unto him or set him down the rules of his government all other governours in the world have their rules set them by which they are to rule and to dispense all things but he doth whatever he will in heaven and in earth he doth pluck up and he doth build up he doth kill and he doth make alive and all is at his will and he doth whatever he will in heaven and in earth and in the sea Dan. 4.32 according to his will he works in the armies of the heavens and in the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand or say unto him What dost thou none can restrain him none can call him to an account for it and say Why hast thou done this Shall the clay say to the Potter Why hast thou made me thus he gives not account of any of his matters he only rules by will without giving a reason Therefore amongst the creatures there is no such thing as an absolute Monarchy in which men should rule by will for men are to rule as men that is by reason and by love an absolute Monarchy is but absolute Tyranny there must be known rules by which they must govern but so doth not the Lord there is none to prescribe to him for his will is the rule of goodness non ideò volitum quia bonum sed ideò bonum quia volitum a thing is not therefore willed by God because good but it 's therefore good because willed for there is nothing that is good antecedent to the will of God 2 It is absolute in respect of the greatest things all being under his dispose not only mens temporal but their eternal estates he can shew mercy unto one because he will and he can harden another and it is because he will one shall be for the glory of his grace and another for the glory of his justice and he doth it freely and hath no reason but his own will one shall be high and another low one in honour and another in dishonour one shall be imployed and another laid aside one shall be raised from the dunghil and set amongst Princes and made to inherit the Throne of Glory for the pillars of the earth are the Lords and he hath set the world upon them 1 Sam. 28. he will sometimes work by means and according to their nature and sometimes he will lay the means aside and he will work without them and sometimes contrary unto them that the battel shall not be unto the strong nor the race to the swift nor favour to men of understanding but there is a disposing a time and a chance which shall befal them all Eccles 9.11 by which he doth mean the disposing of the highest power but it is called chance quia illa ordinatio ab homine non cognoscitur that ordination is not known to man and all is that man may find nothing after him he will not go by any ruled cases that so all the world may see that he hath an absolute Soveraignty and hath no other rule for his government but his will only § 2. This Soveraignty of God is during the stage of this world committed into the hand of Christ as Mediator for he it is doth act and exercise all the attributes of God as all threatnings are executed by him and by him all promises are performed so all the attributes of God are exerted by him and therefore Col. 1.15 He is the image of the invisible God there we may see all the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ Joh. 5.22 He hath committed all judgment to the Son judicium dominium significat he it is upon whose shoulders the government is he bears up all things and he rules all things by the word of his power in heaven and in earth and therefore he is called 1 Tim. 6.15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The only Potentate not that God the Father is put out of authority but he rules in and by his Son as he will at the last day execute judgment by him and he hath given him power to execute judgment because he is the Son of man and this Kingdom that he hath received he shall surely give up unto the Father again 1 Cor. 15.24 And the Kingdom of God which is committed unto Christ is twofold spiritual and providential 1. It is spiritual by which he doth rule in the souls of the Saints in heaven and in earth in the one it is a Kingdom of Glory and in the other of Grace which is called the Kingdom of God Rom. 14.17 The kingdom of God consists not in meat and drink but in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost The kingdom of God comes not with observation Luk. 10.21 the kingdom of God is within you and in this Kingdom 1 he sets up a Throne in the souls of men and appears unto them in his glory as a great King and they see him and know him so to be Rev. 4.3 there is a glorious high Throne and the Lord sits thereon and they do worship before him they look upon him as a King upon his Throne though it be called a Throne of Grace 2 As a King he gives Laws unto the soul and binds the inward man that what they do is for conscience sake Rom. 13.5 Act. 23.1 I have lived in all good conscience for Conscience is regulated by a Law that 's a good conscience and none can prescribe laws to conscience but God alone for it is in vain for man to give a Law unto that which he cannot
belong unto him as Mediator because as Mediator he is King as well as Priest he is indeed a Priest and a Prophet only to his people but as he is a King so he rules over his enemies even those that will not acknowledge his kingdom over them It 's true that none have an interest in any Office of Christ but he that hath an interest in them all and therefore he cannot be said to be our King so as to rule us for our spiritual and eternal good unless he be also our Prophet and our Priest and none are in this sense the Subjects of the Kingdom of Christ but they that consent to and accept of his government they that kiss the Son but yet he is a King appointed by God though he be not accepted by us and therefore he is Gods King that is he rules by Gods commission and as a servant unto his ends even then when we acknowledge him not to be our King and his government is not assented to by us he will judge them as a King though he doth not save them as a King § 3. The government of all things in his Kingdom is exercised by him in the behalf of the Saints and so they have a right to the Soveraignty of God and it is made over to them as will appear 1. In this that it was given to Christ for their sake he hath a kingdom given him not for his own sake but for our sakes Joh. 17.2 Joh. 17.2 He hath given him power over all flesh that he might give eternal life unto as many as thou hast given him imperium accepit Christus non tam sibi quà m nostrae salutis causâ Calv. so that it was with special respect unto them that he did undertake the government of the world had it not been that he had a people in the world that were given him of the Father and whose names were written in the Lambs book and whom he did intend to save he would not have undertaken the government of all things for Eph. 1.22 he is made the head over all things but it is to the Church magna consolatio est quòd tantum imperium habet is qui id exercet Ecclesiae bono c. Grot. But wherein lies the force of this reason that he must have power over all flesh that he might give eternal life unto as many as God had given him Why could not Christ have given them eternal life unless he had had power over all flesh unless the government of the world had been put into his hands I conceive the force of it to lye in this 1. Had the government still been in the hand of God as God so he must have proceeded according to the rules of the first Covenant and according to the severity of a God and therefore the Father judgeth no man Now the Father as God and the Son as God have but one judgment and they do proceed by the same rule and if the Father cannot judge them but he must destroy them then neither can the Son as God for they have one and the same will and judgment but supposing a Mediator one that will undertake to give God satisfaction for sin then the world may stand and it is fit that he should rule it that hath bought it he hath bought the persons of the Saints and the services of all the creatures for their good therefore it is by Christ that the world stands the government is put into his hand as Mediator for had not there been a Mediator the world must have perished under the weight of the first transgression but that the world might stand and men live in the world in their successive generations and so by grace attain holiness and glory for this cause there was power given him over all flesh and this is the reason given by Chemnitius why the Father judges not immediately Patris nostri sive Divinae naturae judicium cum peccatoribus agentis est juxta severitatem rigorem legis divinae c. 2. He could not give them eternal life else because he could not order all things for their spiritual good even all the motions of the creatures all the temptations of Satan all the affections of men either good or bad sometimes in ways of love and courtesie sometimes in ways of displeasure and persecution and all providential occurrences such opportunities of service and such occasions of sinning which he hath the ordering of for the good of his people All things do work together for good to them that love God Rom. 8.28 because all of them are in the hand of a Mediator for this very end and purpose that he might order all things so as might conduct them safe to heaven how comes it to pass that all the creatures do service to the Saints and there is not one of them that can do them a disservice in reference to their spiritual estates Cyrus in ways of kindness shall be drawn out to the service of God My shepherd saith God he shall be and wicked men shall wipe them as a man doth a dish c. the fire shall not burn them the water shall not drown them no weapon formed against thee shall prosper c. All this is because that the administration of all things are put into the hand of a Mediator for their eternal good and he will order all things so as they shall conduce unto that great end for which he hath undertaken the government in the Kingdom of Providence it 's all in order to the spiritual Kingdom it was purely out of the love of the Father to the Saints that he did give the Kingdom unto Christ and it was purely out of love to the Saints that he did accept of it and thus the Lord laid help on one that 's mighty Christ the Mediator doth administer all things for their good and that both in the spiritual and in the providential kingdom In the spiritual kingdom all the Ordinances are for their good it is for the edification of the Saints and the building up of the body of Christ Eph. 4.12 all the institutions of Christ are for their good and all the motions of the Spirit in what kind soever and the desertions of the Spirit Cant. 4. ult all of them are that their spices may flow forth whether it be North wind or South wind and they have two quite different or contrary qualities and operations yea the very operations of the Spirit and the desertions of the Spirit also work for good the Lord hides his face for a little moment that he may have mercy upon them with everlasting kindness c. So it is in the providential kingdom also all is for the good of the Saints 1 Pet. 1.6 and they shall be gainers by it in the end so much affliction they have as they need and so much prosperity as will do them good for the Lord delights in the
a while see what he can do with him 2 Sometimes in just judgment God doth it when his people sin against him and depart from him the Lord doth leave them in the hand of the Devil as a prisoner that he may correct them and so recover them as a father leaves his child in the hand of a servant to correct so as he stands by and sets the measure to it he shall but correct him in measure Rev. 2.10 He will cast them into prison for ten days as he did Paul he was buffetted by Satan to prevent sin he did leave him to correct his sin 3 In an ordinance of Excommunication 1 Cor. 5.5 being delivered to Satan he doth exercise tyranny over him to stir up the guilt of sin within him and to torment his conscience and God departs from him in point of comfort for 2 Cor. 2.7 it was that he might not be swallowed up with over-much sorrow therefore it is sorrow that is the fruit of this Ordinance c. 2. Yet all this doth the Soveraignty of God order and over-rule for the good of the Saints There are two things that the power of Satan is wholly exercised in temptation and affliction 1 He is a Tempter in us and that both as he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clem. Alexandr speaks 1 He doth effectually stir up sin within us and he works effectually in the children of disobedience and 2 In any sin that is stirred up in us he is a worker together with us to bring it forth unto perfection for it 's not only to beget sin in us but to perfect it that he doth aim at 2 He is an Accuser of us unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the accuser of the brethren Rev. 12.10 as Christ is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Satan doth plead against them before God and before men and in their own consciences also stirring up of guilt in them also and he hath his accesses unto Heaven and he doth put up his desires unto God against us and doth lay our sins unto our charge before the Throne of Justice and demands justice against us Zac. 3.1 2. for Zac. 3.1 2. Satan stands at his right hand which was to accuse for the Accuser stood at the right hand and it was to resist him the right hand being chiefly the instrument of action therefore it was to hinder him in the great service that he was now about to do and to object against him before the Lord his filthy garment with which he was cloathed at his appearance before the Lord. Now both these the temptations and the accusations of Satan the Soveraignty of God doth rule and over-rule for the spiritual good of the Saints which I shall make appear in these particulars and therefore Bernard calls him Malleus terrae and he saith Terit electos in utilitatem reprobos conterit in damnationem pag. 300. 1. There is a restraint upon him that he shall tempt them no more than is for their good He will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able 1 Cor. 10.13 It is true that Satan is subtle in his temptations and he doth take a measure of the spirits of men that so he may proportion his temptations unto them some spirits are too low for some temptations as their understandings are for some opinions Now Satan therefore doth not suggest such depths unto them but deals with them in a lower way but there are some temptations that would not take with some because their spirits and their understandings are above them and he deals with them in a higher and in a more ingenious way Now as Satan doth take a measure of the spirits of men in every temptation so doth God also take a measure of their grace that it shall be so much and no more for there are some temptations that the grace that is in some men could not bear and therefore the Lord doth proportion it in wisdom and in mercy it is true unto wicked men it is otherwise there is a power that is beyond the strength of the common works that are upon them an opportunity of temptation that turns them off as leaves that are shaken with the wind but it is not so with the Saints Ad mensuram permittitur tentare Diabolus sed qui dat Tentatori potestatem ipse tantato praebet misericordiam August tom 8. p. 435. 2. Satan shall tempt no further than it shall be for the subduing of corruption men are delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh but it is an over-ruling hand of the Soveraignty of God who doth temper such poyson into a wholesom medicine and what the enemy did intend should kill that shall be a means to cure And therefore Luther doth deride the Papists in this who having spoken in his Covent unto one of the Society of a Purgatory and they objected it against him that he did grant in his writings a Purgatory also he answers them That he doth grant a Purgatory but it is this of temptation only by which the Lord is pleased to purge the souls of his people and that makes them to come out the more refined hoc Purgatorium fictum non est c. Great hath been the gain that the people of God have had by their temptations this way yea even by those temptations in which they have been foiled Nescit Diabolus quomodo illo insidiante furente utatur ad salutem fidelium excellentissima Dei sapientia c. Aug. tom 3. p. 218. 3. It doth mightily improve their graces we see it in Job we know what the end was that God made with him as all afflictions improve graces and make the land fruitful as the rain doth though it make the way foul so there is not a greater affliction than temptation for a man to be left to be as the sink into which the Devil shall empty all the filthiness that is in that unclean spirit therefore this also shall turn into the increase of grace wherefore Luther's saying That there are three things make a Divine Meditation Oration and Tentation is most true for grace opposed is much improved a soul had never seen such high acts of grace had it not met with such high opposition It 's true in it self it doth not increase grace for it is opposite unto it but by an Antiperistasis it doth debemus esse Dialectici non pugnamus ut homines sed ut Christiani Luth. and therefore the Spirit of Christ will improve his own work in us by our temptations also 4. We have by this experience of the power of Christ in us Experimental knowledge is a knowledge upon tryal and such a knowledge a man can never have till he be brought unto a tryal there is many a man that doth presumptuously think that he can do much and resist much but when he comes to the tryal he is weak as
do the Saints that are of the same body with themselves for they do none of them live barely as private men though they are not all publick persons in respect of office and function yet they are in respect of their relation and they have all of them reference unto the body and they do pray as members of the body and have in all things respect unto the good of the body for as the Spirit that doth interpret the Scripture is not a private Spirit so the Spirit that doth act the Saints is not a private Spirit therefore as in the good of every member the body is interessed so also in the prayers of every one the body is interessed therefore as we are to look upon all the prayers of Christ not as the prayers of a private man but as put up by him who is the Churches Head so we are also to look upon the prayers of all the Saints not as of private men but also as under the relation of membership under which they stand in the body of Christ and as we are to look upon their sufferings as being of the body so are we also to look upon their services as being done by the members of the same body and all of them for the good and benefit of the body Moses obtained great benefits to the people of Israel by his prayers their blessings depended much upon his prayers Pardon them as thou hast done it from Egypt till now and the Lord answers I have pardoned them according to thy word and again Moses prays Go before them or carry us not from hence the Lord answers My presence shall go with you and I will give you rest The blessings that godly men attain are not barely the fruit of their own prayers and yet they that are godly do pray also but they are a concurrence of prayers and by them we do attain mercy yea sometimes when we are little able to pray for our selves when the spirit of prayer is low in its actings in us yet then the souls of some of the Saints are upon the wing and the Lord will have respect unto them for they are of the body As we rejoice not in the gifts of others because we look upon them as given unto other men and do not look upon them as a part of the body and so see our interest in them that they are given them for our good and therefore they are to us rather matter of envy than of rejoicing so we take no comfort in the prayers of the Saints upon this ground because we look not upon them as praying upon the same common interest with us and as praying for us as fellow-members who have with them an equal interest in the good of the body and its prosperity And as they obtain mercy so they keep off judgment if Noah Daniel and Job stood before me he speaks it as the most effectual way of prevailing with him and as that which he would least of all deny and yet the Decree being gone forth his heart could not be towards them The Saints have in their ages attained great mercy for the body and therefore Elijah is called the chariot of Israel and the horse-men thereof their main defence lay in him under Heaven they had not so great a one and therefore godly men in all ages have looked upon it as a great misery for the godly of the age to be removed as having their party and their interest upon earth weakned as if an eminent man of any party be taken away it 's looked upon as a great weakning to them and he is thereupon greâ—â—y bewailed by them Wherefore it is reproved as their sin Esa 57.1 That the righteous perish and no man layeth it to heart c. and Mic. 7.1 it is expressed by the Prophet as a duty and so it was with Austins mother he saies of her Orationibus vivebat and it was in answer to her prayers that he was new-born unto God Parturivit me carne ut in hanc temporalem corde ut in aeternam lucem renascerer Tom. 9. cap. 8. She travailed with me as in her flesh to bring me forth to a temporal life so in her heart to an eternal life he was an eminent instrument in the Church in the age in which he lived and mightily confuted the false Teachers of the time and did gloriously defend the truth and appeared for it and all this he did attain by the benefit of his mothers prayers And they do bring upon the Churches enemies very great and terrible judgments by their prayers there is a fire that comes out of their mouths and consumes their enemies and that not as they are theirs but as they are the Churches enemies And not only the prayers of the present age shall have power against Antichrist but the prayers of the former ages as to instance in the prayers of David taking place against Judas Act. 1. so there have been prayers for many years that have been going for the Reformation of England from Popery which have been answered eminently in our daies and will be more and more answered in succeeding generations the people of God pray continually for more degrees of grace and light Now it 's true that when men strike an Oak with many blows yet it doth not fall till the last blow and yet we say that it is not the last blow that fells the Oak but all that went before so 't is here as it was in the death of Christ his last act was the full payment but yet all his former obedience and sufferings did concur thereunto to all that full satisfaction that was given by him to the Father and it 's dreadful when the prayers of all the people of God do fall upon a man surely vengeance will overtake him as an armed man Look as all the prayers of the Saints do at the last day meet together in the Devils destruction so it shall be in the destruction of any great and eminent instrument of his as in attaining special deliverances the Lord stands upon number so it is in bringing in eminent judgments also and therefore Hezekiah sends for Isaiah and tells him That the children were come to the birth the promises did travail with deliverance but there was no strength to bring forth unless he would add his prayers also and so it is with the people of God it is much more to lose one praying man than a plotting or a fighting man and that is the meaning that great Babylon came into remembrance before God how was it it was from the Lords remembrancers for the Vials did come out of the Temple Rev. 16.1 all their prayers met together Rev. 16.1 and there is a full cry that the Lord is put in remembrance which by his long delay and forbearance he had seemed to neglect and forget 8. By their Faith the people of God attain much mercy to others as well as by their
of the heart proceed evil thoughts adulteries fornications murders thefts covetousness wickedness deceit lasciviousness an evil eye blasphemy pride foolishness all these evil things come from within and defile the man c. for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh Mat. 12.34 Now how comes it to pass that now one sin riseth in the heart and sometimes another sin when there is an equal propension unto all sin it riseth out of the heart but there is a Soveraignty of God that doth order these motions and desires in the heart permitting such motions and stirrings of heart now which he had not before Jam. 1.15 Lust conceiveth and brings forth sin there is original sin the root of corruption which is called Lust Jam. 1.15 and that is the mother of all sin and it is said to conceive when it is formed into motions reasonings consultations and desires and consents but yet there is many a lust conceived that never is brought forth into act and the permitting the rising as well as of the being of lust depends upon the Dominion and the Soveraignty of God As there came into the heart of Esau such a resolution when my father is dead I will slay my brother Jacob so there came a motion into the heart of Judas to betray Christ and thereupon he consulted how to do it with the greatest advantage and how to take the fittest opportunity to bring it to pass so a thought came into Davids heart to number the people Satan stirred it up but God in judgment giving him over that it should be at this time when God was angry with Israel and Ezech. 38.10 It shall come to pass at the same time that things shall come into thy mind and thou shalt think an evil thought a thought that he did not think before the time of his destruction was near then such motions shall arise as it did in Ahab Is not Ramoth in Gilead ours c which was the occasion of his destruction There is a providence even in the rising of lusts in the hearts of his own people that this lust at this special time and another lust at another time should rise in them it is the same Soveraignty of God that doth draw forth gracious desires in the Saints and doth permit corrupt desires in them also God is not the Author but the orderer of them and yet even in this also the Soveraignty of God is exercised for the good of the Saints and that many ways 1 In this that all lusts break not forth in the soul continually for lust that is the mother of all sin original sin stands equally prepared unto all sin at all times and therefore that all lusts be not stirring in the heart together is from a glorious act of the soveraign restraint of God Hos 4.2 By swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery they break out c. erumpunt it is taken from waters that have been hid or from fire shut up in an oven or a furnace Hos 7.6 sometimes it breaks forth into thoughts in the soul and sometimes into acts in the life Now there is a double restraint that the Soveraignty of God has over mens acts and over their lusts and it 's a great mercy to have acts of sin restrained as it was in Abimelech Gen. 20.6 his lust was let out but God restrained the act and it is a greater mercy to have the lust restrained than the act as the Lord said They shall not desire thy land Now the Lord doth restrain the Devils acts but for his lusts he doth let them range and so he doth very far also restrain the acts of wicked men when he sets no bounds unto their lusts next to being freed from the being of sin it 's a mercy to be delivered from the rising of sin and in that there is a special manifestation of the Soveraignty of God for if the rising of one sin be so troublesom unto a godly man that he strives and prays and wrestles with it and it is unto him as the thorn in his flesh he cannot be quiet in himself by reason of it how miserable and continually unquiet would the heart of a godly man be if he should have many such strangers and way-faring men come to him as it was said of the lust that came into Davids heart how should a godly man be able even to stand under the burden of them therefore even this restraint of the rising of some lusts is a special mercy that Josephs lust should not rise and conceive in him at such a time and when he had such an opportunity And it is the greater because I conceive the Spirit of God by a peculiar work and not a common doth restrain the lusts of the Saints It 's true that there is restraining grace both unto the godly and the wicked but not both from the same principle but the Spirit having once taken possession of a godly man for his own house and Temple he doth never work common works in that man more as a Spirit assisting barely but as a Spirit inhabiting 2 There is a great deal of mercy in the Lords ordering of the rising of lust when lust doth not rise when the object is present there is the object and the opportunity but the lust is past away as Ruth lay at Boaz his feet all night yet no lust ariseth towards her and David had an opportunity of killing Saul but yet when Saul was in his hand and he was stirred up to it by his servants also yet God restrained his lust it did not rise in him which we may see by the contrary in other men as soon as the object is offered the lust is up in the young man Prov. 7. he met a harlot and he went after her straight-ways and there is a man that no sooner sees his neighbours wife but he doth lust after her his lust riseth as soon as the object is presented and so it was with Achan I saw and I coveted and I took and so it is with many a man let the least shew or provocation be given and his spirit is on fire immediately but it was not so with Abraham though he was the better man and had a better right than Lot yet in the contention the lust of pride and passion did not arise in him Let there be no strife between me and thee for we are brethren A man of understanding is of a cool spirit he doth not take fire immediately that lust should rise at one time and not at another it can be attributed unto nothing but the Soveraignty of God ordering and over-ruling and restraining it c. 3 The Lord doth let some lusts at this time arise that it may shew a man that such a sin is in his nature which formerly he haply never considered never particularly repented of and never saw the fruit of it breaking forth in his life Now to lead a man