Deut. 8.3 is due to this Word of Command and Benediction that the Lord at first spoke to the Creature Now concerning the particular Creation of Man not to enter into the consideration of the manner of his Creation his Essentials the Body the Soul or the nature of either but we shall enquire What is meant by the Likeness or Image of God There was a twofold Image of God 1. Essential viz. A participation in his very Essence of a Conformity to the Divine Nature which consisted in three particulars 1. That he had an Immortal Soul this is that which Wisdom 2.23 is called the Image of his Eternity 2. That he was an Intellectual Being 3. That he was a Free Agent These being essential to Man were not lost by him and for this reason God required the same severity against Murder as if Man had never fallen Gen. 9.6 For in the Image of God made he Man. 2. An Accidental Image which consisted in an adventitious Perfection which God added to Man. 1. Dominion Gen. 1.26 And let them have Dominion c. So God created Man in his own Image The Dominion which he gave to him made him resemble God and hence it is that those that have power of Command are called Gods Exod. 4.17 And thou shalt be to him instead of God. Psal 82.6 I have said ye are gods Vid. Gen. 9.2 This Dominion consisted not only in his Power to inforce his Commands by the advantages of Wit and Strength above other Creatures but likewise in a Subjection in the Creatures to his Dominion 2. An incorruptible Union between the Body and the Soul Gen. 2.17 The day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Hence Rom. 5. the Apostle concludes Death the fruit of Sin. This might have been either by reason of the excellence of his natural Constitution or by supplying it with special Assistance by which means the Lives of the Fathers before the Flood had so long a duration or by assuming of him into Heaven without any dissolution of Soul and Body as was Enoch Gen. 5.24 3. A filling of the Intellectual Faculty with the Light and Knowledge of all things especially of his Maker And herein consisted his high degree of Happiness But as the Object or the Union of the Object to the Faculty is not of the Essence of that Intellectual Nature wherein that Faculty resides but may be removed without any essential change so was this and that herein consisted the Image of God appears by Colos 3.10 The Renovation by Christ which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him 4. Holiness or Conformity of the Will to the Will of God. This appears likewise by the state of Renovation Epes 4.24 Put on the New Man which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness which as it presupposeth a true Knowledge of the Will of God so it was a free choice of Obedience to it This was not essential to the Will because the Will was essentially Free but had been necessary to the Will in case the Understanding had not been abused CHAP. IV. Of the Providence of God in special concerning Man in order to his supream End. THUS much shortly touching the Creation and Man's Constitution in it the second part of the Dispensation of this Counsel is God's Providence and herein we shall pass over that part which is the General Providence of God and consider of that Special Providence or Dispensation of Divine Counsel which concerneth Man and that not meerly as a Creature but in order to his everlasting End. We shall consider therefore the course of this Providence of God in order to the Eternal End of Man under those three Conditions or Times wherein we find Man Before the Fall After the Fall In Christ Concerning the estate of Man before the Fall or sin of Adam we have already examined certain Generals that are conducible to this point viz. 1. That God did appoint Man to some End or Good answerable to the constitution and value of his Nature and this is his Happiness 2. That this Good must therefore be an Infinite Immortal Intelligible Good otherwise it could not be answerable to the Nature of Man. 3. That there is not nor can be any such Good but only God. 4. That the Actual Enjoyment of this Good is by the Union of the Soul to God and the Communion of God to the Soul. 5. That the only Means of attaining this Union and Communion must needs be such and such only as the Will of God pleaseth to appoint We shall now descend to these two particular Inquiries viz. 1. What was that great End or Happiness which Man did or might enjoy in his created condition 2. What was the Means whereby to attain and keep that Happiness 1. Concerning the former viz. What was Man's Happiness in his Creation we shall consider him in those three degrees of Living which he had 1. As a Vegetable Creature an exact Constitution and temper of Body which though naturally corruptible yet by the interposition of the Divine Power not subject to corruption those things that were for his use and sustentation the Air the Water the Fruits of the Earth most exactly conducible to the perpetuating of his Life without Pain or Sickness 2. As a Sensible Creature Exquisiteness of Sense and receptive of whatsoever the Creature could afford conducing to his Use or Delight and the Creature likewise fitted for the supply of those Senses every Herb given him for Food all the Creatures came to him to receive their Names he had Dominion over them a most pleasant Garden planted by God himself for his Habitation with a Tree of Immortality in it 3. As a Rational Creature 1. A most just and sweet Subordination of the inferiour Faculties to the superiour the sensitive Appetite the Passions and Motions of the Spirits 2. A most exact fitness and perfection of those Organs of the Body which are necessary for the operations of the Faculties of the Soul and a perfect and just Union of the Body and Soul whereby the Soul might clearly and perfectly exercise all her Faculties 3. Which is the height of all the rest fitting of those Faculties with the most perfect and suitable Object even God himself for all Faculties or Powers receive their perfection by their Objects to have an Understanding as comprehensive as Heaven to have a Will of as vast Desires as infinitude it self and not to have an Object suitable to either were a greater Unhappiness than to want the Faculties In the Creation therefore God filled the Understanding with the sight and knowledge of Himself of his Majesty Glory Bounty Goodness with the knowledge of his Will and Mind concerning Man with the knowledge of his Works and of his Workings This could not chuse but work in the Mind of Man answerable returns to the nature of this Object He is fully conceived to be the highest and most supream Good and
Perfection is held 4. a Rule or Law wherewith it is indued to regulate and direct and enable his Motions in the attaining of that Desire Thus we find in all Creatures below Man every thing moving to its own Preservation and Perfection by a strong Desire and constant Rule and enjoying a kind of Happiness in the Fruition of that End which the First Cause gave it as its Portion Nay in the very Dissolution of the Creature this is that which moves the ingredients thereof to part themselves or concur in the production of some third thing the thing corrupted struggling nevertheless as long as it can to keep it self entire Man though in his lower part he hath somewhat common with other especially sensible Creatures and therefore in that respect resembles them in his Motions Fruitions and Ends yet he hath something that is of a higher Constitution and consequently capable of a higher Perfection whereunto he moves as his End by a Law or Rule answerable to so great an End this latter being of a higher Frame yet answerable to that in other Creaturers which we call the Law of Nature Instinct or Natural Inclination The first thing therefore examinable is Wherein consists this Perfection of Man above other Creatures And questionless that is in his Soul which actuates animates and directs his Body and therefore before we can find out what is that End that is answerable to the degree of Man's being we must enquire what this Soul is wherein Man's Perfection consists whereby we shall be able to measure out what End will serve it The Soul of Man is considerable 1. In its absolute Essence we must conclude it to be an Immterial Immortal Substance This though it be a certain truth yet it is impossible naturally to demonstrate it the reason is because nothing can come to our Understandings demonstratively but either by our Senses or by Discourse and Reasons deduced from such things as so come to our Senses It is true the First Cause falls not under our Senses yet by necessary deduction from what falls under our Senses we necessarily conclude That he is and in some things What he is but the Being of the Soul as it is not conspicuous to the Sense so it is not deducible by Demonstration it is a Truth which is revealed at first supernaturally and afterwards traductively It is true that when we have the knowledge of it we may find many reasons to fortifie it divers difficulties thereby reconciled which without that admitted were almost impossible to be broken through which stings the most bold and adventurous sinner or Atheist with an invincible suspicion of the truth of this Truths yet I cannot find how merely by Natural Reason a Man can first find out the truth of this Proposition That the Soul is a Substance Immaterial We owe this truth in its original to Divine Revelation though when discovered the contribution of rectified Reason may conclude it at least probable But that being granted it doth of necessity follow that it is Immortal and Incorruptible for that which is Immaterial is actus simflex which excludes a composition of Matter and Form not Simflicissimus which excludes the composition ex Ente Essentia or ex Actu Potentia Now concerning those Reasons those Reasons that conduce to prove the Immortality and Spirituality of the Soul I. From the manner of its Operation 1. In the understanding which though it takes its rise from things that pass through the Sense yet it refines them from their Materiality concludes from them things which are not conveyed in by the Senses abstracts riseth to the consideration and apprehension of Spiritual Truths 2. In the Will which is carried to affect a Good that falls not within the reach of Sense controlls and commands the Sensual Appetite takes it off from those things which it pursues as naturally and violently as the hungry Lion doth his Prey and imposeth a Law of Reason upon them 3. From the Conscience that startles at the committing of a horrid Offence though with the greatest secrecy and outward security in the World. Sed de his Latius infra 2. From the Justice of God. It is questionless certain that as God put in the several Instincts and Propensions in the inferior Creatures whereby they are carried to their Ends so there was some Rule given to Man that was answerable to the several dimensions of those Abilities he had above other Creatures viz. Understanding and Will. And questionless as those Propensions are internal to the inferiour Creatures and do not only rule their Actions but also their Inclinations so this Law that was given to Man extended not only to his outward Actions but to those inward Motions of his Soul by the violation of the least part of which Law he incurred a Guilt which is an Obligation to Punishment according to the Penalty of this Law. Now it is impossible that this Justice should be executed considering especially the outward dispensation of things without the Object of this Justice survived his Body 3. From the Wisdom of God who surely gave not his Creature an Understanding that might arrive to know him a Will rationally and ex deliberatione to obey him and yet that all this should die with the Body But who is sufficient for these things Here is the first Eminence then of Man above other things that he carries about him an Immaterial and Immortal Soul which survives his Body and this necessarily concludes that the Good or End or Happiness answerable to this Perfection cannot be either Material or Mortal 1. Not Material because it holds not proportion with that Nature and Receptibility of the Soul. And from hence as it is most rational to conclude that any Object of the Sense can never be that Good that the Soul drives at so it is most evident by two Experiments 1. In the Weariness Nauseousness and unsatisfactoriness of them If a Man had all the Wisdom and Contrivance in the World and the most eager and intense desire after these Objects of Sense or the Sensual Appetite that can be imagined and all those Supplies and Opportunities that might conduce to the filling of these Desires yet in the midst of those Enjoyments he would find a Nauseousness a Satiety a Weariness And that is the reason that voluptuous Men travel from one Pleasure to another Which though they are exquisitely proportionable to that Sense they are framed for yet there is somewhat within which is still empty and craves who cannot relish nor tast those Enjoyments and cries after something that may be more sutable to it and the Man not knowing what that is travels from one thing to another to find somewhat to satisfie that Desire but cannot till he light upon that Good that is Immaterial 2. In that the more Spiritual the Object is the more satisfaction it breeds Hence the Soul doth in effect Spiritualize all that cometh into it by abstractions
though all Good be the Object of the Will in its Latitude yet the Will fastens particularly upon that Good which by the Understanding is presented to be his Chiefest Good and in order to the Union unto this Good is the Motion of the Will and subservient to this Motion are the several Passions and Affections of the Soul which are but the impressions of the actions of the Will upon the Blood and Spirits whereby the Will exciteth and produceth those external actions in the body which tend to the execution of its commands and therefore I omit them Upon what hath been said may appear wherein lies the immediate Cause of Man's miscarriage to his Supream End It lies in the Defects of his Understanding and his Will. 1. For his Vnderstanding If this hath either no Light or a false Light the Will is misguided The Soul of Man will be moving to some thing or other under the notion of Good this sets the Understanding a work which if not rightly Principled takes up that for his Good which either the temper and constitution of the body and fleshly appetite or the present opportunity suggests and affects and puts the intention of the Will upon it as Pleasures or Profits or Honours or empty Speculations and yet in the pursuit of these a Man that hath almost any Intellectuals though it may be he arrive not to the true and positive Knowledge of what is his Supream End most commonly finds that this is not and though sometimes he knows not why yet he is sick and weary of them as unsatisfying and deceiving things wheraas the true cause is that disproportion they bear to the nature of the Soul and are not that End to which it is ordained and would move if it knew it and how to attain it Again though the Understanding doth sometimes find that these are not the things will make me happy but I spy the true and Everlasting Happiness yet the Conviction is not so strong and evident that it dares conclude the pursuit thereof to be preferred before the present Enjoyment of those delights which we are sure of and from hence it comes to pass that the competition of these present Enjoyments will soon starve and famish these uncompleat Convictions and all pursuits in the Will of them These and the like defects happen in the Understanding 2. In the Will which hath lost her Liberty to follow her Light and is captivated by the Sensual Appetite The Understanding being rightly inlightned presents to the Will several Ends the Subordinate Ends Preservation of the Compositum by Meat and Drink acquisition of Wealth to provide these Conveniences obtaining of Power to secure that Wealth the Supream End Blessedness and that wherein it consists shews the Will that the Value of these Ends must be the measure of her pursuit of them viz. with subordination to the Supream End in order to it and bids her beware of turning the Subordinate Ends to Ultimate Ends But the Sensual Appetite either before the Counsel of the Understanding hath precipitated the Will into a violent pursuit of those present and sensible Goods or so bewitched her after in the enjoyment thereof that it can no more listen to the entertainment of the pursuit of a future Spiritual Good than if it had no Reason the Beast in Man hath got the Man upon his Back and runs away with him contrary to the cries and dictates even of Reason that should rule it And of these and the like defects all Mankind is sick both in his Understanding and Will and cured we must be before we can clearly and uniformly move to our Supream End which what it is as the next Inquiry CHAP. IV. Of the Supream End of Man. WHAT is that Good for the Sons of Men as it was the greatest Inquiry of the Wisest of Men so it is that Problem that hath tortured the Wits and wearied the pursuits of most of the Children of Men that have been in the World. The universality of the question grows from that restless motion in the Soul of Man after some End which puts every Man at last upon the prosecution of somewhat as his End though it may be not upon the speculative and critical inquiry concerning it As the ordinary rational faculty of the Soul teacheth a Man to conclude rationally though he have not that artificial Reason of Reason which is acquired by speculation and study And as this is the cause that puts many upon the Inquiry and all upon the Prosecution of some End so the difficulty of the Decision doth produce that variety of Judgements and Practice concerning this which are impossible all to be sound and true but possibly they may be all false in as much as there can be but one Supream Good and adequate End of Man which is his Happiness And from hence it is that amongst the several determinations of Men concerning this matter each do abundantly convince the other to be errors and mistakes and though none do sufficiently satisfie and convince a Man that it is the right yet doth abundantly satisfie that the adverse Opinion is mistaken concerning this Point because the Truth is but one the rest are all Errors and though some carry more likelihood of Reason than others yet it carries so much distance from Truth that it is discernable not to be the Truth and the mistake is not only evident to Reason but even to Sense it self That Man that would go about to perswade me that Happiness consists in Corporal Pleasures outward good of Body or Fortune Wealth or Honours Knowledge of all created Beings practice of Moral Virtues c. I need no other conviction of the falsity of these but this That in the midst of any or all of these I still find those affections in my Soul that cannot consist with Happiness but mingles Misery with this thin and empty Happiness 1. Desire of somewhat more or somewhat else which I have not which ariseth not from the Goodness of what I enjoy but from the Emptiness and Narrowness of it 2. Consequently Grief for what I want and have not 3. Fear of Loss of what I have And never any Man in this World in all the Enjoyments he ever had or was capable of except that which we now intend to speak of but in the midst of all had these three Affections about him actually working which can never consist with Happiness Now the general Grounds of these mistakes in the practice of Men is 1. The Error of their Judgment 2. The Impetus or force of the Sensual Appetite which precipitates and captivates their Judgment The Speculative Error ariseth from Ignorance 1. Of the Subject Man for let it be but once granted that the Soul of Man is an Intellectual Immortal Substance all those Opinions which place Happiness in this Life will be convinced clearly false and vain But though the Knowledge of this be sufficient to tell me what is not my
Happiness viz. That no temporal thing no carnal pleasure no contemplation of the Creature is commensurate to the Nature and duration of the Soul which is the best part of Man and consequently is not nor can be his End. Yet this though it take him off from the wrong ways it sets him not in the right way but leaves him at a stand Therefore 2. The second Impediment is the Ignorance of the Object of this Happiness the want of the Knowledge of God which is the only Object of all our Happiness the proof and demonstration whereof ensues By what hath been before said it is evident 1. That by the Wise appointment of God every thing is ordained to an End to which it moves 2. That this End is such a Good as is answerable to the perfection of the Creature which moves to it a meer Natural Agent moves to a Natural End a Sensitive to a Sensible Good. 3. That the highest Perfection of the reasonable Creature consists in his reasonable Soul by which he is a large degree above the Sensitives Therefore to find out Wherein that Good consists that is the End of Man we must take measure of the Soul wherein consists Man's Perfection and When or Where we can find a Good commensurate to the Soul there and there only can we fix Man's Happiness 1. The Soul of Man is Immaterial and consequently that wherein consists Happiness cannot be Material This takes off all Sensible Objects as Pleasures Wealth Outward Pomp nay all the visible Creatures from being the Object of Man's Felicity It is as impossible to satisfie a Spirit with these things as it is to feed a Body with a Spirit they hold not a proportion or conformity one to another And from hence it is that in that small slender use that the Soul makes of the Creature as it cannot enter into the Soul till it be spiritualized in the species which are refined more and more the nearer they come to the Soul first in the Organ then in the Phantasie so neither can the Soul make use of them to any purpose being received till by abstraction it hath made them of the same nature with her self And from this disproportion between the Soul and those external Enjoyments do arise that Unsatisfactoriness that comes by them to the Soul for though they are useful to the Body and the outward Man and therefore they are desirable by the Soul it self in order to that End yet they reach not so far as the Soul their End falls short of it and hence it is that the Soul rests not in the enjoyment of them nay though it see not its proper End yet it finds a nauseum in the excess of these and therefore is restless and moves from one Pleasure to another And this is likewise the reason why every outward Pleasure is greater in the Expectation than in the Fruition because the Imagination of the Soul which is the Creature that the Soul forms can bring it nearer to the Soul than the Creature when it is enjoyed can come and this Imagination as it doth delude the Soul so it likewise takes off much of that Content which may be lawfully found and used in the Creature it makes the Pursuit too eager and Fruition flat in that it was over expected 2. The Soul of Man is consequently Immortal and its Felicity cannot therefore consist in that which cannot be co-extended with it Were there a Good imaginable that in its own nature held proportion with the value of the Soul and yet were perishable it were impossible that in the enjoyment of this Good could the Felicity of the Soul consist and that upon these Reasons 1. Because the Duration of the Soul is not divisible and successive taking it apart from the Body A temporary Felicity would be no Felicity It is true we measure out our time by parcels as years and weeks and days and hours and minutes but the Soul doth not so for though the duration thereof is not simply indivisible as in the Duration of Eternity yet it is far more swift than ours and so would be almost insensible of a temporary Good though of long continuance 2. Because the determination of that Good would consequently determine its Felicity so it can be no perfect Happiness 3. The very enjoyment of a most perfect Good that the Soul looks upon as determinable is in that very enjoyment mingled with a discontent grief and fear which are abundantly sufficient to rob the Soul of Felicity in that very enjoyment when the Soul shall be taken up with such sad preapprehensions and preexpectations as these I now enjoy a good answerable to my desires and that fills up every the least vacuity and craving of my Will yet I foresee that it is not lasting a time must come when I must lose it and it will die under my hand and yet my Immortal Being shall have continuance to all Eternity when my present Enjoyment shall serve but to increase my emptiness and misery with the sense of what I had and lost This Hand-writing upon the Wall is enough to turn the highest Enjoyment that is but temporary into bitterness in the very enjoyment much more those vain and thin Pleasures of this World that never came near the Soul but in a deceitful Imagination So then to the constitution of true Happiness for an immortal Substance there is re-required an immortal Good. 3. It must be a Good divided in its own Nature from the Soul. There can nothing be the End and Supream Good to it self but the First Cause which alone is self-sufficient And that is manifest in the Motions of the Soul for if it self were the End of it self it hath its End and consequently would cease to move but it is evident that the Soul is not a Pure Act but receptive of something distinct from it self to which it moves as to its End and Perfection 4. It must be a True and Real Good for since the Perfection of the Soul consists in these two active Faculties the Understanding whose Object is Truth and the Will and the principal use of every Faculty is in order to the Supream End of the Soul which is his Summum Bonum it is necessary that that which is pursued by the Will as Good should likewise be entertained by the Understanding as True and the highest Perfection of the Understanding is about the Truth of that which is the Supream Good because that Truth is the Supream Truth The Truth of this Goodness stands in opposition 1 to that which seems to be Good and is not at all such are meerly imaginary and phantastical Goods when the Soul works an imaginary Good and then works it self into the belief of it 2. to that which having a being seems to be good and is not 3. to that which though it be good seems to be the Supream Good but is not It must therefore be an Intellectual Real Good. 5. It must
which nevertheless is nothing else but a circular and reciprocal motion between the Object and the Power the Power is moved with a full desire to the Object the Object being enjoyed returns it self adequately to the desire and this is so swift and imperceptible a motion that it is called the Rest of that Power Thus it is with the Understanding when it hath attained the knowledge of some excellent Art or Object below It is true this breeds some delight but because the Object that is known is not adequate to the extent of the Understanding it returns not an answerable return to the Understanding and therefore though it take some delight in it yet it is but faint and weak but at utmost it rests not in it but moves to something else but this Object is more than adequate to the largest Understanding and therefore when the Understanding is filled with it it cannot choose but rest in it with the most absolute complacence and delight that that Power is capable of 2. But though the Understanding were able to read all the Infinite Perfections of God yet if that other Great Faculty be not satisfied as it is impossible the Soul should be compleatly happy so it is possible it may be extreamly miserable if whiles the Understanding contemplated the Greatness Power and Goodness of God the Soul should not partake of it but that Power ingage against it Therefore the second part of the Happiness of the Soul is the Communication of the Goodness of God to the Soul whereof it is capable and which the Will desires by letting in upon the Soul the beams and light of his Love his favour his acceptation his delight in the Soul whereby as the Soul most eagerly moves to him as his Chiefest Good so it pleaseth him to entertain those motions and fills them with enjoyment of himself and the sight and sense of his love to it This Union of God to his Creature either in filling it with his Knowledge or his Goodness we are not able to discover only herein consists Man's Happiness when his Understanding is filled with his Maker's Light and his Will with his Love which creates a kind of mutual propriety between God and the Soul I will be their God and they shall be my People Now though this may be the Happiness of the Soul separated but how can this be said to be the Happiness of Man which consisting of a Body and inferiour Faculties subservient thereunto and to his subsistence as a Man or whether and how can this Happiness be acquired or enjoyed by Man in this life since his Soul now acts and moves organically and according to the temper and accommodations of the Body and so is not capable of that clear and undisturbed Knowledge of God or sense of his Love and if it were how could that accommodate the necessities of his outward Man These things are to be considered to answer this Question 1. What are the Degrees of Happiness attainable by the Soul in this life and wherein it consists 2 What Happiness is attainable for the whole Compositum or Frame of Man in this Life and wherein it consists Touching the former we say 1. There is not the same degree of Happiness to be expected for the Soul in this Life as there is when either it is freed from the Body or the Body freed from those imperfections of mixt Body Which we carry about us The reason is evident in both the great Faculties in that of the Understanding it works now by Organs and Instruments of the Body and is straitened in its operations according to the condition of those Organs and Instruments it sees now with the Eyes of the Body though it works out of that sight higher conclusions and if it had as once it had a more clear and immediate Vision of God yet it could not be so capacious within the limits of the Body as when the Soul were meerly spiritual or the Body spiritualized Again as to the Will it cannot exercise the utmost of his activity in the Love of God because the necessity of the humane condition requires some of its thought provisions and motions neither can it be so receptive of that infinite Love and Goodness of God being confined and straitened with a corruptible Body as if it were at large 2. That the Wise God did provide a proportionable degree of Happiness to the Soul in this Life and this upon the reasons already given Now in as much as the actings of the Soul in the Body are more incompleat and imperfect that Happiness that was so ordained for it though it were fully proportionable to the perfection of the actings of the Soul here yet it was not so perfect as that Consummate Happiness which was provided for it hereafter it was perfectly proportionable to the condition of the Soul as it was in the Body though not proportionable to that enjoyment which the Soul might have when freed from the straitness of the Body and as the Happiness of the Soul in the Body was inferiour to the Happiness of the Soul separate so questionless as the Soul in the Body receives improvements and abatements in its actings in the Body by the conjunction with it according to the variety of the temper frame and constitutions of the Body so the present enjoyment of Happiness in the Soul might be more or less if Man had continued in his perfection a Child had not had the same measure of internal Happiness as a Man bad for though the substance of the Soul were the same its operations in the Body were diversified in their perfections according to the variety of the temper of the Body which naturally the Soul exerciseth in its operations 3. That though ex natura rei Man was ordained to temporal Happiness in his Soul yet it is evident that somewhat hath intervened and daily doth intervene whereby that Fruition is diverted and disturbed what ever it be Of this more infra The highest degree of Happiness of the Soul in this Life consists in these things 1. In an Anticipation or Expectation or Prevision of that Happiness which it shall enjoy This though it be not a real Fruition yet it is very near it in the Soul if a miserable Pilgrim should have a certain assurance that after twenty years walk he should be sure to be invested in a perpetual Kingdom wherein he should have perfection of Ease and Delight this Prevision of this Happiness is so present in his Soul that it is in effect presently enjoyed and over-weighs the present tediousness of his Journey 2. In a Conjunction of the Soul to God in Knowledge of him Love unto him and return of his Love to us in a measure proportionable to the capacity of our Understanding and Will. This though it be not perfect but admits of increases yet ex natura rei may be proportionable to the most perfect operations of our Soul in the Body and doth
as far exceed all other Happiness in the World as far as it falls short of that perfect Knowledge Love and sense of the Love of God which shall be enjoyed hereafter Were a Man from the highest Honour and Reputation in the World cast into the greatest Scorn and Ignominy that the most exact and exasperated Envy could impose or wish or were his Body laden with as many Necessities Miseries and Torments as Hunger and the most sublimated and ingenious Malice could inflict or contrive could as well the highest sense as the most imminent expectation of Death the greatest of Evils be felt and yet protracted for an age yet if under all this the Soul can look upon these Miseries as such as must end and see though at a distance a Fruition of an Everlasting Beatitude infallibly expecting upon the close of these Miseries the Expected Happiness is made Present by Faith and over-ballanceth the Present but Ending Misery How much more when in the instant of these Sufferings the intention and bent of the Soul is to her Maker and the Great God shall by the secret yet real beams of his Favour send into the Soul Messages of Acceptation and Love How small and low doth this render the highest Contempts and Malice of Men and Devils and how much rather would this Man choose to enjoy these effects of the Love of his Maker with these Miseries than barely to see the Experiments of his Power and Justice in removing or revenging them 2 How far forth this Union of the Soul to God doth conduce to the Happiness of the Compositum the Whole Man or Whether it doth so or no Wherein we say 1. That the Happiness that is answerable to the Compositum without considering the great relation of the soul doth consist in the perfecting and continuing of his subsistence and kind and whatsoever the Compositum desires and moves after it is in order to these and not otherwise as in that one instance of Meats the Wise God hath given him the Sense of Tasting whereby he takes delight in those things that please the Appetite but this is in order to the taking in of those Nourishments that may preserve the Compositum the like of the other Senses Now as long as the Man in these things moves to these Ends he moves naturally and orderly but when in stead of moving to this End he rests in the Means then he moves inordinately and out of the way to that temporal Happiness the support of the Body as when he eats and drinks to excess the like for all other outward matters as Honours Riches Women c. When they are not enjoyed to those Ends for which they are ordained then is the Man out of that way to the temporal Happiness of the Compositum viz. the due Support and Subsistence of it 2. That the Felicity of the Soul may consist with this Felicity of the Compositum ex natura rei The reason à priori hath been already given because the Wise God in the first Institution of things did order every thing to their several Ends with that Wisdom that there was no clashing of the several Ends of the same thing or of several things but one did and might Consist with the other the Felicity of the Soul might and ex natura rei may consist with the Happiness of the Body and Compositum Therefore it follows 3. That Inconsistency of the Happiness of the Soul with that of the Body is not real but because however it comes to pass we have misplaced and mistaken the Happiness of the Body we now place the Happiness of the Body in turning our selves over to Sensuality in excessive using of the Creatures in excessive Lusts These are clear mistakes for it is most apparent that these are enemies to the very subsistence of the Body and Composium 3. That this Felicity of the Body is inferiour to the Felicity of the Soul and therefore if ex accidente it falls out though it seldom doth in truth that the temporal Felicity of the Body is in hoc individuo inconsistent with that of the Soul right Reason tells us that the greater End and that of more concernment is to be preferred so that as there is and ought to be a subordination of those Faculties and Powers placed in the Body to those Ends for which they were implanted viz. the preservation of the Compositum so there ought to be a subordination both of these Means and that End to the Great End the Happiness of the Soul. 4. As the Great End of Man doth consist with the Happiness of his Body or Compositum so it doth much and effectually conduce to it And as this is apparent in the original creation of Man when the Happiness of his Mind by the Knowledge and Presence of his Maker was accompanied with the Felicity of his Compositum and as it was likewise apparent in his Fall as he contracted Misery in the one so he did in the other so it is most rationally evident in the present state and condition of Mankind as will be evident in consideration of these ensuing particulars 1. It shews a Man the right use of the Creature viz. to be subservient and in order to the preservation of the Compositum The want of a true and rational use of secular matters is a great cause of the great unhappiness of Man as when he desires Riches because he would be rich or Honours because he would be great or delicate Fare because he would eat Now when Men mistake the use of things resting in that as an End which is only useful to something else this breeds these disorders in and among men which doth disturb even their outward Peace and Happiness This is regulated when the Heart is set upon the Love of God it takes off any inordinate Love to any thing else but in order to that End to which it is properly conducible and therefore in order to that only rationally desirable 2. It adds a sweetness to the enjoyment of the Creature which cannot be had without it because it mingles with it the sight of the great Master of this Family of the Earth that provides it the sense and security of his Love that gives it and so brings up the enjoyment of the Creature to a higher station and nearer to that which is the true Felicity of the Soul. A Blue Ribon bought in a Shop and a Blue Ribon given by a King in token of Honour is the same thing but with the latter there is a mingling of somewhat else with it as it imports a Gift from a King in token of Honour and therefore higher-prized 3. It takes away all that Sollicitousness in the Enjoyment and all that Anguish in the Loss and all that Anxiety in the Provision of external Accommodations though in very truth the real Happiness of the Compositum is its subsistence according to the perfectest degree of his Being which is the perfection of
as things stand with Man he hath not this means of his Cure in or from himself but must derive it being now lost from him who at first gave it him the next Enquiry is Whether God hath appointed any Means for the cure of Man's Ignorance Perverseness and Guilt and consequently to lead him to Happiness and what it is wherein we conclude 1. That God in his infinite Wisdom and Goodness hath revealed and conveyed to the Children of Men the Means of their Happiness in several times by several ways and in several degrees in all successions of times 2. That this Discovery and Means of Happiness he hath by the course of his Providence put together and diffused to Man-kind in the Compilation of the Old and New Testament wherein are contained not only the clear Discoveries of things to be Known and Believed conducing to Man's everlasting Happiness but likewise things to be Done and effectual Perswasions for the doing of it 3. That in the Use thereof there are not only the natural Means of discovery of Truths necessary to be known of things to be done and most effectual and powerful Perswasions beyond all other moral Arguments to the Obedience thereof but likewise a strong Concurrence of the Power of God according to his Will subduing the Understanding to believe and the Will to obey 4. That by this Belief of those necessary Truths and Obedience to the Will of God thus revealed Man shall be conducted to his everlasting Happiness which was the great End of his Creation CHAP. VI. 〈◊〉 the Credibility of the Sacred Scriptures THESE things be of easie consequence if once this be clearly proved to be the Word of God for then we argue demonstratively and à priori from the Cause to the Effect viz. Because that whatsoever is the express Word of God himself which is the God of Truth cannot chuse but be infallibly true and beyond all disputation But the question will be upon the Assumption viz Whether this be in truth the Word of God which if once granted all the rest will need no proof The Understanding of Man hath wrought in it a four-fold Assent to every Truth whereunto it assents 1. An Inherent Assent that is of such Principles if any be which are connatural to Man. Thus the Understanding assâ—â—ts not to this Proposition That the Old and New Testament are the Word of God. 2. Knowledge wrought by Demonstration or Scientia per causam Thus though there be many Truths in the Scripture that are demonstrable yet that these Scriptures are the infallible Word of God is not naturally demonstrable 3. Belief which is the taking up of a Truth upon the Testimony of him that asserts it This that it may be firm requires two qualifications First a firm and absolute perswasion That what the Author affirms is trâ— And thus a Man once admitting That this is 〈◊〉 â—ord of God doth most unquestionably believâ— because the truth of the Author is demonstrably unquestionable 2. A firm and clear Assent That this is the Word of that infallible Author And this is wrought only by a secret and immediate work of the Power of God upon the Soul and is as firm Assent if not more firm than Science it self 4. Perswasion or Opinion which riseth upon probable grounds And although this can never arrive to Belief or Knowledge yet according to the strength concurrence and multiplicity of Arguments concurring to the Perswasion it may arrive to the very next degree to Belief or Knowledge Thus it may be firmly concluded That this is the Word of God and the Means which he in his Providence hath appointed to guide Man to the attaining of his last Happiness This Perswasion though it be not Faith it doth prepare the Heart for that high and noble Assent and mighly strengthens it being attained These are in the next place to be considered 1. It doth discover those Truths clearly and satisfactorily which hath perplexed all the Labours and Enquiries of the wisest Men and thereby unriddles and renders easie most of those difficulties and doubts in natural and moral Philosophy which could never or not without strange uncertainty and reluctation be so much as guessed at by them The abstrusest Truths are hardly discovered and found out which is one cause of those several absurd Opinions and Positions which have been invented and imposed by Mens Fancies to make out supply and reconcile those Difficulties which the Ignorance of it may be one Truth doth most necessarily occasion but when that Truth is once discovered it doth most clearly resolve those Difficulties and scatter those Absurdities and procure an easie Assent from that Reason in Man which could not at first easily discover it To consider this in some Particulars In Matters Natural Whence grew all those strange Chimera's concerning the first Matter Its Eternity Its undeterminateness and a thousand disputes Whether it is What it is and all end in nothing but unsatisfactory and unresolving Disputes concerning Eduction of Forms out of the power of it and by what Agent concerning the eternal succession and concatenation of Causes concerning the beginning of Motion especially of the Heavens the endeavouring to reconcile an eternal duration to a successive motion concerning the different activities and qualities of simple Bodies their mutual actings one upon another the cause of the disgregating of the simple Bodies one from another unto that convenient distance and of their concurrence in production of mixt Bodies the production of Creatures especially Man the nature of the Soul the fitting of Objects and Powers in the Senses and Intellect All these and millions of Disputes rise from the ignorance of that Truth which at one view we may with satisfaction read resolved in the First of Genesis and in no Book in the World beside but what hath been borrowed from thence Again Touching the orderly Position of the Creatures The conveniency of one thing to the exigence and necessity of another The moderation and government of things endued with destructive qualities each to other The concurrence of several contingent Causes to the producing of Mutations in States Religion c. as if those contingent Causes had been as it were animated with one Soul or Spirit and the like The observation of these and the like things and the want of true knowledge have put Men to those exigences of invention which resolve them into Fate or Destiny into the power of the Stars into the Law of Nature and yet we are still where we were not knowing What that Fate is What that Order or Power of Heaven is Whence that Law of Nature came or was given But if we look into this Book of God we find all these difficulties extricated we find the preservation of this Order in the Creatures to proceed from and depend upon the Wisdom and Power and Government of an infinite and intellectual Being who whiles his Creature for the most part moves according to the Rule
his Elect and under that Condition it was necessary that he should suffer for them It was the Love of the Father to accept of Christ to bear the sins of the People and it was his Justice that disclosed his Anger against Sin although his Son did but represent the sinner and yet the merit of this Suffering hath its strength from the free acceptation of his Father according to his Eternal Covenant with his Son. 3. From hence it follows that it is a Full and Perfect Satisfaction The reason is because the measure of the Satisfaction is the Acceptation of the offended God for it appears before that there can be no other Measure or Rule to him but his own Will though that be a most Just Will. Now that God was fully satisfied and pleased in Christ we have the Testimony of Angels Luke 2.14 On earth peace good will to men Of Christ John 17.4 when by way of Anticipation he saith I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do which he fully perfected when John 19.30 he said It is finished By the eternal Father by a voice from Heaven Matth. 3.17 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased By the Spirit of Truth Heb. 10.14 By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that be sanctified And from the sufficiency of this satisfaction doth arise that assurance in which the Apostle glories Rom. 8.33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's Elect c. it is Christ that died And hence called the Author and Finisher of our Faith Heb. 12.2 4. It was an Vniversal Suffering The sin of Man had an universal Contagion both upon his Body and Soul and an universal Guilt and consequently an universal Curse went over both his Soul and Body In the day that thou eatest thou shalt die the death This death extended to his Body and Soul and the whole Compositum his very Life was mingled with Death both in Sense and Expectation And answerable to the extent of this Contagion Guilt and Curse was the extent of Christ's Satisfaction who was figured by the first Adam Rom. 5.14 His Life was mingled with Pain Isa 53. A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief in his Body he suffered a cursed and a painful Death and though the nailing to the Cross was not sufficient naturally to have made a separation of the Body and Soul no more than of the two Thieves yet he had those other Concurrences to his dissolution that they had not viz. the bearing of his Cross John 19.17 His scourging and Crown of Thorns Matt. 27.26 29. But especially the suffering of his Soul the very anticipation of this suffering made him even to shrink at it John 12.27 Now is my soul troubled what shall I say Father save me from this hour And this like the Trumpet upon Sinai waxed louder and louder till his very dissolution witness his affirmation In the Garden of Gethsemane Matth. 26.28 My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death and that astonishing Cry of the Son of God upon the Cross Matth. 27.46 My God my God why hast thou forsaken me His sorrow and the suffering of his Soul in the Garden that was so strange as to cause a sweat of Blood had been enough without the interposition of any outward force to have caused his dissolution for it was a sorrow unto death had not God supported his Humane Nature with a supernatural aid Luk. 22.43 An angel from heaven strengthened him and when the Divine Dispensation withdrew that extraordinary supply he died Matth. 27.50 He cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost If it be asked What was the cause of this extremity of suffering in the Soul of Christ we say as he willingly took upon him to stand in our room to bear our sins and to become Sin for us so he felt the wrath of God against that sin which he by way of imputation did bear as he bare our sins in his own Body on the Tree 1 Pet. 2.24 and God laid on him the iniquity of us all and as he was made sin for us 2 Cor. 5.21 so he trode the wine-press of his Fathers wrath for that time Isa 63.3 and was made a Curse for that Sin. The Guilt that he had was not inherent but imputed but the sense of that wrath of God against Sin was not imputed but real and inherent If it be inquired How could such a sense of the wrath of God be consistent with that union that was between his Natures in one Person such Knowledge is too wonderful for me Nevertheless thus far we may say that as in the highest extremity of the suffering of his Soul there was no interruption of that strict Union between the Humane and Divine Nature yet so it pleased God to order this great Work that the actual communication of the presence of the Divine Nature was to the sense of the Humane Nature eclipsed the Sun still remained in the Firmament yet the Light thereof Eclipsed at the time of the death of Christ Matth. 27.45 to shadow to us that interruption of Vision which was in our Redeemer that so his Soul might be made an Offering for Sin as well as his Body If it be inquired How it came to pass that a perpetual Punishment due to Man was expiated by a temporary suffering of Christ we answer Man's suffering must needs be perpetual because it could never be satisfactory Matth. 5.26 Thou shalt not come out till thou payest the uttermost farthing But Christ's suffering was satisfactory and the satisfaction being made the suffering could not continue 1. It was a Voluntary Suffering 2. An Innocent Suffering 3. A Suffering of the Son of God. 4. An Accepted Satisfaction by the offended God. 8. That Christ having suffered death did arise again from death the third day This was that which the Prophet David foretold of Christ Psal 16.10 Thou wilt not leave my soul in grave by Isa 53.10 When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin c. He shall prolong his days he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul unto death prefigured by Jonah and so expounded by Christ himself Matth. 12.40 and predicted by himself Matth. 20.13 And the third day shall rise again attested by an Angel Matth. 28.6 He is risen as he said And this Truth was that which was the great Means of Conversion and therefore received the greatest opposition of Devils and Men Acts 2.24 Acts 4.10.33 Acts 5.30 And as it was the greatest Caution of the High Priest if it had been possible to falsifie the Prediction of Christ concerning his Resurrection Matth. 27.63 64. So this was the Truth that they most persecuted Acts 25.19 And being a Truth of that great concernment was most evidenced by the Evangelists and Apostles whose Business it was to be Witnesses of the Resurrection Acts 1.22 1 Cor. 15. per totum for by this he was
declared to be the Son of God with Power Rom. 1.4 And this Resurrection of Christ must of necessity follow his Satisfaction he had taken upon him our Sin and therefore must undergo the Wages due unto it viz. Death in the very instant of his Death he had compleated his Sacrifice and Satisfaction when he said upon the Cross It is finished John 19.30 Yet as it was necessary for him to lie under Death so long as might convince the Reality of it so it was impossible for him to lie longer the Debt was paid and he could be no longer detained Prisoner Acts 2.24 Whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible he should be holden of it And this Resurrection of Christ as it was by the Power of God 2 Cor. 13.4 He liveth by the Power of God Ephes 1.19 The working of his mighty Power or by the Eternal Spirit Rom. 8.11 The Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead so it was the effect of his Justice the Price of Man's Redemption being paid he was now by the Eternal Covenant of God to prolong his days And hence he is said to be justified in the Spirit 1 Tim. 3.16 Even that Spirit that raised him up from the dead did at the same time proclaim the compleatness of his Satisfaction and justifie the fulfilling of his Undertaking If Christ had not risen there had of necessity followed these two Consequences either of which had left us in as bad case as he found us 1. It had been then impossible that his Death had been a sufficient Sacrifice If he had been detained under Death the Guilt had still continued undischarged And hence 1 Cor. 15.17 If Christ be not raised your faith is vain ye are yet in your sins As if he should have said If there be no Satisfaction made for your Sins ye are still in them If Christ be detained under Death it is evident the Satisfaction is not made for the Curse of the Law continues undischarged and consequently the Guilt continues unacquitted and hence Christ's Sacrifice was justified by his Resurrection so are we Rom. 4.25 Who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification And this Resurrection of Christ was his Victory over Guilt and Death and Hell. 1 Cor. 15.57 The Victory given through Christ Colos 2.15 Having spoiled Principalities and Powers he then made a shew of them openly 2. It had been impossible that the Members of Christ could have the benefit either of the first or second Resurrection for by reason of that Union with their Head they partake of all those conditions whereof their head participates Crucified with him Gal. 2.20 Dead to sin and buried with him Rom. 6.3 6 8. Live with him Galat. 2.20 Rise together with him to newness of Life Rom. 6.4 Rom. 8.11 12. Planted unto the likeness of his Resurrection Rom. 6.5 Ascended with him Ephes 2.6 and shall rise again to eternal Happiness by virtue only of his Resurrection 1 Cor. 15. 1 Thes 4.14 9. That Christ after his Resurrection did Ascend up into Heaven where his humane Nature is cloathed with Power and Glory and Immortality The Death of our Saviour was attested by his three days keeping his Grave and the Resurrection was attested by all the Evidences that incredulity it self could require for satisfaction because the matter of the greatest difficulty to believe and which being admitted made the whole truth concerning him easily credible Therefore for the clearing of this truth as he spent forty days to conquer the Temptations of the Devil in the Wilderness so he spent forty days after his Resurrection to subdue the infidelity of mankind to the belief thereof And during that time used all the sensible Convictions that might be for the confirming of their belief that the very Body of Christ re-assumed his Soul and Life 1. The Body removed out of the Sepulchre Luke 24.5 Why seek ye the Living among the Dead 2. He appeared unto them and because those appearances were accompanied with some Circumstances that might breed jealousie that it was a finer substance than a Body as his sudden vanishing out of their sight Luke 24 3â— His sudden presenting of himself among them when the Doors were shut Luke 24.36 John 20.19 Yet to convince that suspicion he exhibits his hands and his side eats with them converses with them about forty days Acts. 1.3 The Body of Christ being by the power of God made of an Angelical though not spiritual substance is taken up into Heaven Mark 16.19 Luke 24.57 Acts 16.9 where he sits at the right hand of Glory Acts 3.21 Heb. 10.12 Heb. 12.2 This was that which was figured by the High Priest's entring into the Holy of Holies Heb. 9.24 and extended to the very whole humane Nature of Christ the same that ascended is he that descended Ephes 4.9 This was the saying of Christ himself John 20.17 I am not yet ascended to my Father but go tell my Brethren I ascend unto my Father and your Father c. And this is that that our Saviour so often inculcates That the Son of Man shall come in his Glory c. Matth. 25.31 Matth. 26.64 To insinuate that that very humane Nature by which he is denominated Man should continue in immortality and appear the last day for the judgment of the World. And as by the power of God Man in his purity had been perpetuated to immortality and so he shall be in his Resurrection so by the power of God the Life of Christ's humane Nature shall be perpetuated to everlasting 2 Cor. 13.4 He liveth by the power of God. And this Body of Christ as it is filled with immortality so it is filled with Glory we shall be made like unto his glorious Body Phil. 3.21 10. That Christ having perfected the work of Man's redemption and ascended into Heaven exerciseth a threefold Office for the benefit of his Church and People 1. Of Power of Dominion This was that Inauguration of Christ in his Kingdom Psal 110.1 Sit thou at my right Hand Isaiah 53.10 Therefore will I divide him a Portion with the great c. because he hath poured out his Soul unto Death And therefore after his Resurrection he tells his Disciples Matth. 28.18 That all power is given him both in Heaven and in Earth and is that which is so often called his sitting at the right hand of his Father Ephs 1.20 and his making both Lord and Christ Acts 2.36 And this Kingdom Dominion and Power of Christ shall continue until the end when he shall deliver up the Kingdom to his Father that God may be all in all 1 Cor. 15.24 27. 2. The Communication of his Spirit The Power of the Spirit of God is in all his Creatures and especially in Men and all Creatures in their actings are but instrumental to the Spirit of God But by Christ the Power of that Spirit is communicated in a more
may be taken these ways 1. The immediate Communication of the Holy Spirit wherewith Christ himself was indued for as in respect of the Union of the Divine Nature there was an Essential Union between the Son and the Spirit so by that Union of both Natures in one Person there was a Communion of the same Spirit unto Christ The Spirit descended upon him like a Dove Matth. 3.16 God gave him not the Spirit by measure John 3.34 Now as Aaron's Ointment that was poured first upon his Head descended upon the Hem of his Garment so by virtue of our Union with him that Spirit that was without measure poured upon our Head was in some measure diffused upon all that are united to him and as the same Soul that actuates the Heart and the Head in a more plentiful and eminent manner doth inactuate the most inconsiderable part of the same Body so the same Spirit that is in Christ is in every one that is united unto him though in a different degree of operation Rom. 8.9 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his 2 Cor. 6.17 He that is joyned unto the Lord is one Spirit And by this Spirit of Christ which he giveth and communicateth unto those that are united unto him they are said to be sealed by the Spirit of Promise Ephes 1.13 2 Cor. 1.22 viz. It is by this Spirit of Christ that we have access unto God Ephes 2.18 We have access by one Spirit unto the Father and it is this Spirit that forms our Desires in us and by this means our Desires are not only discovered unto God that knows the mind of his own Spirit but they are also conformable unto the Will of God Rom. 8.27 He that searcheth the heart knoweth what is in the mind of the Spirit because be maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God. And as the Father did hear the Son always because his Desires were conformable to the Will of his Father John 11.42 I know that thou hearest me always so John 16.23 Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name he shall give it you for it is a Petition framed by that Spirit which is the Spirit of Christ and of God and what his own Spirit desires it is his own Will to grant And for this cause it is called the Spirit of Adoption Rom. 8.15 God is pleased to accept the Prayers and Services of the Members of Christ in him even as the obedience of his own Sons because they are moved and actuated by the very same Spirit which is the Spirit of his Son. And as the intrinsecal form of things is that which instrumentally conforms the qualities and proportions of the thing which it informs unto that intrinsecal form and suits it with Qualities and Conditions suitable to its Operations so this Spirit of Christ doth by degrees conform the Soul the Affections the whole Man unto the Image of Christ changing it into the same Image 2 Cor. 3.18 And this Spirit of Christ doth lead them into all Truth John 16.13 And from hence it is that he that is the true Member of Christ cannot continue in a constant course of sin 1 John 3.9 For his seed remaineth in him viz. That Spirit of Christ by which he is actuated and by which he is born of God John 3.6 That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit That abideth in him and will be degrees like a living Spring work out that mudd that our own flesh and corruption cast into us 2. Which is a fruit of the former The mind of Christ For this Spirit of God works a Conformity in the Heart and Life to Christ whose Spirit it is This Spirit of Christ makes an impression of the Image of Christ upon the Soul and Life The like Effect with this we find in all things In matters Natural the vicinity of two things together works a Conformity of the weaker to the stronger either Element or Form In matters Moral Conversation between two breed a Conformity in Manners even different from their otherwise natural Constitution much more where the Spirit of Christ lays hold on the Soul and unites a Man unto Christ there is not only new Company but a new Form and consequently of necessity a new frame and temper of Heart and Life conformable to such Company and to such a Form. And in order to this Conformity unto Christ the Old Conversation the Old Man which is corrupt according to the deceitful Lusts Ephes 4.22 must be put off the Affections and Lusts must be crucified Galat. 5.25 the Body will be dead because of sin Rom. 8.10 Ungodliness and Worldly Lusts will be denied Tit. 2.12 For these make a deformity from Christ such a Spirit as the Spirit of Christ cannot long endure to inform or inhabit such a Soul but if it come into him it will change him And in stead thereof the Man shall be born again by the Spirit John 3.5 the Spirit will be Life Rom. 8.10 Christ will be new formed in them Galat. 4.19 the walking will be in the Spirit Galat. 5.25 the New Man will be put on even the Image of Christ Righteousness and true Holiness Ephes 4.24 Christ will be put on Galat. 3.27 Rom. 13.14 the Life will be the Life of Christ Galat. 2.20 the Heart will be the Habitation of Christ Ephes 3.17 of God Ephes 2.22 of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6.19 the mind the mind of Christ 1 Cor. 2.16 the temper of the Soul the same with his humble as he was humble Phil. 2.5 holy as he is holy 1 Pet. 1.16 long-suffering and indulgent as he was John 13.15 Behold have I not given you an example Patient under the Will of God c. And by Conformity unto Christ Man is put into a right state and in that order towards God himself and others as he was in his creation and thereby in some measure restored to that Happiness which he had by reason of that order The Happiness and Peace of every thing consisting in the due observance of that station and Rule which God hath given it And this Conformity unto Christ is our Sanctification which is nothing else but a restoring of Man in some measure to that Conformity unto the Will of God in which he was created Man by sin lost that impression of God's Image God was pleased to give us his Son who is the express Image of his Father and by this Spirit of his to re-imprint that Image again upon as many as behold him and come unto him by Faith 1. Thes 4.3 This is the will of God even your Sanctification so that the Sanctification or Obedience which is wrought in us and required of us is the Conformity of the Will of Man to the Will of God. The Obedience performed unto God by the Faithful ariseth from a double Principle 1. This whereof we now speak an intrinsecal Change of the Nature Conforming the Heart
and consequently the Life to the Will of God the Mind of Christ for the same Spirit of Christ which dwells in Christ our Head dwells likewise in those that are the Members of the same Body and as the oneness of the Soul in Man makes that oneness of motion in all the Body and that Conformity that is in all its motions to the mind of the Soul so that oneness of the Spirit in Christ and his Members makes that Conformity of the Members of Christ unto the Mind and Will of Christ which is the uncreated Image of God This is Regeneration the birth of the Spirit the forming of Christ in us the Sanctification of the Spirit 2 Thes 2.13 2. That whereof before is spoken Love unto God which is always the Soul of all true Obedience The Soul finds the Goodness and Rectitude and Beauty of God and of all his Commands and therefore out of a Judicial Love it is sensible of the ingagement that it ows to God and therefore out of Gratitude it will as far as the strength of the Soul can reach obey the Commands which are so Righteous of her God that is so Gracious It finds that it was the Purpose of God he created us unto good Works Ephes 2.10 that as many as are in Christ ought to walk as he walked 1 John 2.5 That the Son of God died to destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3.8 to purifie unto himself a People zealous of Good Works Tit. 2.14 That Christ hath ordained that his Disciples should bring forth Fruit John 15.16 That for this cause Christ died c. that from thenceforth they that live should not live unto themselves c. 2 Cor. 5.15 Now the true Love of God makes the Will of God to be his Will and the Glory of God his End if there were no Beauty in the thing commanded yet shall I dispute his Will that hath redeemed me shall I go about to disappoint him in the End of his Death for me ordinary Reason teacheth me to subscribe and yield Obedience to the Commands of God for they are all most Wise and most Just Commands and though I see not the Wisdom Usefulness and Justice of them yet the same Truth that tells me his ways are unsearchable and past finding out teacheth me to obey when I discern the Authority though not the Reason of the Command But if it were not so suppose I could be a loser by my Obedience I cannot lose so much as I have freely received from him that commands me When Abraham received a Son from the Goodness of God and God required him again Abraham obeys though his Obedience had left him as Childless as the Promise found him But the greatest Command that I can receive from my Saviour cannot return me to so bad a Condition as his Pity and Mercy found me in If he require my Riches my Liberty my Life yet he leaves me somewhat which without his Goodness I had lost and doth more than countervail all my other Losses even my Everlasting Soul When he requires these of me he pays me interest for them Matth. 19.29 But if he did not yet the Price of my Soul in ordinary Gratitude may deserve the life of my Body for what can a Man give in Exchange for his Soul Matth. 16 26. CHAP. XIII Concerning the putting off the Old Man and 1. What it is NOW concerning the putting off the Old Man two things are considerable 1. What this Old Man is 2. How we must put him off For the former it is nothing but that Ataxy Disorder and Corruption which by sin did fall upon our Nature It is not our Nature in its essentials for that is still good but the absence of the Goodness and Perfection of the reasonable Soul which consisted in the Conformity to the Will of God which is the Beauty and Perfection of every thing And from this disorder in the Soul proceeds the disorder in the Life and Actions And this Old Man hath a double strength and advantage uâ—on us 1. In it self the Corruption and Disorder is so universal that the whole Soul is bound under it it hath no supplies of its own to rescue it self for they are all corrupted it is therefore called a Dominion of Sin Rom. 6.12 a body of death Rom. 7.24 a Law of Sin bringing the Soul into captivity Rom. 7.23 2. Accidentally the Prince of the Power of the Air taking advantage of this confusion and disorder of the Soul gets as it were into it and so worketh in the children of disobedience Ephes 2.2 inhabits it as his Castle and useth the Faculties of the Soul as the Weapons wherein he trusteth became a Ruler of Darkness in the Soul Eph. 6.12 Is Judas covetous the Devil gets into that covetousness and acts it even unto the betraying of the Lord of Life Luke 22.3 Is Peter lifted up upon his Master's atâ—estation of his Confession the Devil gets into that Pride and he becomes a tempter of our Redeemer Matth. 6.23 Is a Man immoderately angry the Devil gets into that Anger and will turn it into Malice Ephes 4.27 The Prince of the World could get no advantage upon our Redeemer he had nothing in him John 14.30 but so much of the Old Man as remains in us such a party hath the Devil in us to entertain nourish and actuate his temptations We shall therefore consider wherein this Corruptition or Deficiency in our Soul consists It is in every part and faculty of the whole Man as may evidently appear by tne enumeration of particulars 1. In the Vnderstanding there wants Light Rom. 1.21 Their foolish heart was darkened Ephes 4.18 And from hence the imaginations become vain Rom. 1.21 and not only vain but evil and continually evil Gen. 6.5 pursues unprofitable Curiosities Acts 19.19 Lusts of the Mind Ephes 2.3 Fables and impertinent Questions Tit. 3.9 1 Tim. 1.4 vain deceit Colos 2.8 It wants a capacity to discern things of greatest concernment 1 Cor. 2.14 the best habits of the Understanding are corrupt The Wisdom of the World is not only Foolishness 1 Cor. 3.19 but Enmity to God is earthly sensual devilish James 3.15 These and the like are the Old Man in the Understanding for the Light being either out or dim the actings of the Understanding are irregular and it is one of the great works of Christ in our renovation to give us the Spirit of a sound Mind 2 Tim. 1.17 2. In the Conscience This is the tenderest part of the Soul the receptacle of that Light and Authority of God which he hath left in us to be our Monitor and his Vicegerent Rom. 2.15 And yet the Old Man hath mastered and corrupted this also puts it awry or out 1 Tim. 1.19 defiles the Mind and Conscience Tit. 1.15 sears the Conscience so that it is insensible and past feeling Ephes 4.19 And if the Conscience be so vigorous as not to be stifled by means of this
not the Gift 2 Tim. 6.17 that though he give the possession of what we desire he can deny the fruition of what we possess Eccles 2.24 That a Man should enjoy good in his Labour is the gift of God Eccles 4.19 He can grant us Quails but with it can send leanness into the Soul Psal 106.15 and can increase the Wealth to the Owners hurt Eccles 5.13 That it is not the Bread I eat but the Word the Commission of God to his Creature that maintains my Life Matth. 2.4 He can make holes in our Bags and blow upon our Labours Hab. 1.6 9. That he will withhold no good thing from them that fear him Psal 84.11 Psal 35.10 Though Men of low degree are Vanity yet Men of high degree are a Lie and therefore though Riches increase yet he hath commanded me not to set my Heart upon them Psal 62.9 10. These and the like Considerations deeply digested will make a Man to carry a loose affection and pursuit of Riches or Honour and put the Soul upon such Resolutions and Contemplations as these O Lord thou hast brought me into this World wherein is great variety of all things and I see the men of this World hunting and pursuing after Wealth and Honour and Power and making it the business of their Lives and in this their pursuit often disappointments and if successful yet full of anxiety and if they attain any measure of what they pursue yet are still unsatisfied in what they have attained and yet consider not that there is a Lie in their right hand and what Profit hath he that laboureth for the Wind A Wind that may swell and torment but not satisfie the Soul And it is evident that oftentimes though thy Providence succeed their Desires and Ambitions so that they seem to have rolled up their Stone almost to the top of their Wishes yet the encounter of it may be a small and seemingly inconsiderable Circumstance tumbles all down again if not to their ruine yet to their vexation and disappointment And thus we walk in a vain shadow and disquiet our selves in vain and spend that stock of Time and Life and Strength and Opportunity in unprofitable unsatisfactory Labour till the Night overtakes us and then whose shall all these things be Luke 12.20 Blessed be thy Name that in the midst of all this variety those many things about which we are careful and troubled yet thou hast shewed us that there is one thing needful Luke 1â— 42 and hast shewed us what it is and how to attain it and this shall be the greatest Business of any because of greatest Consequence to work out my Salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2.12 To give all diligence to make my Calling and Election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 That when the terrible Cry of Death and Judgment shall come I may have Oyl in my Lamp before the Door be shut and may be able to give my Lord an account of my Stock with Comfort and Joy. It is true the condition of my Nature stands in need of outward supplies for my defence and preservation and the wise Dispensation of thy Providence as it hath fitted this our Habitation on Earth with things useful for our Pilgrimage so it hath made Industry and Diligence the way to attain them he that will not labour let him not eat and the same Wise and Bountiful Hand hath not only furnished our way with supplies for our necessity but with provisions for our delight I will therefore diligently go on in that course wherein thy Providence hath cast me for it is the â—avel thou hast given me to be exercised withall Eccles 3.10 But I will not make this the End the Business of my Life The one thing necessary shall be always in my Eye and that it may be continually my Work I will endeavour to improve even my worldly Imployment into a spiritual by doing it in Obedience to the Command of God and that Order which he hath set in the World by walking conscionably in it as in the presence of God by casting my Care upon him nothing solicitous concerning the success but leaving it to him that governs all things by observing the passages of his Wisdom Mercy and Power in the passages and Successes of it by recumbence and resting upon his Promise for a subsistence Psal 37.3 Verily thou shalt be fed by my Patience and Contentedness with whatsoever Condition he shall cast me into and a chearful Resignation of my self into his hands who hath given me Christ and how shall he not with him give me all things else If he is pleased to straiten my Condition and make my Labours unsuccessful and feed me with Bread of Affliction and Water of Affliction yet if he afford me the Light of his Countenance the assurance of his Favour the pardon of my Sins the sound hope of Eternity blessed be his Name In the midst of my Exigences I shall learn with the Prophet Hab. 3.7 Although the fig-tree shall not blossom neither shall fruit be in the vines the labour of the olive shall fail and the field shall yield no meat c. yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation I shall learn with Moses to esteem the reproach of Christ greater Riches than the Treasures of Egypt Heb. 11.26 I shall improve my Necessities and Exigences to take off my Soul from the over-greedy pursuit of these Inferiours to establish and settle my Heart in the hope of that eternal weight of Glory the Contemplation and Expectation whereof is able to swallow up the momentany Sufferings as well as Pleasures of this Life with Job 14.14 to wait till my change come to magnifie the Mercy and Bounty of my Lord who whiles my sins deserve the loss of all is pleased to continue unto me that which is best and makes my Wants not so much the Punishment as the Cure of my Sin and though he brings me into a Wilderness yet there he speaks comfortably to me I shall learn to make his Will the measure of mine own and whiles I remember that he is the absolute Lord of his own Creature that he manageth and ordereth all the Events and Concurrences in the World by a most Wise and most Righteous Providence that he feeds the young Ravens when they cry Creatures that need a liberal supply and yet have no means to procure it that he is pleased to reveal himself in his Word unto me in such terms as are most comprehensive of Power and Mercy I will learn to wait upon him patiently chearfully and dependingly If it be his Pleasure to enlarge his hand I shall thankfully receive it as a free addition if not yet I will not change my Wants my Necessities my Scorns accompanied with the Favour of God nor sell the least degree of the Light of his Countenance for all the Supplies of Glory and Abundance that Heaven and Earth can afford If I can but
is bitterness in the end fit to implore a Pardon and fit to receive it because it now knows how truly to value it And though thy greater sin deserve thy greater Sorrow yet thy very failings sins of daily incursion Erroâ— in Circumstances of Actions defects and wants of intention in Duties do all deserve as true Sorrow though not so great and therefore cherish and encourage thy Conscience to be vigilant in this by observing her rebukes even concerning these and let not the reflection of these pass without as particular an Humiliation of thy Soul before God for them for they are sins against the Duty and Gratitude thou owest to thy Creator and it will make thy future Conversation more exact and more comfortable sorrow of Heart for those smaller offences as it will make presumptuous sins the more hideous and the more abhorred so it will waste the number and measure of those smaller offences which like swarms of flyes cover our daily Actions of all kinds 3. To seek out for that which can only pacifie thy Conscience and remove thy Sorrow which cannot be but by removing the Guilt And now let thy Soul search the whole Compass of Heaven and Earth and where canst thou find any thing that can remove thy Guilt of the smallest sin imaginable but him alone against whom thou hast committed it and where canst thou find any means for obtaining remission from sins but by that means which he himself hath prescribed and where hath he prescribed any such means but in his Word and where in his Word but in his Son Matth. 11.28 Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest If then I stay at home I find nothing within me but a troubled and chiding Conscience and it will be impossible for me to remove this Guilt I will therefore venture my Soul upon the free Promise of God in Christ and with the Lepers in the Famine conclude If he save me I shall live and if he kill me I can but die 4. To fall upon thy knees before the great God and to beg for thy Life and for thy Peace O Lord my sin hath brought a Guilt upon my Soul and that Guilt hath raised a Storm in my Conscience but if thou who art only offended and therefore canst only forgive speak the Word to thy Servant Be thou clean and to my Conscience Peace be still my Guilt and with it that Tempest that is within me will be removed Do it I beseech thee for thy Truth and Promise sake thou canst not owe Remission to thy Creature but thou hast been pleased to ingage thy self to thy Creature upon Repentance to have mercy and forgive and upon that Promise of thine will I hang though thou seem to reject me Do it for thy Mercy sake thou that hast commanded me to forgive my Brother till seventy times seven times if as often he turn and repent hast infinitely more Mercy towards thy Creature than thou requirest from it Do it for thy Glories sake thou hast said it is the Glory of a Man to pass by a Transgression and what can be glorious in thy Creature that hath not a resemblance of thy own mind and Image nay do it for thy Justice sake thou hast been pleased to give a publick Sacrifice for all our sins against thee even thy Son by an eternal Covenant with a Proclamation That whosoever will may come and take of the water of Life freely and thou hast been pleased as it were to deposite a Pardon in thy Sons hand for as many as come unto thee by him and to lay upon him that Chastisement of our Peace and though I like a Man have gone aside yet thy Gifts are without Repentance That satisfaction therefore which thou out of thy abundant Love wert pleased to give unto thy self I beseech thee accept and as it will be the Glory of thy Mercy so it will be the Honour of thine own Justice for if we confess our sins thou art Just as well as Faithful to forgive us our sins in him that was the price of our Peace Set a Watch upon thy Spirit As the Soul is the Life of the Body so the Spirit is the Life of the Soul that active Principle which works by the Will the Affections and Conscience This appears by the frequent Denomination of the Spirit and by its contradistinction to the very Soul Ephes 4.23 Spirit of the mind Prov. 18.14 The Spirit of a Man will sustain his infirmities but a wounded Spirit who can bear Prov. 20.27 The Spirit of a Man is the Candle of the Lord. Prov. 16.2 The Lord weigheth the Spirits Eccl. 7.8 The patient in Spirit is better than the proud in Spirit Isaiah 57.15 to revive the Spirit of the humble 16. The Spirit should fall before me and the Souls which I have made James 4.5 The Spirit that is in us luâ—â—eth to liuâ—â—y Heb. 12 23. The Spirits of Just men made perfect 1 Thes â— 23 I pray God your whole Spirit and Soul and Body c. Heb. 4.12 dividing between the Soul and the Spirit Rom. 8.16 The Spirit beareth witness with our Spirit And here we take not Spirit physically for those Instruments whereby the Soul works but for that Principle of activity which works in the Soul these Disorders that sit upon the Spirit principally are two 1. In the Defect Deadness and Depression in the Spirit The Spirit is that which only can hold Communion with God he that will worship him as he must worship him in Spirit and Truth so with his Spirit and without that mingled with thy Prayers they are dead and cannot come at him and without thy Spirit brought to his Word and to his Ordinances they cannot come at thy Soul. As the Spirits of thy Blood are those that unite sensible Objects to thy Soul so the Spirit of thy Soul is that which can only bring home Divine impressions from God to thy Soul or expressions from thy Soul acceptably to God. Upon such occasions awake thy Spirit and mingle it with thy Services and shake off that Dulness and Heaviness of Spirit it will make thy Prayers uneffectual and thy Services unprofitable 2. In the Excess Elation and Pride of Spirit And from this Capital disease in the Spirit proceed those others of Envy the Spirit that is in us lusteth after eâ—y The Spirit of Revenge Luke 9.55 Ye 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 what Spirit you are The Spirit of Murmuring and Discontent These are but the productions of the Spirit of Pride when it meets with any thing that crosseth it If it meet with any Person that sensibly exceedeth the Person in whom it is in worth esteem or other Accessions then it is turned into Envy and that Envy into Revenge And this was the very Original of the Devils immediate action upon our first Parents his Pride though it made him lower by his fall it made him not more humble And from hence
ariseth Murmuring and Discontent because that which befalls him crosseth him in his self opinion of his own Merit or Desert And from hence proceeds the rejection of God and of his directions from an opinion of a self-sufficiency and fulness To cure this Distemper and the products of it labour for Poverty and Humility of Spirit upon these Considerations 1. That whatsoever thou hast of worth or good in thee it is not thy own it is a derived good the good that is most thy own even thy essential good is not thy own thou owest thy Being to somewhat without thee But grant it were thine own yet the Comfort and Life and Beauty of thy Being were nothing without a farther good that is not thy own thy Power thy Wealth thy Strength thy Knowledge these are not in thy Essence they are derived Goods and such as are not from thy self the most exact faculty of thy Soul is but empty till it be filled by an Object without thee In thy highest Fruition thou hast a just occasion to magnifie God from whom thou hast it not to magnifie thy self that dost only receive it Learn therefore the Original of that good whatever it be that thou enjoyest it will make thee thankful and keep thee humble 2. That in thy self thou hast nothing but emptiness and vanity Thou hadst a good it is true which was sent thee by the Lord of thy Being and that we have shewn was no occasion to exalt thy self because it was not thine own but even that thou hast lost now and thy Nature hath nothing left thee whereof to be Proud. 3. That it is impossible for thee to come to enjoy that which must make thee happy till thou art deeply sensible of thy own emptiness and nothingness and thy Spirit thereby brought down and laid in the dust As long as thy Soul is full of thy Honour or of thy Wealth or of the World or of thy own Righteousness or Worth there is no room for thy Saviour or his fulness thou wilt not receive him because thou findest not any want and thou canst not receive him because thou hast no room And as it indisposeth thee to receive good from God so it indisposeth as I may say God to give it for thy Pride assumeth that both from God which is his and applies it to thy self even that acknowledgment and Honour which is a Tribute wholly and only due to God and hence it is that he resists the Proud because they rob him of the Duty that by all the Laws and Reasons immaginable thou owest to him 4. That the Grace of God the Knowledge and Sense of his Love the Spirit of Christ is an humbling Spirit the more thou hast of it the more it will humble thee and it is a sign that either thou hast it not or that it is yet over-mastered by thy corruption if thy Heart be still haughty it shews thee thy self in thy true Dress and makes thee abhor thy self it shews thee the Purity and Majesty of the great God with whom thou hast to deal and teacheth thee Fear and Honour towards him it teacheth thee to live by thy Saviour's Life to be righteous by his Purity to be saved by his Sufferings to walk by his Rule and to aim at his Glory it shews thee that thou hast all from him and frames thy Heart to return all to him It restores thee to that Position and Constitution in which thou wast made and takes off that distemper of Spirit which at once hath put thee below what thou wast and yet exalteth thy foolish Spirit above it There was a third Object of our Watch proposed viz. Temptations which are either 1. For Tryal 2. To Sin of which see the Meditations upon the Lord's Prayer Afflictions c. CHAP. XXIV Of the new Life or Sanctification and the necessity of it HITHERTO we have considered the Duty and Means of Mortification the putting off of the Old Man those Distempers and Disorders of our Souls by which they become unconformable to the Image and Mind of God the Principle whereof is the Spirit and Grace of God given us in Christ and the Means of this work those which we have before mentioned Now we come to consider of that New Life which follows hereupon most necessarily 1. Because it proceeds most necessarily from the same Principle As in a natural Man fallen into some Distemper it is the same strength of Nature that conquers the Disease and it being conquered maintains the Body in its natural Operations which is Health so the same vital power of the Spirit of God is that which overmatched those Distempers in our Soul which are contrary to our spiritual Life and Motion and conserves that Constitution of Health in the Soul by which it moves regularly and according to the Will of God which is our New Life 2. Because the Motion of those Distempers which fit in our Soul doth necessarily conform our Souls to that condition in which we were created God at first created us in a Conformity unto himself our sin brought an impotency upon our Nature by which we contracted all those Corruptions and Distempers that have disordered our Souls and diverted us from God when God is pleased by the power of his own Spirit purchased for us by the Blood of Christ to put into us a Principle of life and strength to work out those Corruptions and Disorders of our Souls there must necessarily follow a life conformable to the Will of God and as there is no Medium between Life and Death so when this Death of our Souls is removed by that Principle of Life there necessarily follows a New Life and new Operations answerable to it 3. The End of the Motion of those disorders of the Soul is in order to our New Life 1 Pet. 2.24 That we being dead to sin should live to Righteousness Ephes 2.10 Created in Christ Jesus unto good works It was the end of the Death of Christ Tit. 2.14 the Tree that bore wild Figs and that which bore none were equally cursed John 15.2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away So then the work of Mortification and Sanctification differ only in their Relations not in themselves they are both effects of that same Life which by the Spirit of Christ and our Union to him is wrought in us they both drive to the same End even to our Conformity to our Head Christ Jesus which is our Conformity to the Will of God wherein consists the Perfection of every Creature For this is the Will of God even your Sanctification 1 Thes 4.3 The Honour and Glory of God is and ought to be the supream End of all actions and things in the World. And this is that which every Creature in his right station and condition doth drive at according to the measure and degree of its natural perfection for as the great End of God in all his actions is his own
any thing that he doth or suffers be answerable to his own well-being which is the termination of that Love and accordingly likes or dislikes it or wills it to be or not to be done This Precept is resolved into its Negative Whatsoever ye would not that men should do to you that do not to them And for the use of both we are to take them both with these Limitations 1. It is understood in an equality or parity of Relation and not otherwise For an instance the Father may expect that from a Son viz. Reverence and Observance which will not be fit for the Father to give to the Son. The Duties are diversified according to the diversity of the Relations The resolution of the Precept in this case is therefore this Whatsoever I would that my Father should expect from me that I would that my Son should do to me è converso Variations of Circumstances and Relations diversifie the Case and therefore the resolution of this Precept in case of different Relations must be as well with the change of the Relations as of the Persons and the Question to be asked the Conscience in such a case is Were I in my Neighbour's Condition and my Neighbour in mine what I would in such a Case expect from my Neighbour that I ought to do to him Ex Autographo cum eod collat FINIS A Brief Abstract OF THE Christian Religion A BRIEF ABSTRACT OF THE Christian Religion 1. THAT there is One and but one most Glorious God Eternal Incomprehensible perfectly Happy Infinite in Wisdom Power and Goodness filling all places but comprehended in no place full of Justice Mercy Truth and Perfection 2. That this God though but One in Essence is yet Three in number of his Subsistence Father Son and Holy Spirit 3. That this God in the beginning of time created the World commonly called the Heaven and Earth which he still governs by his Power Wisdom and Providence And this he did 1. For the Manifestation and Glory of his Wisdom Power and Goodness 2. For the Communication of his Beneficence Goodness and Bounty to the things which he thus made according to their several Natures and Capacities 4. That having finished this inferior World called the Earth and furnished it with all things necessary and convenient for the use and convenience of the nobler Creature which he intended he created the first Man Adam and the first Woman Eve the common Parents of all Mankind from whom all the Men and Women in the World are derived by natural Propagation 5. To these first Parents of Mankind Almighty God gave some Endowments or constituent Parts that are common to all Mankind as well as to them namely 1. Terrestrial or Earthly Bodies for the first Man was made out of the Earth and the Bodies of all other Men though they are derived to them by ordinary Generation yet their Bodies are terrestrial or elementary Bodies 2 Spiritual and Immortal Souls endued not only with the Power of Vegetation as Herbs and Trees nor only with the Power of Sense and Perception and Appetite as the bruit Beasts but also with the Power of Understanding and Liberty of Will whereby he obtains a kind above all other visible Creatures besides And this Soul thus endued with the Power of Understanding and Will doth not die with the Body but it is immortal and never dies And this is called a Reasonable Soul whereby we understand and think and consider and remember and chuse one thing and refuse another whereby we have a Capacity to know Almighty God his Works his Will and to obey and observe it and to perform all the Actions that belong to a Reasonable Creature 3. A Power of Propagation of their Kind by the mutual conjunction of Sexes by vertue of that Divine Benediction given to Man as well as to sensible Creatures Be fruitful multiply and replenish the Earth By vertue of which Benediction all the Families of Mankind that were or are or shall be upon the face of the Earth are in the course of ordinary Generation derived from the first Parents of Mankind 4. A Power and Right of Dominion over the inferiour Creatures which he doth exercise partly by the ordination and appointment of their Creation and partly by the advantage of his understanding Faculty and though this Dominion be in some sort weakened and decayed by the Fall of our first Parents yet it still in a great measure continues to the Children of Men. 6. But some Priviledges our first Parents had in their state of Innocence which by their Fall hath been much impaired and lost and not derived to their Posterity 1. A state of perfect Innocence free from all Sin and sinful contagion 2. A state of Happiness and Blessedness as large as Humane Nature could be capable of 3. A state of great Integrity and Perfection as far forth as it was possible for Humane Nature to enjoy as Light and great Knowledge in his Understanding Integrity in his Will right Order in his Soul Righteousness and Holiness 4. A state of Immortality of Body and Soul in their perfect conjunction so long as he kept his Innocence 7. The Ends for which Almighty God created Man thus were first those common Ends which moved him to create the World above mentioned namely his own Glory and the Communication of his Goodness and Beneficence but secondly these seem to be the special Ends of Man's Creation 1. That he might have a Creature in this lower World that might more conveniently actively and effectually give glory unto God and to that end he endued him with Nobler Faculties that might perform this Office his Understanding whereby he might know his Maker and his Will and his Works His Will whereby he might obey his Will his Affections whereby he might love and fear and admire him His Faculty of Speech whereby he might glorifie and praise him this is another kind of Glory than the other inferiours do or can bring to their Maker And to the end he might thus glorifie his Maker he placed him in the view and sight of the goodly frame of Heaven and Earth and gave him his Law wherein he should obey and serve his Creator 2. That he might be partaker of as much Happiness and Blessedness as the Humane Nature could be capable of while it stood in conjunction with his Body and that he should by a kind of Translation into Heaven enjoy more Pure Perfect and Everlasting state of Blessedness and Glory 8. When God had thus created Man he gave him a Law of Righteousness and Holiness and revealed it to him and for a Probation or Trial of his Obedience forbad him the eating of the Fruit of one Tree in Paradise under pain of Death 9. Our first Parents rebelled against that just and easie Law by eating the forbidden Fruit. And although they did not presently die corporally yet they by this Disobedience fell into these Inconveniences 1. They
Wisdom is within my call and within my vieâ— and I can beg his counsel and I am sure to have it and his is the best counsel Are my losses great and of those things wherein I took most delight yet they cannot countervail the enjoyment of the Presence of the All-sufficient God. Is my body full of tortures or diseases and death looks in upon me between the Curtains and my Soul sitting upon my lips and like the light of a dying Candle taking her flight from my body yet the Presence of the All-sufficient God is able to make this valley of the shadow of death lightsom and those pains easie and bear up my Soul against the horrour and amazement of death for he stands by me with strength to support me with Victory and Immortality to receive that Soul the only seat where my fear can dwell into a more near and immediate sense of his Presence than in my body it could feel Only remember that though the Presence of his Essence cannot be excluded from any place or person Jer. 23.34 yet there are occasions that may separate from the sense of his presence or make his presence terrible unto thee Isa 59.2 Your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear And if such an unhappy time befal thee that he hide from thy Soul his comfortable presence let it be thy care to return unto him by humbling of thy heart sincerely before him for thy relapse He never departs from any till man first depart from him and he never hides himself long from any that in sincerity return unto him The very moving of thy heart to seek him is the work of his Power and Mercy upon thee and is an undeniable evidence that he hath not utterly forsaken thee unless he first did seek and find thee and touch that heart of thine with his own finger thy heart would rather die in her sin than return unto God and therefore be sure thy returning to him shall not be without a finding of him Only make this use of thy Experience of such a case bless the Mercy of God that hath not rejected thee though thou hast forsaken him bless the Mediation of thy Redeemer that when thou little thinkest of it intercedes for thy pardon and sends out his Spirit to reduce his wayward sinful wandring Creature bless the Bounty and Patience of God that is so ready to accept again into favour his relapsed but humbled Creature and remember that it is an evil thing and a bitter to depart from him fall upon thy knees with tears of sorrow for thy ingratitude and tears of joy for thy re entertainment into the presence of him that yet is pleased to own thee as a Father take up indignation against thy sin that hath deprived thee of so great a Good as the comfortable Presence of God and take up jealous thoughts over thy self and all thy ways and consider well of all thy enterprises before thou undertake them whether there be any thing in them that may offend thy reconciled Father and because thy Judgment is weak and cannot so clearly discern thy way and thy strength is weak in opposing of temptation suspect thy own judgment and strength and beg his Wisdom to teach thee and his Strength to assist thee and lean not to thy own Understanding Again The consideration of the Presence of God is of singular use in all thy Duties of Piety and Charity In the doing of them it will cleanse thy heart from Hypocrisie because thou art before the God that searcheth the heart and accordingly accepteth of the action It will keep thee from unseemliness and want of Reverence because the Lord of Heaven and Earth is present and an Eye-witness to all the deportment of thy Body and Soul. It will keep thee from sluggishness formality and deadness of heart because he stands by thee that sees not as man sees It will keep thee from Pride and vain Glory it will make thy heart sincere reverent watchful earnest and humble in all thou dost because as he that stands by thee requires all this in all thy Duties so these affections or habits of the Soul become the Creature that knows he is in the Presence of the Glorious and Infinite God that searcheth the hearts and sees the actions And as in thy Duties it will fit thee for them so after thy Duties it will comfort thee in them Hath thy heart been truly humbled in his presence for any sin for which thou hast begged pardon and mingled the Blood and Intercession of thy Saviour with thy Prayers Hast thou been upon thy knees before him for any thing necessary for thy Soul Body or Relations Hast thou endeavoured by a serious Meditation to consider of Divine Truths Hast thou examined the state of thy Soul and of thy Life and upon the view thereof taken up resolutions of amendment of what is amiss and persevering and increasing in what is agreeable to his Will Hast thou sought out to relieve those that are in want to recompense those that thou hast injured to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ Hast thou been doing any thing that is the duty of thy general Calling as thou art a Christian or that particular Calling or Employment into which God's Providence hath cast thee And can thy heart bear thee witness that in all this thou hast endeavoured with all sincerity as in the Presence of God to walk and act in obedience to him and with a clear and upright heart and conscience Be sure thy heart cannot more clearly evidence it self to thy self than it doth to God and God was all this while present with thee beholding of thee there is not one grain of the sincerity and integrity of any of these thy actions not one tear not one thought of thy heart lost but most exactly observed and weighed by him that weigheth the Spirits and they shall not return unto thee empty Acts 10.4 Thy Prayers and thy Alms are come up for a memorial before God. 3. The Truth and Vnchangeableness of God he is unchangeable in his Nature Psal 102.27 They shall be changed but thou art the same Mal. 3.6 I am the Lord I change not therefore ye Sons of Jacob are not consumed James 1.17 The Father of lights with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning And from this Immutability of his Essence flows the Truth of his Word in his Covenant in his Promises in his Threatnings in his Works Psal 111 7. The works of his hands are Verity and Judgment and all his Commandments are sure And the very variety of his Dispensations of Mercy and Justice to the Children of men ariseth from the very unchangeable Nature of God even from the very first Creation until now Gen. 4.7 If thou dost well shalâ— thou not be accepted and if thou dost not well sin lyes at the door which is the very same
Life concerning his neglect of his Studies at Oxford The truth of which to do him right is this His natural Genius inclined much to things of Wit and Gallantry and the Players coming to the Act at Oxford while he was a Student there he began at first to be taken with the Plays but having before among other religious Observations habituated himself to keep a strict Watch over his Heart and Actions he quickly reflected upon it and therefore the more he perceived himself affected with it the more resolved he was to correct it and left it should in time prevail so as to divert him from more serious Studies or at least rob him of too much time he made a solemn Vow or Resolution which he ever after observed never to see Play more and so returned to his Studies again before the Players went out of Town And certain it is he was as hard a Student there as he was afterward at London though he held Acquaintance and some kind of Converse with the most ingenious Persons at both places But so much for that These Studies which he began so early he continued to the very last so long as he was able to write within about a fortnight or three weeks before he died And here he did as he did in the Law spared neither Pains nor Cost upon any thing any way conducing to his main Design tending to discover and manifest the admirable Providence of God whether in the Composure Powers and Course of Nature or in the Government of the Actions of Men insomuch that if a true Computation was made I am perswaded that as much time as he spent and pains as he took in the Study and Practice of the Law and Business of a not ordinary Judge but Chief Baron and Chief Justice yet the Time he imployed and the Pains he took if I may call that Pains which afforded so much Pleasure and Satisfaction to him in these Studies and for that purpose would be found to exceed them The Benefit whereof I hope the World may receive some time or other but the Effect thereof upon himself was that his so much contemplating the Wisdom Power and Goodness of God discernable in his Creatures and observable in the Providential Government of Men especially that admirable Mystery of our Redemption imprinted in his Soul a most inlarged apprehension and deep sense of the Glorious Excellence and Majesty of God and his unconceivable Goodness to all who duly apply themselves to him This filled him with a most awful Reverence and devout Affection to him continually which further produced great Constancy Faithfulness and Readiness in his Obedience and Service and converted his very Civil Imployments into a kind of continual Course of Religion so that that laborious Life of his was in a manner intirely sacrificed to and continually imployed in or in order to the Service of God. And all this with those divine benign Influences which are never wanting to Souls thus disposed filled him with an humble Confidence and made it as it were natural to him to retire into himself with secret application to God upon all occasions in the very midst of his Business And certainly this Life was Heavenly and Holy and yet not more Holy than Happy All this is very true but he had very early taken up a Resolution to abstain from a high Profession of Religion 't is his own expression and he was so wary and cautious in it that very little of what I have said was perceived by any of his most intimate Friends but my self Insomuch that one of them whom I know he much valued and who had frequent converse with him hath divers times since confessed to me how much he was mistaken in him in that respect before he saw his Contemplations in Print And I should almost doubt of finding Credit in what I know to be true with those who do not know me had I not pretty good Attestations from this and a constant Course of most pious Meditations committed to writing under his own hand Were we now to take a View of his whole Life we might consider it as acted either in private or in publick His Actions in publick were visible to the World and yet it may be feared that much of the remarkable particulars thereof will be lost for want of competent Observers and Relators The private part of it was most employed in Retirement and Studies and of this the greatest part in Pious Meditations the Contemplation of God of his Works of Creation and Providence the great and admirable Mystery of our Redemption and the Sacred Scriptures and the Evidences of the Truth thereof And as this did influence all his Actions in publick so being once well understood it must needs give the clearest Prospect into the true and genuine Principles and Tendency of them which is the principal thing to be considered in them And this can never better be made appear than by his own Writings if they were published as I conceive they ought to be * Having done this Right to the Author I thought it but reasonable to do some Right to my self and to the World to shew by what Right I have published this and what Right the World hath to expect the rest of his Writings To which Purpose I had written another Sheet to shew that the Author had upon new Motives and Consideration of Occurrences afterward changed his Mind before declared in his Will wherein he had prohibited the printing of any of his Writings after his Death But upon further Consideration I think it may be sufficient for this place to let the Reader know in general that he had done so and to reserve the more particular Discourse of that if there be occasion for it to my Memorials of him And therefore I have suffer'd but few Copies of that Sheet to be printed off for the Consideration of such as it may most concern Of the Two little Discourses annexed I have only this to say That the First was one of his Later Writings and perhaps may a little vary from some of his Former and that the Latter was more ancient But neither of them was finished though the Printer according to the usual Mode hath put a Finis to them both But otherwise I hope he hath acquitted himself reasonably well For I was at too great a distance to peruse the Sheets as they were printed off The Copies he had were carefully examined by the Originals and I thought it most suitable to my Design to let them be printed as near as might be according to them without any Alteration presuming upon the Candor of the ingenuous Reader upon due Consideration of the Circumstances before mentioned The CONTENTS of the CHAPTERS OF THE FIRST PART CHAP. I. OF the Existence and Attributes of God. Page 1 CHAP. II. Of the Works of God of Creation and Providence Page 27 CHAP. III. Of Man his Excellence above other Creatures Page 39 CHAP. IV.
436 1. Natural Page 436 437 2. The Word of God absolutely in it self Page 438 1. The Law 1. Moral Page 438 2. Ceremonial Page 441 3. Judicial ibid. 2. The Prophets Page 442 3. The Gospel which contains a most excellent Rule of Righteousness in 1. The Example of Christ Page 443 2. The Precepts and Counsels Page 444 Page 1. General 1. Love of our Neighbour Page 448 2. Doing as we would be done unto Page 456 2. Particular things Page 1. To be done Page 2. To be suffered 3. Parts 3. God. A Brief Abstract of the Christian Religion Page 461 Seasonable Considerations for the Cleansing of the Heart and Life Page 473 A DISCOURSE OF THE Knowledge of God and of our Selves PART I. By the Light of Nature CHAP. I. Of the Existence and Attributes of God. I. ALL things but the Soul it self are extrinsecal to the Soul and therefore of necessity the Knowledge of all other things is extrinsecal to the Soul for Knowledge is nothing else but the true impression and shape of the thing known in the Understanding or a conception conform to the thing conceived And although the Soul in its own nature be apta nata to receive such impressions and doth therefore naturally desire and affect it yet it is as impossible for the Soul to know till the Object be some way applied to it as for a Looking-glass to reflect without first uniting of a Species of some Body to it that may be reflected The Means whereby the Scibile or thing to be known is united to the Soul and consequently Knowledge is wrought is threefold viz. 1. Supernatural Thus Almighty God in the first Creation of Man did fasten certain Principles of Truth in Man by his immediate discovery especially the Knowledge of Himself and his Will which was properly the Image or Impression of God in his Understanding This was not essential to the Soul but a Habit or Quality which God put into his Understanding and therefore though his Knowledge decayed by his Fall yet his Soul continued the same 2. Artificial Thus Knowledge is derived from Man to Man by signs of those impressions of Truth c. that are wrought in his Understanding that communicates it Thus Knowledge is acquired by Writing Speech and other Signs that are agreed upon to communicate Intelligence from the understanding of one Man to the understanding of another though mediante sensu Thus the Reliques of the knowledge of God in Adam were derived to his Posterity though still it grew for the most part of Men weaker and corrupter 3. Natural And this may be divided into these three branches viz. 1. Simple Apprehension Thus when any object singly by the Ear or Eye or other Sense is let into the Phantasy and so shewn to the Understanding without either affirming or denying any thing concerning it 2. Complex Apprehensions whereby either duo scibilia are joyned together in an Affirmation or Negation and this is a Proposition which again is of two kinds viz. either that which is most universal and therefore the first proposition that is framed in the understanding viz. that it is or est or est ens For that notion doth necessarily and upon the first view of any object joyn it self with it in the understanding Other propositions are more complex or remote as that God is good c. For the first question in the Understanding is Whether it be to which that general proposition answers and in the next place What it is to which the second sort of complex notions answer Now of this second kind of complex notions there are two kinds viz. either such as without the help of any Discourse or Ratiocination present themselves from the object to the understanding as this The Man is red the Man and the red being both objects of Sense and meeting in the same subject or else such as either the thing affirmed or the thing whereof the affirmation is or both are things that do not immediately fall within our Senses as the Man is a substance or the Spirit is a substance These though originally derived from sense yet they are refined by the help of Discourse 3. Conclusions drawn either from these simple or complex apprehensions which flow into our understanding immediately by our Senses and this is Rational Discourse a Faculty or Power put into Man whereby he is beyond all other visible Creatures and whereby all his actions whether Civil or Religious are and ought to be guided This is that Power whereby we may improve even sensible Objects Apprehensions and Observations to attain more sublime and high discoveries and rise from Effects to their Causes till at last we attain to the First Cause of all things So we may conclude that the Knowledge of our Creator though it fall not within the reach of our Sense and so falls not immediately within the reach of our Understanding yet by the ascents and steps of Rational Discourse so much may be gathered as may leave an Atheist without excuse God having given to Man even in his lapsed condition besides other Providential helps a stock of Visibles and a Rational Faculty to improve that stock to some measure of the Knowledge of himself For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his Eternal Power and Godhead so that they are without excuse Rom 1.20 Therefore as on the one side we are to avoid curiosity in measuring the infinite Mysteries of Truth by our own finite Understandings so on the other side we must beware of Supineness and Neglect of imploying that treasure of God's Works and his Light or Reason in us to that end for which it was principally intrusted with us even the knowledge of our Creator yet still humbly concluding with Elihu Job 34.32 That which I see not teach thou me II. The first and most Magisterial Truth in the World upon which all other truths do depend is this That there is a First Being and Cause of all other Beings This is evident by clear Reason 1. Either we must admit a First Cause or else an actual infiniteness of Succession of Causes The latter is impossible in Nature because it is impossible there can be that which is infinite and yet successive for then it would follow That that which is actually infinite in number should be yet more infinite because there are new Successions on Causes and Causations Again it is impossible that there should be an eternal dependance of Causes one upon another without a First because then the whole Collection of those Causes taken all together must needs likewise be actually depending and if so then upon themselves and that is impossible for the immediate Cause of the Effect doth not depend upon its Effect but immediately upon its Cause Therefore this bundle of dependent causes must depend upon some one among them which is independent And impossible
End which may be had by them if pursued with due subordination to my great End. By what hath been premised we see a double difference 1. between bare Knowledge and Wisdom 2. between that Wisdom which is particular and that which is the Supream Wisdom The difference between the two former is 1. In their Object though every Scibile is the Object of Knowledge it is not of Wisdom 2. In the Use Many things are known only that they may be known but Wisdom is in order to Action and Motion to the thing known as profitable or from it as hurtful it is an act of practical Understanding not purely speculative The difference between the two latter that which is particular Wisdom is but temporary subservient principally to the Body subordinate and when it wants its due subordination proves irrational but the other is perpetual because fixed upon a perpetual End principally concerning the Soul supream and simple without mixture of any thing in it below Reason 3. Conscience Which is a high act of the Understanding for as Wisdom looks and moves forward by the right Rule or Principle to the right End so Conscience looks backward and measures the acts and motions of the Soul by these Rules or Principles and consists of three Propositions 1. It doth of necessity presuppose a Rule or Principle given unto Man directing him in his motion to his Supream End. We see all things natural have some Principle Instinct or Law whereby they are carried to their several Ends and Operations That which is in them an Instinct was to Man a Law because being indued with Understanding and Will he was susceptible of a Law which inferiour Creatures were not Now as the interruption of that Law or Rule in Natural things brings an Obliquity and Irregularity in their motions and so diverts them from that End to which otherwise they would arrive so the Violation of this Law or Rule given to Man doth at once subject him to a threefold Mischief 1. A Loss of that End which the regular motion according to that Rule which God gave him would have carried him unto for the Wise God having disposed all things to their Ends hath done it in and according to those ways which he hath prescribed them to move in to those Ends. 2. A Deformity and Vncomeliness contracted by the violation of that Rule When the Creatures came out of God's hands they were Good and Beautiful that Beauty and Goodness consisted in nothing else but a Conformity to the Will of God in their Beings Motions and Ends if any of that Conformity be altered there ariseth presently a Deformity uselesness and uncomeliness in the Creature The same it is with Man he received questionless a Rule to live and move to a most suitable End and conformable to the Will of the First Cause that ordered him to that End as long as he moves conformable to that Rule he moves according to the Will of his Maker to a most suitable End but when once he violates that Rule he contracts a Deformity Ataxy and Uncomeliness by such violation 3. An Obligation to some Positive Punishment annexed to the violation of that Law for let us suppose any Creature wanting Will and Understanding that did notwithstanding not move according to this Rule by this he would most clearly contract the two former viz. Loss and Deformity but where a Law is given to a Creature endued with these Faculties the violation of the Law so given includes in it not only a Privative Offence as I may call it to which a Privative Punishment may be answerable but a Positive Rebellion Rejection and Disobedience to that Duty and Subjection he owes and is enabled to perform to his Maker and therefore it is most just and rational that there should be added as a Sanction to that Law some Positive Penalty to revenge such a violation that as the Obedience to that Rule would carry a Man to a Positive Good so the Disobedience thereunto should be followed with more than a bare privation of that Good. This then is the first Proposition that is laid in the Understanding or Conscience this or that is Commanded to be done or omitted as the Rule or Law given by God to carry me to my supream End and Happiness the violation whereof subjects me to Loss of that Happiness to a Deformity and Discrepance to the Will of my Maker to the Curse or Sanction of that Law. Without the knowledge of this Proposition the great work or act of Conscience is asleep therefore it is necessarily to be presupposed for it is the supream Resolution of all Obligation in the World both of Laws Contracts and Oaths as appears before And according as this Principle is either true or false clear or dubious so are the actings and conclusions of the Conscience true or erroneous quick or dull It concerns us therefore to enquire How these Principles come into the Vnderstanding We find in the Creatures several Instincts incident almost to every Creature which are connatural with it We may observe likewise in Man dispositions and inclinations of several kinds common to whole Nations Climates Families which though they incline the Men to actions and carriages suitable to those several dispositions yet are not Laws or Principles of Nature These Principles therefore of the Divine Law called Natural Principles of Conscience are in the Understanding these ways 1. Supernaturally Thus Almighty God did at first give Man a Copy of his Will shewed to his Understanding and Will commanded him to obey it and this perfect discovery he made at first and when it decayed after the Fall of Man it is evident he did by Divine Inspiration and Revelation reinforce and discover it as appears by the holy History 2. Artificially by Tradition from the first Man to his Posterity and from one Man to another For though the first Man lost much of his Light and Knowledge by the Fall yet he was not without divers of those Principles which God at first shewed him 3. Naturally viz. by the help of Reason and Discourse for although if a Man were bred up from his Infancy without any manner of Instructions it would be very difficult for him to take up of himself any sound Principles of Nature yet I do believe that the Divine Law given to Man hath that Justice and agreeableness to right Reason that when once the motions of Reason had any materials of Observation to work upon it would incline such a Man though weakly to some though not all of those Divine Laws which were first perfectly written in the Heart of the first Man. The Precepts of the Divine Law though they be not congenite with us yet many of them are so rational and hold such a conformity with right Reason that Reason exercised would light upon some of them Hence several Nations that we know not ever to have had correspondence one with another yet agree in many Natural
be an Infinite and Vniversal Good. The former qualifications though each exclude something yet none excludes all Creatures from being the Supream End of the Soul Angels and Spirits are Immaterial Immortal Intellectual Good yet they want this one qualification without which it is impossible that there can be the Object wherein consists true Happiness The reason is this because nothing below an Infinite Good can satisfie the infinite motion of the Soul. The motion and comprehension of the Understanding though actually it doth not understand all things finite it may comprehend all finite things in the World which is clearly evidenced by Experience the most knowing Man in the World hath as much room for more Knowledge as he had before he knew any thing if a Man therefore knew all the finite things in the World yet were not the Understanding so filled but were there more to be known he would have room for it and consequently a desire to it Nothing then can fill and satiate the Understanding but Infiniteness yet we are not therefore to conclude that the Understanding is commensurate to the infinite nature of the First Being no that hath an actual Plenitude beyond the comprehension of the Understanding but the meaning is God hath placed in the Soul of Man an Understanding potentially infinite that cannot be filled with what is actually finite as all Creatures are And as the Motion of the Understanding is infinite and restless till it be filled with him that fills all in all so is the Motion of the Will nothing below an infinite Good can satisfie it And now as we have argued upward from the Capacity and Vastness of the Soul and its Faculties that nothing below an infinite Good can be its End so we must argue downward too The Great and Wise Creator who hath the disposition of all things to their Ends and who in his Infinite Wisdom hath put motions and capacities in all things conducing and fit for those Ends for which he hath ordained them hath appointed himself to be the End of his Immortal Creature and therefore hath put in the Soul a Capacity too large for any thing below himself and Motions restless in any thing but himself The Conclusion therefore is the Immortal Invisible Creator of all things that is infinite in Goodness and Truth hath been pleased to appoint himself to be the End of Man wherein consists his Supream Good. But it may be here considerable How God can be the adequate Object of Man's Felicity seeing Man consists of a Soul and Body united which was ordained to an End of Happiness as well as the Soul To omit the consideration of the Resurrection de qua infra I do conceive that God is the adequate Object of Man's Happiness in respect of his Compositum as well as singly of his Soul though in a different way of Communication The Communication of himself to the Soul is more immediate and sublime the Communication to the Body and Compositum mediate by Second Causes enabling and blessing their operations And I cannot question but in the first Creation when the Soul enjoyed God as the Object of her Happiness the whole Compositum did partake of that influence in communications of Happiness answerable to every exigence and degree of its being Sed de hoc infra Now in as much as the First Cause is the last End of Man and the only Object of his Happiness it remains to be inquired what this Happiness is or the Formal Reason of it for it is possible that there may be a Subject capable of Happiness and a Being that may be proportionable to that Capacity yet the Subject not truly happy The Beatitude therefore of the Soul consists in the Vnion of the Soul unto this Object of his Happiness and this Union presupposeth a double act 1. An act or Propension in the Soul moving it unto God as to its End and Perfection and as the Great Creator did appoint himself to be the End of this his rational Creature so he implanted in him a Propension and Motion in him to that End and that Propension and Motion is not a meer natural Inclination but ariseth from the fitness of those high Faculties of Understanding and Will for so excellent an Object In these he hath placed a Capacity or Receptibility in some measure of himself and as every Power is ordained in reference to something else that may actuate and perfect it and consequently moves after that Object whereunto it is ordained so this Receptibility which God hath placed in the Soul doth or at least naturally should move to that Object which alone can fill its vacuities and receptiveness 2. In as much as God is a Free Agent though he gave the Soul these Faculties yet so much is his Being and Perfection beyond the reach and attainment of any finite Being that this Motion of the Soul can never overtake his Happiness unless there be likewise an act of Condescension and Communion of himself to the Soul therefore there is necessarily required to the Happiness of the Soul a Communication by God unto the Soul And by this reciprocal act 1. of the Soul to God as the only perfection of it 2. of God to the Soul filling the desires thereof with himself this Union and Happiness is wrought This Communication by God is not of his Essence or Being for that is incommunicable and cannot be mingled with any Creature but as objective and for a fuller explication of this God is pleased to communicate himself to the Soul according to the nature of these great Faculties which he hath planted in it viz. the Understanding and the Will. And as without relation to both these it is impossible that Man should be truly happy so if both these be fully satisfied there cannot want any thing to compleat his Happiness because there is no other Faculty in the Soul which can receive any further portion of Happiness 1. The Communication of God to the Vnderstanding is that whereby he fills the same with the Knowledge and sight of himself Here the Understanding hath an object that satisfies and fills all the restless motions of it wherein he reads the satisfaction of all his doubts and inquities wherein though upon the first view it finds more than enough to fill its vastest comprehension yet every atome of its duration makes new discoveries of what iâ— thought it wanted not the Object being infinitely too large for all the successive actings of created Understanding to attain unto much less in one act an Object wherein the Understanding finds not only amplitude but unimaginable delight whiles it gazeth on an infinite Perfection an Object which by the same act fills and inlargeth the Faculty and Capacity of the Understanding wherein the Understanding though it enjoy his Object is not satiated but it rests in it is not tired with it Every Power in the enjoyment of its full and adequate Object hath complacency and acquiescence
the Compositum yet it is clear that the Tumultuousness or Quietness of the Mind doth much conduce to the Happiness or unhappiness of the Compositum That Man that lives contentedly with 20. l. a year is happier than he that lives as well with the same or a greater Portion but with an anxious troubled craving unsatisfied Mind Now when the Soul truly knows and is truly set upon his Supream End it knows its duty and therefore is not idle it knows the Power of his Maker therefore is not anxious and knows the use and value of the Creature and therefore values it no farther than it is useful to its proper End it knows the Love and Wisdom of his Maker and therefore refers all to him as he that wants neither Power to provide for it nor Wisdom to proportion nor Love to communicate according to the exigence of my condition and admit he doth his Will must be done and not mine I am provided well enough for if here I am contented and hereafter saved this sweetens any Losses 4. Though the Great God be absolute Lord of his Creature and is not bound farther to him than it pleaseth him though his Creature were most conformable to his Will yet I do not think but if our Hearts were and did continue right set upon our great and Supream End and could hold to it that we should want a convenient Portion of these outward Blessings which would make our Lives comfortable and happy but here is the Misery of Man that any confluence of Externals presently take off his Soul from a perfect pursuit of our great End and fasten upon those Externals therefore the Wise God oftentimes cuts out to the best of Men a small and an unpleasant viaticum that they may not linger in the way to their great End. And as it is thus with the whole Compositum in this Life so in the Resurrection when the Soul shall be reunited to the Body both shall have a perfect Fruition of Happiness in the enjoyment of the Presence Favour and Communion of God. How far forth the Soul separated is capable of its own nature of any new knowledge which it had not before in an angelical way or how far it is able to retain or improve those Conceptions and Species that it had here and whether it hath a compleat operation or what degree of Fruition it hath of the sight of God it is above our reach to determine only this we may conjecture that the Soul is not placed in that perfect degree of being and subsistence as are the Angels in as much as it is made in order to a Body by which in it it exerciseth its motions faculties and operations and therefore without all question when it shall hereafter be reunited to a most perfect spiritualized Body indissolubly it shall not thereby receive any diminution or abatement of its Perfection and Felicity but will thereby become more capable of a more perfect and full Fruition of that Supream Good which will then be communicated perfectly to the whole Compositum But this by the way latius infra CHAP. V. Of the Means of attaining the Supream End of Man. HItherto we have proceeded in the examination of these 2. Parts 1. What the Nature of the Subject is of this Happiness and 2. What the Object of it Now the third thing rests to be sought viz. 3. What is the Means of attaining this Supream End of Man his Union to God and herein we shall examine these three things 1. What naturally might be conjectured to be the Means of acquisition of this Happiness 2. Whether as things stand with Man the same Means be to be found or no 3. If not then whether there be any Means left for Man to attain this Supream End of his or no and what it is and how to be known Touching the first Though God by his power might carry every thing to his proper mediate or ultimate End without the intervention of any Means yet as it is his own peculiar Prerogative by his Will to appoint every thing to its proper End wherein is seen the Glory of his Goodness so the same Will of his hath ordered hath appointed every thing to move to this End by a certain Rule and certain Means and herein is seen the Glory of his Wisdom such are the Instincts and Inclinations of the Creatures by which they move to their special Ends and Perfections And as these Inclinations are planted by God in the inferiour Creature the like was done though in a different manner in Men at first in all probability of Reason the difference being only thus in the Creature all that is conducing to their End is made a piece or quality of their Nature in Man not altogether as shall be seen We have found Man indued with two great Faculties Understanding and Will and in these principally consists the receptiveness of his Happiness and the motion to it 1. Touching the Vnderstanding it is a Faculty receptive of an Object that may be known but that Object is not of the nature or essence of the Understanding but distinct from it So that Man might be created an intellectual Creature yet till such time as naturally through the Senses or supernaturally by the immediate infusion or demonstration of God he was but rasa tabula The first thing therefore that was put into the Understanding in order to his supream End was a stock of Knowledge of God and of that Will of God which concerned Man. And this Will of God concerning Man was that Means which if known and pursued would guide a Man to true Happiness for as is before observed every thing is so far forth Beautiful and Happy as it holds Conformity with the Will of God and such is his Wisdom and Goodness that when the Creature moves according to the Law and Will of its Maker it doth without fail attain that Happiness whereof it is capable because it moves to that End for which it was appointed by the First Cause Now because God hath made Man a Rational and Intellectual Creature he appointed a rational and intellectual way to move him to this End viz. the Knowledge of himself and of that Rule or Law which should lead him to that End. 2. The Understanding being thus enlightned with the Knowledge of God and his Will the Will was endued with a Rectitude to move on according to that Rule in order to the right End and that which was in the Understanding sub ratione Scibilis was to the Will sub ratione Legis a thing not only shewn to the Understanding as the Means to bring him to Happiness but also injoyned to the Man as his Duty under pain of Guilt and Vengeance for herein consists the difference between the Instincts in the inferiour Creatures and this Law given to Man in those it is not properly a Law because they are not intellectual nor voluntary Agents therefore their receding from that
of his Knowledge of the things purposed though notionally they differ 6. It is an Vniversal Counsel and therefore Universal not because confused and indistinct but it doth particularly and distinctly extend unto all the things actions and motions in the World for to suppose any thing could happen or be without the particular determination of this Counsel would be an admission that that thing were independent upon his Power and would necessarily make an utter incertainty in the whole dispensation of the World and so disappoint his Providence It is most evident that the greatest Events in the World have depended upon a Compages and Concaâ—â—nation of several Interventions that in themselves have been most inconsiderable which if they had not been it had been impossible the Event though never so eminent could have happened David raised to be king of Israel a thing eminently in the Purpose of God yet had he not been sent to the Army with the Provisions for his Brothers the means of his Advancement and consequently the Advancement it self had been disappointed If therefore the same Counsel which had determined his being King had not determined his Message to the Army that great Effect had been utterly without the determination of the Divine Providence for that which de facto was the necessary Concurrent to his Advancement being casual and not within the care of Providence so must all the dependances that had been upon it And the same we must conclude in all the actions of Voluntary Agents Two Difficulties occur 1. How the Predetermination of the Acts of Voluntary Agents can consist with the Liberty of the Will 2. How the Predetermination of the Sinful Acts of Voluntary Agents can consist with the Justice or Purity of God Touching the former we conclude 1. That although Almighty God hath been pleased to give Voluntary Agents a Liberty of Will yet he may most justly of his absolute Power interrupt that freedom when and in what he pleaseth The reason is He is absolute and unlimitted Lord of his Creature and in as much as the Creature can have no Being but by his Will he cannot claim any Right but what consists with his Maker's Will if he wills an interruption of that course which he hath regularly settled that interruption is as just as that course which he interrupteth for both equally depend upon the same Will. 2. That though he may most justly if he please alter that course which he hath settled in Natural or Voluntary Agents yet such is his Will that he doth it not but hath been pleased to hold that course in Natural but especially Voluntary Agents that they move according to that Liberty with which he hath endowed them 3. That nevertheless all the voluntary actions of Men fall under the Predetermination of his Counsel otherwise it were impossible but that the World should be governed at random the contrary whereof is most clearly evidenced by daily observation and several passages of the Holy Scripture and by what hath been before observed 4. It is evident that this Predetermination of the Divine Counsel is without any Violation of the Liberty of a free subordinate Agent because the Action predetermined is elicited by such means as at once consisteth with the infallibility of Divine Providence and the nature of the Agent The great motive and object of all the actions and aversions of Men is Good and Evil the great means whereby Men are carried unto these actions or aversions are Convictions of the Understanding arising from the union of these Objects to the Understanding the act of the rational Appetite or Will following that Conviction if not perturbed the Passions or Affections partly managed by the command of the Will partly by the temper and constitution of the Body And certainly if one Man had an exact knowledge of the frame temper and constitution of another Man and had power to apply his Object so exactly to his Understanding and Affections as to meet with them exactly and could discover the motions of the Soul upon that Object proposed and could apply to every opposition a suitable answer or qualification this Man might easily predetermine what the other should do and yet in drawing out that action no way injure his Liberty How much more can the Infinite and Omnipotent God who put that Liberty Understanding and Affections in Man positively predetermine such an act to be done and yet draw out that act by such means by him decrâ—â—d as may notwithstanding suit with the Liâ—â—â—ty of his Will the freedom of the action being no less predetermined than the action it self Especially if we consider the Power of this God in adding or withdrawing of the extrinsecal Helps and Concurrences of his own immediate Assistance which have a more intimate and powerful operation upon the Soul than barely objective which yet hurts not nor hinders the intrinsecal Freedom of the act of the Will. 2. To the second question concerning the Counsel of God touâ—â—ing Sinful Actions We are to consider therefore that Sin is the Violation of a Law given unto a Voluntary Agent by him that hath power to give that Law to the Will. In this description we have those several terms all necessarily to be admitted before there can be any Sin 1. A Law given for where there is no Law there can be no Transgression 2. A Vâ—luntâ—â—y Agent to whom this Law is given for it is impossible that any thing can be capable of a Law properly but a voluntary Agent because the proper Effect of a Law is to put an extrinsecal Restraint Under a Penalty upon that which hath choice to obey it or not Natural Agents though they move according to a Rule the interruption whereof causeth a Deformity yet they move not by a Law and therefore not capable of Sin. 3. An Authority in him that gives the Law to give it to the Will. A Man that hath an extrinsecal Power over me without my consent may give a Law to me and exact the Obedience of it but the Violation of this Law is no sin because he hath no power upon my Will but God hath a power to command my Will and exact Obedience of it Hence it is that there can be no Sin but against God because all Obligation is reductive only to him 4. A Violation of that Law by the act of the Will and herein we have two things 1. The Subject denominated that is the Action which precisely considered cannot be sinful but it is therefore sinful because it is the product of my Will contrary to this Law. Hence it is that no action that is enforced can be said to be sinful and every evil action hath so much of sin in it as it hath of Will and doth receive degrees of Evil according to the measure of Consent and Concurrence of the Will. And hence it is that the Act of the Will against that Law is equally sin as if it had proceeded into act which was
that most rational and clear Doctrine of our Saviour 2. The thing denominating that action sinful it is the Obliquity of the act of the Will for the last act of the Will which preceeded the action is the Sin and the action divided from that act of the Willing is not nor can be sinful It is therefore called a sinful action because it is the fruit or expression of an act of the Will moving contrary to this Law of God. And by this it is evident that the Sin is not inherent in the external action produced by the Will but in the Will it self and that the Sin hath a pre-existence such as it is in the Consent of the Will before the action is produced And according to the measure of the freeness and fulness of that Consent is the measure of the Sin and not according to the action though it be regularly true that that consent of the Will that is strongest produceth most ordinarily an action Hence it is that an action contrary to the Command of God produced either through Incogitancy Fear Surprize Passion is not so great a sin as a deliberate studied resolved Sin though in truth it be not produced into act by reason of some extrinsecal impediment because there is a fuller Consent of the Will in the latter than in the former These things being premised we may conclude 1. God's Counsel doth not predetermine the Will to any evil for although it is true the Obligation of a Law is the necessary Antecedent of every Sin and it is impossible that the Laws which God gives to man do bind the Law-giver yet this is inconsistent with his Purity Truth and Justice Inconsistent with his Purity for certainly there is an intrinsecal Justice and Holiness in the Law of God whereof he cannot cause the Violation Inconsistent with his Truth the Will of his Counsel never crosseth the Will of his Command Inconsistent with his Justice to require an Obedience to that Law whereof he doth necessitate the breach And in this case predeterminating the Action by way of necessitating the Will and to predetermine the Obliquity differs little 2. Much less doth he infuse Obliquity or Evil into the Will to serve the Series of his Counsels But then it seems the Evil Actions of Men are out of the Counsel of God or God must take up new Counsels upon the Vision or at least Prevision of the actions of Men. No But here we must remember what hath been before premised that here is seen the great Justice and Wisdom of this Counsel that it puts nothing off from that manner of operation wherewith the God of Nature hath endued it Thus he draws out infallibly the action of a free Agent even in things sinful and yet the Will moves freely in what it doth and consequently owes that Sin to it self The Counsel of God is active in these particulars 1. Proposing of an Object The Babylonish Garment was no cause of Achan's sin for it was propounded to him meerly objectively and was passive to his Choice 〈◊〉 Permitting extrinsecal Moral Perswasions unto 〈…〉 This is Temptation Adam was created without 〈◊〉 yet with Liberty to sin He was left wholly in the hands of his own Will here was an Object presented the fruit was fair to look upon and Moral Perswasions by the Devil that there was no danger that it would make them wise the Man eats This is most clearly a most free act for neither the proposition of the Object nor Perswasions do any way derogate from the freedom of the action God could in his Counsel have intercepted the Object or impeded the Perswasion he doth neither the sin is committed and that without the least colour of imputation to the Counsel of God for the Man's Will was not necessitated he sinned freely 3. By withdrawing those efficacious Aids of his Grace and Dispensation which especially since the Fall of Man are the great impediment to that Career of sin that Man would run And this is no violation of Man's Nature or Freedom for they are extrinsecal to his Nature and therefore not due to him nor is he injured if withdrawn from him especially since for the most part Man thrusts them away before they are taken Such are the outward dispensations of his Providence in Education Affliction Prosperity the Preaching of his Word Advice of Friends giving external Allays to the humours of the Body These and the like God lends to the Sons of Men and may take them again when he will. And as he hath such outward operations so without question such is the Vicinity of God to our Souls that there are Secret Inward Perswasions sent in by the Power of God to our Souls which as they do not violate the Liberty of our Wills but direct them so they are not due to the Creature debito justitiae and may be withdrawn without injustice 4. By Ordering it Thus the Wise God oftentimes brings Good out of Evil by the restraining the sin quo ad hoc by the Dispensation of his Providence as a wise Politician will order the Ambition Cruelty Lust c. of Men for bringing good to the Common-wealth The Depravation of Man's Nature is Universal and like as the Water would diffuse it self over the whole Surface in the pursuit of its own motion and Nature so the corrupted Nature of Man being now become universally evil would diffuse it self in all disorders but as a wary Artist will by external Provisions not only confine this natural motion of this extravagant Element to this or that course but also make its natural motion serviceable for artificial ends so the Wise God doth not only set Bars and Doors and saith to this Sea of Mischief Hitherto shalt thou go and no farther and here shall thy proud Waves stay but also so manageth the same that whiles Man sins he works his Creator's Will which he knows not O Assyrian the rod of mine anger c. howbeit he meaneth not so neither doth his heart think so but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few Isa 10.7 A sinful and unthankful Israel deserves a punishment an ambitious and cruel Assyrian flies at all opportunity of Rapine and Spoil the Wise God shuts him up upon all sides but that which is towards Israel and there he finds a passage and breaks out satisfies freely his own ambitious ends which only he pursued yet fulfils the Will of our Creator which he knew not nor thought of This also cometh from the Lord who is wonderful in Counsel and excellent in working Those ways of God and the manner of his Concurrence in those actions are evident in Scripture Exod. 7.3 I will harden Pharaoh 's heâ—rt c. Verse 11. They cast down their rods and they became Serpents c. and he hardened Pharaoh 's heâ—rt that he hearkened not unto them Exod. 8.15 When Pharaoh saw that there was respite he hardened his heart and
an actual exercise of right Reason they have in all successions of times and places taken up those Laws of Nature which we call the Moral Law or the most parts of them 2. Touching the-Obligation of these Laws it was twofold 1. From the Injunction and Command of God who had an Universal Infinite and Unlimited Power over his Creature and might most justly require his Obedience And into this Power of God together with his actual Command or Prohibition is all the Obligation of all Laws whether Natural or Positive and of all inferiour Laws Compacts or Agreements to be resolved And without the due consideration of this Mankind is loose Though the natural Congruity of the Moral Law to the Nature of Man might be the means of its Publication it is the Command of God that is and ever was the cause of its Obligation 2. From the Compact and Stipulation of Man. God put into Man's hands a stock both of Blessedness and Liberty and though he might have commanded his Creature and it had bound eternally yet to add the greater engagement upon him he enters into Contract with him concerning his Obedience Hence it is called the Covenant of Works And in all ensuing times when it pleased God to reinforce the Law of Nature or Obedience he doth it by way of Compact or Covenant as well as Command to add another Obligation as well of Contract as Duty And from this grew the Universality of the Guilt that was contracted by Disobedience Adam covenanted for him and his Posterity Rom. 5.19 As the Obedience of Christ is effectual for his Seed by way of Contract and Stipulation with God the Father so was the Disobedience of Adam binding upon his Seed partly by reason of his Contract and Stipulation and so they are made there parallel Sed de hoc infra 3. The Sanction of the Law given to Adam The Violation of any Law given by him that hath Power contracts Guilt that is Obligation to Punishment the measure of this Punishment is that Sanction which God did put upon the Violation of this Law Gen. 2.17 In the day thou eatest thou shalt surely die Herein are four Particulars 1. The Offence eating the forbidden Fruit 2. The Punishment Death 3. The Time of the inflicting of it in the day 4. The Extent of it thou shalt die c. Touching the first The thing specially prohibited was eating the forbidden Fruit but that which was in the Mind of God to enjoyn was Obedience to his Command and although this particular was by God made the Experiment of Man's Obedience yet questionless the same Injunction and under the same Penalty was given to Men touching those other Moral Dictates which were received Exod. 20. which lost not their Obligation by the Fall of Man no more than if he had continued in his Integrity Gen. 4.7 If thou dost not well Sin lieth at the door and Verse 14. Cain acknowledgeth Death to be the consequent of that Guilt which he contracted by his Murder Every one that findeth me shall slay me The like of Lamech Verse 23. For the Formality of any Sin as hath been before observed consisteth in the disobedience of the Will to the Command of God By one Mans disobedience sin entred into the World. And as the object of Mans obedience was whatsoever God had injoyned so the disobedience to any one Command had contracted the like Guilt and were under the like Penalty as this though this being purely a positive Command wherein only the Obedience or Disobedience of Man could be seen was that which is here mentioned because that wherein he offended 2. Thou shalt die God made not Death saith the wise Man Wisd 1.14 but Death entred into the world by sin Rom. 5.12 It imports three things 1. A loss or loosning of that strictness of Union which was between the Body and Soul or temporal immortality This is the Argument that the Apostle makes that from the time of Adam's transgression till Moses sin was in the World because Death reigned all that while and in the place before mentioned till sin the Kingdom of Death was not upon the Earth This immortality was not essential to the Nature of man but was freely super-added to it by the Divine Will upon those terms of Obedience and he that gave it might with all imaginable Justice give it upon what terms he pleaseth and he doth it upon terms of Obedience Obedience to himself which but even now gave Man his Being and might justly exact the utmost of his Being Obedience to a Law most possible easie and quadrate to the Powers and Aids given to man Obedience ingaged by a world of Blessedness attending it and an inevitable loss ensuing the breach of it This was his Vegetable loss 2. A loss of that Happiness which accompanied this immortal Being in respect of his Senses viz. an uninterrupted stream of Pleasure and Contentment and instead thereof Shame Gen. 3.7 Pain and Slavery Verse 26. Sorrow Verse 17. anxious and painful Labour Verse 19. a Curse upon the Earth Verse 17. A loss of Eden Verse 23. 3. The withdrawing and stopping of that stream of Light and Love that passed between God and the Soul of man which filled his reasonable faculties brimful of Happiness and Contentment and instead thereof in the understanding darkness distractedness a continued motion to know and yet for want of Light not knowing what to pursue and therefore pursuing trifles and follies In the Will loss of the Good that it before injoyed yet a craving Appetite after somewhat but it knows not what and to satisfie this unsatiable desire takeâ— in whatsoever the Suggestions of the World Flesh and the Devil offers fills it self with Vanity and then with Vexation In the Affections especially our Love it hath lost what did take up the whole Vigour and Comprehension of it and what it loved it injoyed but now raves and boils like the Sea after Follies and changeable and unsatisfying pursuits The Conscience that Chamber of the Soul wherein the beams of the Light and Favour of the Creator and of the Love and Duty of the Creature met as it were in the point or angle of reflection and carried those comfortable Messages of Sincerity and Obedience of the Soul to God and delight and acceptance from God to the Soul is now become the Chamber of Death and like the Spleen to the Body the receptacle of the Melancholy and sad Convictions of a guilty and ungrateful Soul and of an injured and revenging God and pre-apprehensions of farther Misery But if in the midst of Millions of Miseries he could see his Creator inviting him to dependance and recumbance upon him the Miseries were nothing they are born by his strength upon whom he leans But when the Lord of Heaven shall give him a trembling Heart and failing of Eyes and Sorrow of mind as in that most lively Expression he threatens the Jews Deut. 28.65 66 c. and when he
in his Friend scorn and oppression from his Superiour supplanting from his Equal envy and mischief from his Inferiour falsness and temptation from the Wife of his Bosom rebellion from his Children vanity and disappointment in his Purposes Diseases Distempers and infections in his Body madness and blindness in his Understanding perverseness in his Will tumult and confusion in his Affections guilt and preapprehensions of terrour in his Conscience Death and dissolution of Body and Soul and Judgment Vengeance Hell and yet Eternity after all this Then let Man know that in all this and that which is all this and more than this the Aversion of the Favour and Light of the Countenance of God he eats but the Fruit of his own ways and thou O God art just when thou thus judgest and whatsoever is better than the worst of all this to any of the Children of men is meer Mercy and more than their due But if now in the midst of Judgment God remembers Mercy and Mankind being now condemned and concluded under sin if the merciful God that at first gave Being and Blessing shall after we had spent that Patrimony and lost our selves provide for our Restitution that when we of Free-Men had made our selves Slaves and Vessels of Wrath shall provide a Means for our Deliverance This engageth us to a higher degree both of Admiration and Duty than even our first Creation did This then is the next thing considerable viz. The means and way of Man's Restitution CHAP. V. Of the Restitution of Man by Christ ALL Mankind lay by the Fall under Guilt which is an Obligation to Punishment both of loss of Happiness and everlasting subjection both to temporal and eternal Curse And this estate of Man and his Posterity even to the end of the World was present in the infallible Foresight of God from all Eternity In that consideration he had a Kingdom but over Rebels and Traitors and had everlasting cause of the execution of his Justice and the Power of his Wrath but nothing to deserve or draw out his Mercy among all the Sons of Men who were all present and stood up together in his Eternal Foresight Thus Man had as far forth as was in him disappointed the End of God in his Creation insomuch that in the outward dispensation of God's Providence it seemed that he repented that he had made Man on the Earth Gen. 6.6 But though Man as much as in him lay had made himself an useless Creature and interrupted the possibility of attaining an End answerable to his Being yet God's Counsel was not disappointed But the great Lord of his own free Goodness did in his Eternal Counsel fore-appoint some of lost Men to Remission of their Sin and eternal Happiness in Christ by such Means as he had before ordained to be effectual for that purpose And this is the great Discovery of the Scripture and contains that great Business which Man hath to do in this World because it is that which concerns his great and everlasting End without which his very Being is not only unprofitable but miserable and now comes to be consider'd This then is the sum of all That Almighty God out of his own Free-will and Goodness did in his Eternal Counsel fore appoint some of lost Mankind to Remission of sin and guilt and Reconciliation and Eternal Happiness in Christ by such Means as he had before ordained in the same Counsel to be effectual for that purpose In this description we have these Particulars to be sifted and we have done our Business 1. What the Motive of this Purpose God's meer good Will 2. What the Object of it some of Mankind 3. What the End of this Counsel Remission of sin and Restoration to Happiness 4. What the Hand or immediate Instrument of effecting it Christ 5. What those subordinate Means of attaining it 6. What the Consequents of it 1. Touching the Motive nothing at all meritorious in Man but only the good will of God thus to select some out of the lost multitude of Men to be Vessels of Mercy And this is that which is so often inculcated in the Book of God in all the successions of it Exod. 33.19 I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy So Deut. 9.5 Moses's sad Admonition to the Jews who in all things were typical Vnderstand therefore that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land for thy righteousness for thou art a stiff-necked people Ezek. 16.6 When I passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thy own blood I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood Live yea I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood Live. Isaiah 43.25 I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins Luke 10.21 And hast revealed them to babes even so Father for so it seemed good in thy sight Ephes 2.3 When we were by nature children of wrath even as others But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he hath loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickned us together with Christ by grace are ye saved 2 Tim. 1.10 Who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the world began but now made manifest by the appearing of Christ 1 John 4.10 Here is love not that we loved God but that he loved us Ibid. 19. We love him because he loved us first Rom. 5.8 God commendeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us And indeed it is impossible it should be otherwise for the Scripture hath concluded all under sin Galat. 3.22 And we have shewed before an utter impossibility in Man to extricate himself The fore-appointing therefore of any to Eternal Life could not be from any Cause in the Creature meritoriously moving God to this Mercy The Freedom and Liberality of this Purpose of God. 1. In respect of the Elect to take away all matter of boasting Ephes 2.8 To keep them humble and to keep them thankful that God may be all in all It pleaseth the great God to order the Execution of his Counsels touching Man that they are brought about as with a powerful and irrisistible Hand so they are brought about by such means as is naturally suitable to the nature of Man Rationally and Freely Psal 110. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy Power Now there cannot be a more engaging Argument to Humility and Thankfulness than the consideration of this Free Goodness of God that when I had thrown away my Happiness lay in the common lump of condemned Men God should freely single me out among thousands that he passed by and make me a Vessel of Mercy And this doth most sweetly and effectually win upon the Heart So
And the suffering of Christ without the Gate was not without some Allusion to the placing of this Altar without the Tabernacle Vide Heb. 13.12 And as the situation of the Altar so the Sacrifice upon this Altar not without a Mystery for besides those many Sacrifices which were diversified according to the several natures of the Occasion here was one Sacrifice appropriate to this Altar the continual Burnt-Offering a Lamb of the first year in the Morning a Lamb of the first year at Even Exod. 29.38 Numb 28.3 And the Spirit of Truth takes up this description of Christ more frequently than any John 1.29 Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world 1 Pet. 1.19 Redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish or spot Revel 5.6 The Lamb that was slain c. Revel 13.8 The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world And between this Altar and the Sanctuary stood the Laver of Brass not only typifying the Sacramental Initiation by Baptism but that Purity and Cleansing that is required of all those that partake of this Altar before they enter into the Sanctuary John 3.5 Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God As the Blood of Christ cleanseth from the Guilt of our Sin so it cleanseth us from the Power of our Sin before we are to expect an admission into the Sanctuary It was as well Water to cleanse as Bloud to expiate 6. The typifying of Christ in the Priesthood of Aaron and his Successors High Priests Divers of the Ceremonies especially in the Consecration of them were meerly relative to their natural pollutions and the cleansing of them Heb. 7 27. Offering Sacrifices first for their own Sins such was the Sin-offering Levit. 9.7 Levit. 8. â—4 Others in reference to their service and designation thereunto and exercise thereof as their washing with Water Levit. 8.6 Their anointing with the holy Oyl Ibid. Verse 12. The Ram of Consecration Ibid. Verse 22. Their residence at the door of the Tabernacle seven days Ibid. Verse 33. And some parts of his Garments But there were some things that in a special manner were typical of Christ 1. The Breast-plate of Aaron bearing the Names of the Children of Israel called the Breast-plate of Judgement Exod. 28.29 And Aaron shall bear the Names of the Children of Israel in the Breast-plate of Judgment when he goeth into the holy place for a memorial before the Lord continually importing not only the nearness of the Church and redeemed of Christ unto him but also his continual presenting of their Names their Persons in his Righteousness before his Father 2. The Plate of Gold upon the Mitre engraven with Holiness to the Lord Exod. 28.38 And it shall be upon Aaron's forehead that Aaron may bear the iniquity of their holy things that they may be accepted before the Lord. As our Persons are accepted by God in the Righteousness of Christ presented for them to his Father so our Services are accepted in the strength of the same Mediation Christ presenting our Prayers and Services to his Father discharged of those Sins and Defects with which they are mingled as they come from us 3. His Solemn Atonement when he entred into the Holy of Holies Levit. 16. Wherein we shall observe 1. A most special Reconsecration almost of all the things incident to that Service before it was performed the Priest was to make an Atonement for himself by the Blood of the Bullock Verse 11. and for the Altar Verse 18. which signifie that Purification of the Humane Nature of Christ from all Sin Original and Actual from all Sin even in his Conception that so he might be a fit High Priest Heb. 7.26 For such a high priest became us who is Holy Harmless Vndefiled Separate from Sinners and made higher than the Heavens The difference was this Aaron notwithstanding his first Consecration to his Office needed a new Atonement when he entred into the Holy of Holies and exercised that high Type of Christ's Ascension and Intercession But Christ being once Consecrate needed no new Consecration Heb. 7.28 For the Law maketh men High Priests which have infirmities but the Word of the Oath which was since the Law maketh the Son who is Consecrated for evermore 2. This was to be done but once in the year Some services had frequent iterations but those special Services that were but once in the Year were Types of those things that were to be done but once though remembred yearly such was the killing of the Passover Christ by one Offering hath perfected them that are sanctified Heb. 10.14 3. This great Atonement not made but by Blood Heb. 9.7 The high Priest entred not without Blood Livit. 26. And this Atonement was to be made upon the Horns of the Altar Levit. 16.18 viz. The Golden Altar of Incense Exod. 30.10 Hence Christ called the Blood of sprinkling Hebr. 12.24 The Offering that was to be used in this solemn Atonement for so much as concerned the Sins of the People were two Goats which were to be presented before the Lord at the door of the Tabernacle Levit. 16.7 And Lots to be cast one for the Lord the other for the Scape-Goat the former was to be the Sin-offering for the People and his Blood to be brought within the Veil Verse 23. And the other was to bear the Iniquity of the Children of Israel but to be sent into the Wilderness Ibid. Vers 21. Although in the Sacrifice of Christ his Body only died and his Soul escaped yet both were but one Sacrifice he did bear our sins in both his Soul was heavy unto death as well as his Body crucified and as God had prepared him a Body in order to this Sacrifice Heb. 10.5 So he made his Soul an Offering for Sin Isa 53.10 4. As after all this the Priest entred into the most Holy and presented this Blood of Reconciliation before the Mercy Seat and no Man was to be in the Tabernacle when he goeth in Levit. 16.17 So Christ having trodden alone the Wine press of his Father's Wrath Isaiah 63.3 Is entred into the Holy Place not made with Hands now to appear in the presence of God for us Hebr. 9.24 And as the People did representatively by their Mediatour Aaron pass into the Holiest so our High Priest hath consecrated for us Access into the Holiest by a new and living way through the Veil of his Flesh Hebr. 10.20 Who as he is our Advocate with the Father John 2.1 To bear our Names before him as the High Priest did the Names of Israel to present his own Blood before the Father of Mercy as the High Priest did the Blood of the Sin-Offering before the Mercy Seat to bear the Iniquity of our holy things as the High Priest did upon his Forehead so likewise to present our Prayers to the Father Ephes 2.18 Through him we have access
were a Miracle of Mercy if such a God so offended and by his Creature should have accepted a Reconciliation upon the highest importunity of his Creature But for him thus injured that could not receive a grain of advantage by our Conversion unto him to change as it were conditions with his Creature and to importune a Reconciliation from it There wants conception in us to understand it it is a Love passing knowledge But yet like the waters of the Sanctuary still riseth higher It is true we made our selves miserable and if thou O Lord hadst never looked after us nor pitied us we could never have complained of thy Justice But if thou hadst pitied and done no more or if thy pity had gone so far as to have given us a deliverance if we could have found it we must for ever in our misery have magnified thy Mercy though we had been Non-plus'd in the inquiry But here is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins a Propitiation and a Propitiation prepared by our offended injured Maker and such a Propitiation But it rests not here We had incurred Guilt enough to make us wretched and a delivery from wretchedness by such a means had been an unspeakable Mercy But this mercy rested not there he doth not only of miserable Men make us not miserable by pardoning our Guilt but of Enemies makes us Children by a Righteousness that he himself had prepared 1 John 1.3 Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God. 4. Now a Man would think that ordinary Prudence and Ingenuity would engage the heart to entertain this Message of Happiness and Peace with Love and Acceptation and that a greater approach from God to his Creature as it could not be expected so it need not be required The Chiefest Good commands our Entertainment how much more when it offers it self with such a condescension as well to our Necessities as to our conditions Moral perswasions have wrought upon the Tempers of wise Men without any propositions of any thing beyond this Life how much more perswasions bottomed upon such sound Reason and propounding an end sutable to the highest Comprehension of our Souls But all this will not serve the turn unless the Mercy of God had gone farther We are dead in Trespasses and Sins and we can no more receive these Truths and this Love of God than a dead Man can receive a rational Impression Now Christ is our Life Colos 3.4 When Christ who is our Life shall appear 1 John 5.12 He that hath the Son hath Life he that hath not the Son hath not Life Now this Life is wrought in us and conveyed unto us by the very work of the Spirit of God and Christ in and upon our Souls John 6.63 It is the Spirit that quickens the same Spirit that raised up Christ from the Dead Rom. 8.11 If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken your Mortal Body by his Spirit that dwelleth in you Ephes 2.5 Even when we were dead in Sins he hath quickned us together with Christ Therefore he is called the Spirit of Life Rom. 8.2 This Life called the renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 2.5 a Birth of the Spirit John 3.5 Except a Man be born of Water and the Spirit Verse 6. that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit The first Resurrection Ephes 5.14 Awake thou that sleepest stand up from the Dead and Christ shall give thee Life And though it may seem a vain Command to a dead Man to stand up from the Dead yet we must remember whose Command it was even his that spake to dead Lazarus Come forth and he arose because a Spirit of Life and a word of Power went along with the Command John 6.63 The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life They have not only Life in them for him that receives them but I can send a Spirit with them to enable him to receive them And now the Soul is put into a condition to entertain his Happiness It was the Happiness of Adam's Soul and it is the Happiness of Angelical Natures to be receptive of the knowledge and Love of God And here was Mans misery by his Sin that as he lost the actual Enjoyment of God so he had made his Soul as it were irreceptive of it again and as God hath offered himself to us again in Christ so by his Spirit he enables us to receive him by Faith which is the first motion of the Creature to Union with God. So then the work of the Spirit upon the Soul comes under a threefold Consideration though the same act produceth all three and therefore they are three put together 2 Tim. 1.7 The Spirit of Power of Love and of a sound Mind 1. Of Power or Life whereby Life is conveyed into the Soul which like the dry bones in Ezekiel was void of Life till this Spirit comes into them de quae supra and the two following are but the manifestation of this Life according to the Faculties wherein it appears 2. Of a sound Mind Light not only in the Medium but in the Organ John 1.4 In him was Life and the Life was the light of Men. Hence it is called a convincing Spirit John 16.8 a Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Christ Ephes 1.17 a Spirit of understanding He hath given us understanding that we may know him that is true 1 John 5.20 a Spirit of Demonstration and of Power 1 Cor. 2.4 a Spirit of discerning and Judication 1 Cor. 2.15 16. Man's Understanding by his Fall lost his Object and lost his Sight Ephes 5.8 ye were sometimes darkness And this was not only a darkness by the Absence but by the exclusion of light the Understanding was sealed against it so that though light did shine in the darkness yet the darkness comprehended it not John 1.5 Now here was the work of the Spirit of God in opening the heart Acts 16.14 enabling our understanding to receive and subduing of it to believe the truth of God. And this is certain not only in those truths which are farthest removed from our Reason and so most properly the Object of our Faith John 6.65 No man can come unto me except the Father draw him 1 Cor. 12.3 No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost But even in those points of truth wherein even natural reason may guide us Even the belief of the Creation though it is deducible by natural reason to know it yet it is the work of Faith to believe it Heb. 11.3 By Faith we understand that the Worlds were framed c. The conviction of the same truth by the work of the Spirit of God creating Faith and the
in Christ Jesus 2 Tim. 1.13 Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus Gal. 5.5 For we through the Spirit wait for the Hope of Righteousness by Faith for in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing noâ— uncircumcision but Faith which worketh by Love 1 Cor. 13.13 Now abideth Faith Hope and Love c. But of these distinctly and how any or all of these do either unite or move us unto Union with our Saviour 1. Faith which is taken in a double sense 1. For that firm and sound Assent of the Mind to Divine Truths wrote by the Spirit of God and so differs little or nothing from supernatural Knowledge and thus Heb. 11.1 Faith is the evidence of things not seen and hath for its Objects all Divine Truths And as Christ dwells in our Hearts by Faith thus taken Ephes 3.17 so other Truths dwell in the Heart by this Faith viz. objectively so that Faith thus taken is more properly an act upon the Soul than an act of it for in our Assent to any Truth our Soul is in truth passive the strength of the Conviction conquers the Soul. 2. For that motion of the Soul whereby it rests casts and adventures it self upon the Promises of God in Christ for Remission and Salvation and so differs from the former in these three respects 1. In the Latitude of its Object it is more restrained than the former 2. In the Order of its Being it is subsequent in the Order of Nature to the former and produced by it 3. In the Manner of its working In the work of supernatural Knowledge or Assent the Soul is passive in this though it be the work of God yet the Soul is more active As the Sun when it shines upon a solid Body doth cause a reflection of his own beaâ—s so when the Light of Grace falls upon the Heart in this special act of Faith as in that or Love there is a reflection from the Soul back to God. And therefore those Expressions of Faith in the Scripture import a motion in the Soul Christ comes into the Soul by his Light and Spirit and the Soul again comes to Christ Joh. 6.45 He that hath learned of the Father cometh unto me As Christ abides in the Heart by the former act of Faith so by this latter the Soul abides and incorporates into him and both these we have joyned together John 15.4 Abide in me and I in you Now this act of the Soul is the most natural result upon the true discovery of a Man 's own Condition God's promise and Christ's mediation unto the Soul. When a Man finds that the Sentence of Death is passed upon him that nevertheless God in infinite Love and Mercy hath sent his Son to be his Satisfaction and Righteousness and hath promised and proclaimed by him and in him and only by him Peace and Reconciliation and that without exception of any person though laden with never so much guilt and sin and without any difficult Conditions Whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3.16 John 6.40 That he is appointed a Sacrifice by him whom we offended John 3.16 God so loved the world c. The Son of God and able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him Heb. 7.25 The most genuine and natural motion of the Soul in such a condition and thus convinced is Trust Affiance and Divolution of the Soul upon this Promise of God in Christ And it is an observable thing how the Wise and Merciful Providence of God hath ordered all things so that we might be even necessitated to the right way of our Salvation and to cast our selves upon it All were concluded under a common guilt by the voluntary offence of Adam Rom. 5.12 And if we could derive our Being from another then we might escape the Guilt and that Guilt brought with it Death in the World both eternal and temporal bound upon us by irreversible Sentence of an omnipotent God. But cannot I by my future obedience emerit this guilt No. What thou doest for the future is but thy Duty and thou canst not out-act it But grant thy future obedience might satisfie for the guilt under which thou liest thou shalt have the Copy of that Rule which I required from thee and once enabled thee to perform Do this and live But be sure thou do it without turning to the right hand or the left with thy whole Might and Mind and Soul without the least aversion and that out of the meer Principle of Love and Duty and Obedience and thy future observance may expiate that original guilt yet our Condition had been still dâ—sperate because as the Obedience was impossible so the least miscarriage had been fatal for cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 So we find an universal Guilt and Curse gone over all and all this discovered to drive us to a Saviour Galat. 3.22 The Scripture hath concluded all under a sin that the promise by the â—aith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe We find a righteous Law given to our Nature but as the Obedience is unsatisfactory for a past Guilt so the Observance is become impossible by reason of our Corruption whereby our disobedience is rather excited than abated Rom. 7.8 When the commandment came sin revived and I died And all this still to drive us to the necessity of a Saviour Rom. 8.12 What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh Thus in the midst of all those difficulties a Saviour presents himself with the suffrage of God the attestation of Types and Prophecies with reconciliation of all the difficulties which perplexed our Inquiries with Ability to save to the uttermost with Mercy and Acceptation and Pardon and Righteousness and Happiness offered and proclaimed to all and that upon most unhazardable and easie terms only believe him and trust on him So then Faith is nothing else but that result of dependance upon and confidence in and adherence unto Christ which follows upon the sound Conviction of the Truth of God concerning him It is true the Faith of the Ancients differed much in the distinctness of its acting and object from the Faith which is now required as Abraham's Faith Caleb's Faith c. But in this they both agreed 1. That it was a Confidence and Trusting upon God in that which was revealed unto them by God. The Promises of a Son was made to Abraham and he rested upon God for the performance The Promise of Canaan to the Jews and Caleb and the believing Jews rested upon the Power and Truth of God to perform it So with us God hath promised Mercy
and Happiness to them that believe on Christ the Soul resteth and trusteth in the Truth and Power of God in Christ for it 2. In that the Faith of both had a termination in Christ though theirs more indistinctly and confusedly in respect that the same was not so clearly revealed unto them In that Promise to Abraham In thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed wherein the Gospel was preached to Abraham Galat. 3.8 Abraham did see Christ and rejoyced John 8.56 And so for the rest of those ancient Fathers Rom. 10.4 They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ Now the Effects of Faith are of two kinds 1. In reference to God our Justification God having of his free Goodness exhibited the Righteousness of Christ and his Satisfaction to be theirs that shall truly know it and rest upon it Rom. Chap. 3 4 5 c. Galat. 2.16 2. In reference to us Peace with God Rom. 5.1 In him that is our Peace-maker Humility because the Righteousness whereby we are justified is none of ours Rom. 3.27 Where then is boasting worketh by Love Galat. 5.6 2. Hope is but modally or objectively distinguished from Faith for the same spiritual Life which is wrought in the Soul and brings Light with it when it looks upon Christ with Dependance and Recumbency is called Faith when it looks upon the fulfilling of these Promises yet unfulfilled with Expectation and Assurance is called Hope They are but the actings of the same spiritual Life with diversity only 〈◊〉 to the diversity of Objects Hence they are many times taken for the same thing Heb. 11. 〈◊〉 the substance of things hoped for Ephes 4.4 One Hâ—pe of your calling Galat. 5.5 We through the Spirit wait for the Hope of righteousness by Faith Rom. 8.24 We are saved by Hope 1 Pet. 1.4 Begotten again unto a lively Hope And the Fruit of this Hope must of necessity be Joy Reâ—â—ycing in Hope Rom. 12.12 And such a Joy as at once takes off the vexation sorrow and anxiety that the greatest Affliction in this world can afford and likewise the fixing of the Soul with over much Delight upon any thing that it here enjoys because it looks beyond both upon a Recompence of Reward that allays the bitterness of the greatest Affliction 2 Cor. 4.17 18. Heb. 11. and allays the Delight of the greatest temporal Enjoyment Heb. 11.26 Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt Purifies the Heart John 3.3 He that hath this hope purgeth himself even as he is pure that is winds up his Heart to such a Condition as is suitable to his Expectation 3. Love This is that first and great Commandment Deut. 6.5 Matth. 22.37 And therefore is the fulfilling of the whole Law Galat. 5.14 Rom. 13.8 Because it puts the only true and active Principle in the Heart which carries him to all true Obedience It is the highest Grace 1 Cor. 13.13 And that wherein consisâ—ed the Perfection of Humane and Angelical Nature because it was not only his Duty but his Happiness It was his Duty because the chiefest Good deserved his chiefest Love even out of a Principle of Nature and his Happiness because in this regular motion of the Creature to his Creator God was pleased to exibit himself to his Creature and according to the measure of his Love was the measure of his Fruition And in the Restitution of his Creature God is pleased to restore this quality to the Soul Gal. 5.22 The first fruit of the Spirit is Love 2 Tim. 1.7 The Spirit of Love 1 Tim. 1.14 with Faith and Love 2 Thes 2.10 receiving the Love of the Truth Ephes 4.15 speaking the truth in Love Jude 21. keep your selves in the Love of God now this Love is wrought by a double means 1. By the Knowledge of God as he is the Best and Universal Good and therefore it is impossible that there can be the true Knowledge of God but there must be the true Love of God 1 John 4.8 He that loveth not knoweth not God And this is an Act grounded upon a rational Judgment which even by the very Law and Rule of Nature teacheth us to value and esteem that most which is the greatest Good. 2. By the Knowledge of the Love of God to us The absolute Goodness of God deserves our Love but the communication of his Goodness to his Creature commands it The former doth most immediately work upon our Judgment and so is a love of Apprehension the latter upon our Wills and so is a love of Affection and yet both upon right Reason for as the Law of Nature teacheth us to love the Chiefest Good so the same Law of Nature teacheth us to love those most that do us most Good and consequently love us most Now when God by his Spirit sheds abroad his Love into the Heart and we once come to know the Love of Christ passing Knowledge Ephes 3.19 The Soul even out of a natural ingenuity being rescued by the Spirit of God from that malignity that sin and corruption had wrought in it cannot chuse but return to God again that hath done so much for so undeserving a Creature And therefore this was the great Wisdom and Goodness of God in sending Christ in the Flesh to die for us when we were Enemies and in revealing that Goodness of his therein that in a way proportionable to the conception and operation of our Souls we might understand the greatness of his Love to us 1 John 3.16 Hereby perceive we the love of God 1 John 4.9 In this was manifested the love of God Ephes 2.4 But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead c. God commandeth his love to us c. All which being brought to a Soul that hath life in him must needs work Love to God again 1 John 4.19 We love him becâ—use he loved us first As it is the Love of God that gives us Power to love him for it is the first cause of our Happiness and consequently of our Love to God wherein consists our Happiness so it is the immediate cause of our Love to him When the Soul is convinced of so much Love from so great a God to so poor a Creature in very Ingenuity and Gratitude it cannot chuse but return an humble and hearty Love to his Creator again Methinks the Soul in the contemplation of the Goodness and Love of God might bespeak it self to this effect So immense and infinite is the Goodness and Beauty of thy God that were thy Being possible to be independent upon him he would deserve the most boundless and infinite motion of thy Love unto him But here is yet farther infinitude added to an infinitude he gave thee thy Being from nothing which was an infinite act of his Goodness and Power unto thee and doth and may justly challenge the highest tribute of Love
and Heirship Galat. 4.7 Heirs of God through Christ Now all these three Graces of God wrought in our 〈◊〉 by the Spirit of God are motions unto Union 〈…〉 is the first act of the Soul and there◠〈…〉 this Union is formally maâ—e 〈…〉 to be justified by Faith Rom. 3.28 To partake of of the Righteousness of God by Faith Rom. 3.22 Phil. 3.9 viz. That by the Eternal Counsel and Goodness of God Christ is put in the place of him that believes in respect of his sins and he that believes is in the sight of God put in place or stead of Christ and by that means is judged righteous in the sight of God even by that very Righteousness which was the Righteousness of Christ the Mediator And when we speak of Faith we must not intend that work of the Spirit of God in our Souls whereby we believe for by the very same work is wrought belief love of God and hope in him But it is that act of that Life so wrought which doth believe Now we shall consider Why or by what reason the act of Faith worketh our Vnion with Christ and so our Justification in the sight of God 1. Because it is the Will of God John 6.40 This is the will of him that sent me that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life He that is the great dispenser of his own Goodness is pleased that this shall be the means of that Dispensation In ancient times before the coming of Christ he was pleased to use other immediate Instruments such were Circumcision Obedience to those Laws which he gave these had not their Efficacy of themselves for they were indifferent things but they had their Efficacy upon these grounds 1. The Divine Institution to that End 2. The mingling of the Efficacy of the Sacrifice and Satisfaction of Christ with 3. A performance of them with an Obediential and believing Heart which though it was not always accompanied with an explicite and actual belief of Christ yet it was not without thus much Faith viz. That it was a thing injoined by God for some special Purpose for the good of his Creature And thus likewise in Infants who are not capable of an actual exercise of Faith God hath questionless some secret efficacious means of the application of Christ's Sacrifice unto them Thus proportionable to the Condition of his Elect in all times and Conditions God is pleased to proportion a means to make this Sacrifice effectual To the ancient Fathers that had not the same opportunity of believing in respect Christ was not revealed to them so clearly as to us it was his Will to appoint at least a more implicite and obscure act of Faith They were shut up unto the Faith that should afterwards be revealed Galat. 3.23 2. Because Faith is the first act of the New Life wrought in the Heart by the Spirit of God tending to Union It is true that Knowledge is that which precedes all the works of Grace in the Soul but in this the Soul is not so much active as passive and Knowledge doth not of it self unite the Soul to the Object viz. Christ as it doth unite the Object to the Soul But the first motion of the Soul to Union is not that Faith of Assent which differs not from Knowledge but the Faith of Recumbency or Adherence And this priority of the act of Faith is not in time for Life is wrought all at once in the Soul but in Nature and actual operation And this priority of Faith in this sense is upon three grounds 1. In respect of the nature of the Act. 2. In respect of the nature of that Truth upon which it fixeth 3. In respect of the Condition of the Creature 1. In respect of the nature of the Act The Creature is created essentially depending upon God and Dependance is the first relative act of the Creature unto the Creator as it is the first relation so the first motion of a rational Creature unto God is by an act of Dependance and Recumbence upon his Truth and Goodness And herein consisted as the first act of Union in our uncorrupted Nature unto God so herein was the first breach that was made upon Man Gen. 3.1 Yea hath God said c. Man's Duty was Recumbency and Trust and Reliance upon the Goodness of his Creator and the Devil weakens his Faith or Dependance upon his God and deceives him His first Fall was Distrust in the Word and Goodness of God and his first Recovery must be by Recumbency upon him his Truth and Goodness 2. In respect of the nature of the Message It is a Message that as it requires so it concerns our Faith and Recumbency It is a Promise of Mercy and Peace unto as many as believe the Message According to the nature of the thing known is the motion of the Heart towards it This is a Message of Deliverance and Peace with a Command to rest upon it therefore of necessity the first act must be Recumbence John 11.40 Said I not if thou wouldest believe thou shouldest see the Glory of God Exod. 14.13 Fear not stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. The first act that a Message of Deliverance from God worketh upon the Heart that entertains it is Recumbency and Resting upon the Truth and Power of God. 3. In respect of the Condition that this Message of Deliverance finds us in We are incompassed every where with Guilt and the avenger of blood pursues that guilt and we cannot by any means find any Power in our selves or in any other Creature to escape it The Soul being seriously convinced of this God presents unto it the Satisfaction and Righteousness of Christ his Promise of Acceptation of it and our deliverance from his wrath by it And now the Soul like a Man ready to be drowned first lays hold of the Cable that is thrown out to him even before it hath leisure to contemplate the Goodness of him that did it So the condition of our Misery teacheth us first to clasp the Promise of Mercy and Salvation in Christ and then to consider and contemplate the great Mercy and Goodness of God and to entertain it with Love and Thankfulness An extream Exigence will give a Man some confidence to adventure upon a difficult and unlikely occasion of deliverance because it is possible his Condition may be bettered it cannot be made worse 2 Kings 8.4 Why sit we here until we die if we enter into the City the Famine is in the City and we shall die there if we sit still here we die also Now therefore let us fâ—ll into the Host of the Assyrians if they save us alive 〈…〉 live and if they kill us we shall but die Even so even in a way of Reason may the Soul debate with it seâ—f I find my Condition miserable and I know not how to avoid it when I look into my self I find
a guilty and condemning Conscience when I look behind me I see the avenger of blood pursuing me and ready to overtake me when I look before me I see nothing but a Hell to receive me in my flight when I look upward I behold an offended and angry God aâ—med with Power and Justice to condemn me 〈◊〉 is true he is a Merciful and Bountiful God but that aggravates my Misery What Comfort can the thought of a neglected an abused Mercy add unto 〈◊〉 so that now as my Misery is intolerable so it is inextricable as I cannot help my self so I can see nothing without me but storms but trouble and darkness and dimness and anguish Isa 8.22 and a guilt within me still telling me worse is to come and to prevent my despair I turn me to the Creatures to Friends to Pleasures but alas they have no more taste in them than the white of an Egg like Drink in a Fever they increase my Torment In the midst of all this tempest of the Soul the Love of God like the Dove to the drowning Ark le ts fall an Olive Branch a 〈◊〉 a Message and Promise of Life and Deliveâ—â—â—â— an invitation to Peace and Salvation Let any 〈◊〉 judge now whether a Soul sensible of his own Condition will not greedily and even before it hath leisure to contemplate the Mercy lay hold upon it rest upon it get unto it so that the condition of the Soul and the sense of it doth even drive the Heart in the first act of its Illumination to coming unto Christ and resting upon him And then the Soul hath more opportunity to discover and contemplate and value the Goodness of God whereby the Love of the Soul to God is more and more excited and increased And thus we see how the Believer is united unto Christ not corporeally nor yet substantially yet really and spiritually these motions of the Soul being met and entertained with Objects suitable to their utmost latitude Our motion unto him by Faith and Adherence finds not only an invitation before it come Matth. 11.28 Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy ladâ—n and I will give you rest But a rest when it doth come Our motion unto him by our Love finds an entertainment with Fruition John 14.23 If a man love we he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him Our Hope entertained with Assurance and the Prepossession of our Expectation John 14.2 I go to prepare a place for you 1 Pet. 1.4 An inheritance incorruptible and undefiled reserved in Heaven In the creation of Man as likewise of Angels God placed in them Powers suceptive and able to receive a great measure of his Truth Glory and Goodness And when he had furnished them with Vessels as I may say of this Capacity he filled them with his Light and Goodness And herein consisted that great Union between God and his Creature and consequently his great Happiness And in Man's Restitution the same course is taken to make him happy again Here is the difference and our accession of Happiness that this Mercy 〈◊〉 put into our own hands but into the hands of our Mediator for our use For as in him dwells the fulness of God so every true Believer dwells in him and makes up that Body which is the fulness of him that filleth all in all Ephes 1.23 And is thereby filled with the Fulness of God Ephes 3.19 CHAP. XII The Effects of our Vnion with Christ NOW we come to consider the Effects of this our Vnion with Christ more distinctly 1. Remission of Sins Ephes 1.7 Colos 1.14 In whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins For by virtue of our Union with him the Father looks upon us as having made that Satisfaction for Sin which in truth his Son made 2. Justification For as by virtue of our Union with him his Satisfaction is ours so is his Righteousness And hence that Righteousness by which we are made righteous in the sight of God is called the Righteousness of God 2 Cor. 5.21 That we might be made the Righteousness of God in him Phil. 3.9 That I may be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith And therefore Jer. 23.6.33.16 he is called The Lord our Righteousness And indeed without this though it were possible that we could have our sins forgiven yet without this Righteousness we could not actually attain Happiness Christ therefore must present us Holy as well as unblameable Colos 1.22 So then being one with him as our sins by imputation were his and his Satisfaction ours so was also his Righteousness 3. Peace and Reconciliation with God For as God from Heaven proclaimed himself well pleased in his Son so if we are one with him he is consequently well pleased with us And this Conclusion follows naturally from our Justification in the sight of God The controversie between God and his Creature was Sin and when Christ took up that Controversie there must needs follow peace Rom. 5.1 Being justified by Faith we have Peace with God through Christ Colos 1.20 Having made Peace through the blood of his Cross Eph. 2.14 For he is our Peace And the consequent of this Peace with God is Peace with the Creature who when Man became Rebel to God became Rebel to Man unuseful vain full of vexation but by our Peace restored with our God our Peace with the Creature is part of our Portion Godliness having the Promise of this Life as well as that to come 1 Tim. 4.8 Matt. 6.33 and peace with our own Consciences Conscience was God's Vicegerent in Man and when her Lord is angry the Conscience will chide It is a Glass wherein a Man may by reflection see the face of Heaven and of his own Soul. But when once the Heart is sprinkled from an evil Conscience by the Blood of Christ Heb. 10.2.22 the Conscience is quiet for Heaven is quiet As Peace was the Proclamation of an Angel at the Birth of Christ Luke 2.14 so Peace was the Legacy of Christ when he was leaving the World John 14.27 My Peace I leave with you And the Fruit of this Peace must needs be Joy When a Man upon sound grounds doth find that his Peace is made with Heaven there cannot chuse but be a Joy answerable to the sense of so beneficial a Peace Therefore Rom. 14.17 The Kingdom of God is Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 15.13 The God of Hope fill you with all Joy and Peace in believing Where there is Faith there will be Peace and where Peace Joy and therefore when Christ had finished the work of our Redemption that Spirit which he sent into the World is called the Comforter John 15.26 4. The Spirit of Christ and that
so much of the Creatures inferiour to my self as observe the Law of their Creation enjoy a measure of Perfection answerable to their Being and if interrupted in that law of their Nature they lose their Beauty if not their Being The degree of my Being was higher than theirs and so was consequently the End of my Being my Happiness of a higher Constitution than theirs And as my Debt was greater to my Creator for allowing me so high an End so was my ability proportionable to the pursuit and attaining of that End which was thus given to me But what have I been doing all this while I have measured my Heart by that great Law Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart and I have found my Heart full of the love of the World of Pleasures of Vanities but scarce a thought bestowed on him that gave me Power to think and which is worse my Heart hath held confederacy with all that he hath forbidden insomuch that I may justly conclude that surely nothing but a Heart hating God could so constantly and universally oppose his Will I have measured my Life by the Law of God and I can scarcely find one regular action in it my Heart hath not been so out of frame but it hath still found a full subservience of my whole Man unto it and that with greediness and yet I find all this unsatisfactory and I have cause to fear that is not all Sense doth tell me that in the pursuit of the ways of my Heart I spend my self for that which is not Bread and my labour for that which profiteth not I find no fulness in them but much vexation And Reason as well as Conscience tells me it will be bitterness in the end and the end is death I cannot but know that the great Lord of all Being hath measured out to all his Creatures their Beings and their Happiness suitable to their Beings and their Ways and Rules and Laws to attain their Happiness and if all this while I have been out of that Way I am travelling to another End If in the way of God I should have found Life and everlasting Life for my End out of that Way my End must be Death If I were now to begin my Life I should order it better Though I cannot expiate what is past yet my Soul looks upon it with Sorrow with Indignation with Amazement This is the first degree 2. That they are Vnbecoming Vngrateful and Vndutiful Returns It is implanted even in the sensitive Nature to return good for good We have received all the Good from the hands of that God against whom the practice of our Hearts and Lives hath been a continual Rebellion and upon this Consideration natural Ingenuity works a Shame in the Soul and a secret Condemnation and some kind of loathing so Ungrateful and Undutiful a Constitution 3. But hitherto the Soul looks only backward and these Considerations though they are enough to breed Shame and Despair in the Soul yet they are not strong enough to work Repentance because in those Considerations the Soul looks upon it self in an unexpiable and irrecoverable Condition The amendment will prove fruitless where the former guilt is irreversible and yet enough to sink the Soul Therefore the third Conviction is of the love of God that hath provided a means of pardon and acceptation when a Man throughly convinced of the unprofitableness and desperateness of his actions and condition his extream Ingratitude unto God shall for all this hear a voice after all those things Return back thou back-sliding Israel and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you for I am merciful and will not keep mine anger for ever only acknowledge thine iniquity Jer. 3.12 13. This conquers the Soul not only into a dislike of sin past as dangerous and unprofitable but unto a hatred of it and of our selves for it as the enemy to such an invincible Love. The Consideration of our ways past and comparing them with the Law will enforce the Conscience to condemn them but it must be the sense of the Love and Goodness of God in Christ that can only incline us to change them as by the former he concludes his ways dangerous and unprofitable so without the latter he will conclude his Repentance unuseful And hereupon the Soul is cast into such Expressions as these O Lord I have been considering the present temper of my Heart and reviewed the course of my Life and have compared them with the Duty I owe unto thee and the Law which thou gavest me to be the Rule of that Duty and I find my heart and ways infinitely disproportionable to that Rule and thereby I conclude my self a most ungrateful and a miserable Creature But though I have sinned away that stock of Grace and Blessedness with which I was once intrusted by thee I find I have not out-sinned that Fountain of Goodness and Mercy that is in thee even whiles the sight and sense of my own Condition bids me despair either of repenting or acceptation of it yet I hear the voice of that Majesty which I have injured bids me Return and live Ezek. 18.32 Were there no acceptance of my turning from those ways of death and destruction yet it were my duty and though thy Justice might justly reject it yet it might justly require it But yet when thy merciful and free Promise shall crown my Repentance with Acceptation and Life This Love constrains beyond the sense of my own misery And when I hear the voice of my Lord calling to me to return and I will heal your backslidings that Love warms my Heart into that answer Behold I will come unto thee for thou art the Lord my God Jer 3.22 But who can come unto thee unless thou draw him send therefore thy Power along with thy Command for it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth Turn me and I shall be turned I will engage the uttermost of my strength to forsake my ways but I will still wait upon the same Mercy that did invite me to enable me to forsake them By that which preceeds we see a double Repentance 1. That which is Preparatory unto the receiving of Christ which is nothing else but a sense of the unhappiness and evil of our ways as destructive unto our Happiness and dissonant from that Rule of Righteousness which we cannot but naturally subscribe to be Just and Good and this doth naturally breed a Sorrow for what hath been so done and a Purpose and Inclination of Heart to forsake those ways And this was the work of the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord his Doctrine was a Doctrine of Repentance and his Baptism a Baptism of Repentance a Seal of the Entertainment of that Doctrine to as many as received it Matth. 3.2 Luk. 3.16 Acts 19.4 2. That which is Subsequent to that entertainment of Christ in the Heart by Faith which is the sense of
the love of God in Christ continuing towards us notwithstanding our many Injuries This fills the Heart with Sorrow and Wonder and puts the Soul upon a flat Resolution never to sin against so great Love. This was that sorrow that pricked the Jews to the heart and brought in Repentance for remission of sins Acts 2.37 38. Acts 3.19 that Sorrow that worketh Repentance unto Salvation 2 Cor. 2.10 And though sometimes Christ appear unto the Soul without a Baptist and the light of the Love of God discovers the irregularity and filthiness of our former ways and tempers yet the usual method of his Grace and Providence is to baptize with the Baptism of John and after with the Baptism of Christ Acts 19.5 The love of God being most naturally welcome and operative when the Soul hath before taken a just survey of his Condition without the sight of that love But his ways are unsearchable and past finding out And this Evangelical Repentance viz. our sorrow for our past Offences and our purpose of better Obedience is not only the Act of our first Conversion unto God but is to be our continual Exercise there is a continual adherence of our flesh and sin unto us and notwithstanding the bent and frame of the Soul be changed yet there are continual Renewed Offences which though God is pleased not to impute yet as they are contrary to that Life in the Soul and therefore will be opposed by that Life so they are still naturally our own and therefore must and will be repented of and sorrowed for For a Soul once truly affected with the Love of God would willingly have his whole Man and Life and Thoughts and World conformable to the Will of God and therefore every strugling cannot chuse but cause sorrow and gather up the strength of the Soul for the future against it For the sins of the very Members of Christ though by his Righteousness and Satisfaction they have lost their power to condemn being his by imputation yet they are sins still and therefore objects of our opposition and ours in reality and therefore objects of our Sorrow and Repentance and by how much the more they have our consent by so much the more they are sins and ours And as it is the Power and Grace of Christ that subdues the Dominion and prevailing of Sin so this Grace doth work by setting the operations and affections of the Soul against it especially in our Sorrow and Repentance Our Repentance after Conversion is nothing else but the strugling of the Life of Christ to work out that poyson of sin which is contrary unto it and doth weaken it and would destroy it 1 John 3.9 For his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. CHAP. XV. Of Mortification and the Means thereof and 1. Of Meditation 2. WHERE Repentance ends viz. in the purpose of forsaking the ways of Death there Mortification begins and is nothing else but the Execution of those Purposes of the Soul which are wrought by Repentance by the use of all such Means as may for the future weaken the power of sin in the Soul. This is that which our Saviour calls putting out the right Eye and cutting off the right Hand crucifying the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts Galat. 5.24 Mortifying the earthly Members Colos 3.5 Denying a Man's self taking up the Cross Matt. 16.24 Dying daily 1 Cor. 15.31 The World crucified to a Man and a Man to the World Galat. 6.14 Putting off the body of the sins of the Flesh Colos 2.11 The body of sin destroyed Rom. 6.6 Mortification therefore is nothing else but the daily practice of opposition against Sin especially such as we are most inclined to and that by such Means as are reasonably conducing to it These Means according to the several tempers both spiritual and natural are more or less effectual I shall divide them into these degrees 1. Supernatural Helps 2. Moral or Rational Helps 3. Natural Helps 1. Supernatural They are rational Means but fixt upon supernatural objects and discovered by supernatural Light for it will most clearly appear that these very Helps which we call Supernatural are most rationally effectual against it Meditation and Prayer 1. Meditation and serious and deep Consideration of the Word of God and the Truths therein revealed but especially of these ensuing 1. A deep Meditation of the Love of God whom I must needs offend in every sin And this is the most powerful Consideration in the World to mortifie any sin and that is the reason why where there is the truest and highest manifestation of the Love of God to the Soul there is the highest Purity because there is the highest Preservative against Sin for it must needs be clear that where there is the highest manifestation of the Love of God to the Soul there is the highest Love again to God and consequently the most absolute dominion over sin for as the Love of God is the cause of our Love to him 1 John 4.19 so according to the measure of the manifestation of the Love of God to the Soul is the measure of the Love of the Soul to God again and consequently of the hatred of sin And he that often and deeply considers of the Love of God must even rationally improve the sense of it to his Soul and consequently his Love to God again and his abhorrence of Sin. When a Man shall take such Considerations as these into him God hath commanded me to abstain from this or that sin whereunto it may be my Nature my Custom my Temptation inclines me The competition is between my Pleasure my Pride my Profit and my Lord he that gave me a Being he that hath given me all the Comforts of my Being he that might justly have taken me away to judgment in the midst of my sin but he hath spared me and waited upon me that he might though I were righteous make me a vessel of misery he that hath invited perswaded intreated me to return unto him for my own good that when I would not I could not return unto him hath sent his Son to fetch me to redeem me with the greatest Price that ever the World heard of Behold what manner of love 1 John 3.1 And shall I can I make so ill a return to entertain his Enemy the only object of his displeasure that will ruine me before my Lord that hath infinitely out-done my highest speculations for me Certainly the sense of the Love of God is either not at all or not awake when any Man considerately commits any the least sin against his Conscience It were no less than for a Man to return despight against the Love of God and as much as in us lies to disappoint his very End and Purpose in sending of Christ who therefore gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar People zealous of good works 2. A serious
Consideratiun of the great and high Hope to which we are restored by the purchace of Christ and the great Incongruity that there is between continuing in Sin and that Hope We expect to be brought to an innumerable company of Angels to the Assembly of the first born to the Spirits of just Men made perfect to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant to God the Judge of all Heb. 12.22 c. to be make like unto the Son of God and to be partakers of his Sonship and Inheritance 1 John 3.2 To partake of his Spirit to see the brightness of the glory of God in Christ now all these are holy how unsuitable a thing is it for a Man that hath his Hope not to purifie himself even as he is pure 1 John 3.3 This will teach a Man to bespeak his Heart thus Is the Presence of God thy Hope he is the Holy Holy Holy Lord that is of purer Eyes than to behold or to be beholden by any unclean thing If therefore thou commit Sin thou livest below thy Hope either therefore let thy Hope be answerable to thy Life or thy Life to thy Hope 3. A serious Consideration of the Presence of the Great and Just and Powerful God his Eyes run to and fro through the Earth to behold the Evil and the Good 2 Chron. 16.9 He is acquainted with all my ways Psal 139.3 His Eyes are upon all the ways of the Children of Men Jer. 32.19 The Hearts of Men Prov. 15.11 and all things are naked and manifest before him with whom we have to do And darest thou sin before the face of thy Judge who sees thee and whose Power or Justice thou canst not escape this is so great a Controll that were it soundly and deeply considered it would stifle even the first motions of sin and therefore it is the great work of our own wicked Heart either to gull themselves into a perswasion that God sees not Job 22.13 or else in plain English to forbid him their Hearts they say to God Depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways Job 22.14 4. A deep Consideration of the Nature and Consequences of Sin It is a Violation of a Righteous and Just Law the Law of a Just and Righteous God a Law the conformity whereunto is the Perfection and Blessedness of the Creature By this sin I lose my Communion with my Creator and consequently Peace within my self whiles I commit it my fruition is but short and mingled with Fear because the end of it Death is in some degree present with my Soul and sowers that transitory Content which I enjoy in it and when it is finished it brings forth Sorrow and Shame and Death and if that Sorrow end in Repentance yet the bitterness of that Sorrow overweighs the Pleasure that I had in its commission and according to the measure of the delight I had in my sin so and much more is the measure of my sorrow in repenting and yet for all this that Peace which I had formerly with my God and my Conscience very hardly recovered and God though he pardons my sin yet either not at all or not suddenly trusting me with that measure of Communion with him which I formerly enjoyed and abused But if the sorrow of Repentance wait not upon my sin a worse sorrow attends it the sin is past and so is the contentment but the storm that attends it is Everlasting the loss of the light of God's love the loss of an Eternal weight of Glory the terrible appearance of an angry God cloathed with as much Terror as Justice provoked Patience abused and Mercy contemned by a most indebted Creature can assume And this Terror shaken into the most tender and sensible parts of the Soul by the hand of Omnipotence it self and that unto all Eternity when my Life shall be full of nothing but the preapprehensions of my future misery my death the terrible inexorable and inevitable passage to it Shall I then so madly prize the satisfying of a base a perishing Lust for a season thus throw away my God my Happiness my self when the thing it self is so base and transitory and the wages so sad and dismal It shall be my care to avoid to subdue to crucifie that which as it cannot satisfie so it will certainly torment and ruine me And since I find my Lusts to be so easily actuated into Sin by every Temptation I shall by the Grace of God as avoid the latter so keep a strict hand over the former and it shall be my hourly care to ransack and examine and search my Heart what is moulding there and to cleanse and wash it from its pollutions or at least to mingle my Tears and Sorrows with them that so they may be weary of my Heart or my Heart of them But Lord Who understandeth the errors of his life Cleanse thou me from my secret sins and keep thy servant from presumptuous sins Psal 19.12 5. Frequent Considerations of the Shortness of Life the Lord hath given me a great Work to do to work out my salvation with fear and trembling and the Time wherein I have to do it is in this Life and that but a short and an uncertain Life the great Enemies to my Soul are the Lusts of my Flesh and of my Mind which fight against my Soul If the work be not done in my Life-time the Door is shut and who knows whether this or that Sin which I am now about to commit may not be concluded with my Life and then in what a case am I how shall I appear before the Holy and Eternal God with the stain of that sin upon me or if he prolong my days yet who knows whether he will not seal up my Soul with impenitency If my Lust prevail upon me now it gathers strength and vexeth that Spirit which must only enable me for the future to repent and resist it and if I get the Victory over the contestations of the Spirit of God my Conquest ends in my own Misery and Slavery It may be I have over-matched and stifled the Perswasions of the Spirit of God of that Lighit which he hath set up in my Conscience that did sting me in the midst of my Cariere after my Lusts and mingled them with bitterness to my discontent and now I pursue my Desires without interruption yet when I remember that Death is at my heels and will overtake me before I can overtake my Contentment in the things I pursue that if I over-live a sudden unexpected Death yet the Harbingers of Death Sickness or Age cannot be far off and either of these as they will take off the edge of my Pursuit and fruitions of my Lusts and render them insipid so they will thereby give leisure and opportunity to me to cast up the Accounts of my past Life and find therein nothing but Vanity and Unprofitableness Time that might have been improved to Eternity irrecoverably
lost in those Pursuits that have left no footsteps of Content in my Soulâ— but instead thereof a bruised and wounded Conscience a displeased and an angry God an infinite Happiness offered and sold for a few unprofitable and perished Pleasures and Lusts when I shall find an infinite Guilt contracted a Soul clogged with a custom of sin a Body now ready to drop into dissolution a great work to do to make the Peace of my Soul a God by whose only strength I can do it hiding himself and his influence from me and Death by his hasty and churlish Officers still ready to seize me to carry me off without regard to the importunity and concernment of a little longer time such thoughts as these will work upon a Man to keep a hand over himself over his Flesh over his Lust while it is called to day not to harden the Heart to give all diligence to make our Calling and Election sure to get Oyl in the Lamp to break off the course of sin to cleanse our hearts to improve this little portion of time to our best advantage for Death will come and after that Judgement Lord so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom CHAP. XVI Meditation of the Vnreasonableness of the Dominion of Lust 6. A SAD and deep Consideration of the Vnreasonableness and Vnbecomingness of the Power and Dominion of any Lust upon a Man. And this though it be a moral Consideration is of good use for the mortifying of our Lusts S. Paul divides our Lusts into the Lusts of the Flesh and the Lusts of the Mind Ephes 2.3 S. John tells us that all that is in the World is the Lust of the Flesh the Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life 1 John 2.16 Out of both these we may divide the Enemies of our Soul within us into these Divisions 1. Lust which is nothing else but the immoderate and inordinate actings of the Appetite either beyond that measure it ought to be or upon those Objects it ought not to be And this either 1. In the Rational Appetite those are the Lusts of the Mind 2. In the Sensitive Appetite those again 1. In the Lusts of the Flesh 2. The Lust of the Eyes 2. Pride in an overvaluing of our selves in the fruition of those things we have thus pursued Now we shall a little consider how far forth any of these do hold a disproportion even with right Reason 1. The Lusts of the Mind The great Desire of the Mind is that of Knowledge an Appetite that God hath put into the Soul of Man and so a thing beautiful and good But this very Desire of Knowledge becomes a Lust of the Mind when either it is misplaced in respect of his Object thus Adam's desire of Knowledge of Good and Evil became a Lust or when acted beyond its proportion The chiefest Object of our Love ought to be the chiefest object of our Knowledge and consequently of our desire of Knowledge and that is only God and he is to be known and consequently we ought to desire to know him as he hath revealed himself in his Word in his Works and by his Spirit When either therefore we desire to know even in things pertaining to God beyond what we ought to know as the Counsels of his Will looking into the Ark or when we desire to know things of an inferiour nature with an over-intensive desire which is only due to God our want of Sobriety in the former and our want of Moderation in the latter turns our desire of Knowledge into a Lust of the Mind or when acted without his due End Good and the fruition of it is the great and final object of the Soul and as the Acts of the Understanding are preparatory to the Will so Knowledge and the desire of it is or should be preparatory to the fruition of some Good farther and beyond the bare speculative Knowledge of it If it were possible for a Man truly to know God without the Love of him and the sense of his Love to the Soul a desire of such a Knowledge though I dare not term it a Lust of the Mind yet it is such a desire as is not rightly qualified To desire to know a thing fit to be known meerly because I would know it It is but a Lust of the Mind and such a Knowledge as only puffeth up Now any Man may rationally conclude that such desires of the Mind as these are even condemned of Reason it self as irregular and useless It is true that whatsoever is an object of our Knowledge may be an object of our desire of Knowledge if not forbidden by him that gave the Power if acted with Moderation and Sobriety if subordinated to that desire which I have or should have to that great object of my Knowledge But for a Man to spend his choicest hours and thoughts and inquiries upon unnecessary perishing useless objects Reason it self will conclude as the Preacher would have the covetous Man Eccles 4.8 For what do I labour and bereave my soul of good And as thus in the Intellectual Faculty there are Lusts of the Mind so are there in the Rational Appetite the Will and Affections The Passions in the Soul are natural to it and therefore naturally good therefore want of natural Affection is a thing condemned in the old World Rom. 1.31 But when these Affections are acted beyond their natural end and use they become corrupt and putrified and so Lusts of the Mind And this is seen in either Faculty Irascible and Concupiscible and by how much the more spiritual they are by so much the more devilish and hurtful and yet condemned by sound Reason The Passion of Anger was planted in the Mind and is good when acted upon a right object and in a due measure Ephes 4.26 But this Passion being over-acted it becomes putrified and a Lust of the Mind it then turns into Malice to Envy The Spirit that is in us lusteth after Envy Jam. 4.5 into desire of Revenge and thus Lust conceiveth upon this Passion of the Soul and bringeth forth Sin. Now all these are evidently against right Reason Because even sound Reason teacheth us to love all that is good Every Being hath in it self a goodness and doth naturally challenge our Love and therefore to desire the destruction of any Being is against the Law and Rule of Reason or to desire a less or more low degree of Being to it than it hath It is true there may be some irregularity in it which I may and must hate But when my hatred is in the concrete and takes in the Being of any thing which is good as well as that which I conceive an irregularity within the compass of it as is in all Malice and Revenge then is my Passion mis-acted corrupted and proves a lust of the Mind Suppose a Man hath done me an extream injury and intends to continue it right Reason
let thy words be few seasonable considerate true 4. Set a Watch upon thine Appetite it is of it self natural and consequently good but the distemper of our Nature hath put it out of its place and consequently out of its bounds Suspect thy Appetite and keep it under with Rules of Moderation put a Knife to thy Throat Prov. 23.2 look not upon the Wine when it gives its colour in the Cup Prov. 23.31 love not sleep Prov 20.13 and with Rules of Seasonableness the wise Man tells us every thing is beautiful in its time Eccles 3.11 because it is then in that order which God hath appointed for it the same Action that may be but tolerable and indifferent in one time may be necessary in another and sinful in another Isaiah 22.12 13. In that day did the Lord call for weeping and mourning and behold slaving of oxen surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die 2 Sam. 11.11 The Ark and Israel and Judah abide in tents c. shall I then go down to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife Regulate thy Reason by the Word and Counsel of God and discipline thy Appetite with thy Reason observe its motions and check them Rather deny it a lawful than countenance it in but a disputable Liberty CHAP. XX. Of Watchfulnes over our Affections and Passions of Love Anger and Fear 5. SET a Watch upon thine Affections and Passions Thy Affections are by thy natural corruption become inordinate Affections they are easily misplaced and more easily over-acted Take heed to thy Love according to the order or disorder of this Affection are all thy other Affections tempered See therefore that it be rightly placed Dispence thy Love in measures proportionable to the worth of the Object Nothing can challenge thy intensest Love but the intensest Good and that God that requires thy Heart is a jealous God let not out the whole Current of thy Affections upon any thing below him Lawful Pleasures natural Relations Conveniences in the World a Man 's own self may be Objects of a moderate and subordinate Love But when they take up the whole compass of our Love our Love becomes our Sin Matth. 10.37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me 1 John 2.15 If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him 2 Tim. 3.2 4. lovers of themselves and lovers of Pleasures ranked amongst the worst of Men. When the Affection of thy Soul is moving after any thing before thou give it leave examine the Object whether worthy of any measure of thy Love and if so yet let it not go without a farther debate Consider the measure of Good that is in the Object and weigh out its proportion of Love answerable to the measure of its Good But rest not there neither remember it is but a subordinate a derivative Good as well as a measurable Good bestow not that measure of thy Love upon it absolutely but subordinately catechise thy Love with this Question Whether if thy Creator requires thee to hate that Object to forgo it to forsake it thou canst be better content to call home thy Affection than to let it rest where it is By this time and by this means thy Love will be under a discipline and a rule and the Precipitancy of this Affection beyond its due Proportion allayed and moderated And remember always it is the impotency of our Condition and the great cause of the disorders in our Souls and Lives that we are contented to give our Affections leave upon the first apprehension to pursue their Objects without debate lest we should interrupt the expectation of Contentment by a clear discovery of the unworthiness and vanity of the Object and the ill consequences of immoderation in the pursuit thus we are contented to deceive our selves with the Felicity of false Expectation rather than by pre-consideration to avoid a real Inconvenience or Disappointment Take heed to thine Anger Be angry but sin not Ephes 4.26 keep it not too long nor act it too far lest it prove Hatred Revenge Oppression Order thy Anger so that it may be rather an act of thy Judgment than of thy Perturbation If thou art provoked by an Injury before thou give a Commission to this Passion propose to thy self the Question which God asked Jonah Jonah 4.9 Dost thou well to he angry weigh well the Cause and remember thou art partial to thy self and apt to construe that for a just Provocation which it may be was none or deserved Suspect thy Judgment of Partiality put thy self in the others Condition before thou judgest remember that he that doth thee the Injury is but God's Instrument 2 Sam. 16 10. Because the Lord hath said unto him Curse David who then shall say Wherefore hast thou done so It may be his Injury is God's Justice and then thy Anger against the Instrument is Rebellion or at best it may be his Experiment of thy Patience and then thy Anger is Disobedience Remember the just occasions of Anger thou hast given to thy Creator and yet his Patience to thee and shouldest thou not have compassion on thy fellow servant Matth. 18.33 Remember thy Redeemer that bought thee with the Sacrifice of his Soul hath given thee another Precept Matth. 5.44 Love your Enemies and another Example who when he was reviled reviled not again and canst thou deny the denial of Passion for his sake Remember thy gentleness will more advantage thee than thy anger it may be he will be conquered with thy Patience and revenge thy Quarrel against himself with his Repentance but if not there is a God of Vengeance can and will do it Rom. 12.19 When a Man takes up the Office of his Judge he injures both the Judge and Party and in stead of doing himself right he makes himself guilty Again if thou doest well to be angry dost thou well to be angry so much or so long The Wise Man tells us That Anger resteth in the bosom of Fools Set a Watch therefore over thy Anger let it be just and moderate and let not the Sun go down on thy wrath Ephes 4.26 Set a Watch upon thy Fear There is nothing deserves thy fear of Reverence but thy Creator nâ— thy fear of Aversion but thy Sin If thy Peace he made with him thou art above the Fear of any thing below him objects of Terror shall not come near thee the Beasts of the Field shall be at peace with thee or if they are not they shall not hurt thee The terriblest things in the World are therefore terrible because they end in Death the King of Terrors And when thy Peace is made with thy Lord thou hast a double Security against them 1. Because they are in the hands of his Power and Wisdom and they cannot exceed their Commission that he gives them he can if it please him dissipate whole Armies of
Terrors by the least word of his Power 2. But if their Commission extend to thy very Life yet the Son of God hath taken away that sting that terror that is in Death hath by his own Death sanctified Death unto thee and made it a door unto a better Life so that Death though in it self terrible and bitter yet this Tree being himself cast into this bitter Water Exod. 15.25 hath sweetned them and as he hath taken away the Venome of it by destroying that Serpent that had the power of it Heb. 2.14 so he hath made it though not for it self yet in respect of him that stands on the other side of this Gulf with Immortality and Glory in his hand desirable Phil. 1.23 Having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better It is true thou art pursued with an Army of Egyptians of Sins and of Miseries and when thou comest to the Shore thou seest a raging and a bloody Sea But remember thou hast an Angel even the Angel of the Covenant that hath gone before and yet goes with thee and turns this Sea into a Passage of Ease and Safety and though of either side the Waves may affright thy Sense they shall not hurt thee and remember that though thy Passage may be difficult and troublesome yet thou hast not as once the Israelites a Wilderness behind it but a Canaan Therefore in all Objects or Occurrences of Terror first look inward and see how the case stands between thy God and thy Conscience indeed if there remain a Guilt unwashed by the Blood of Christ a secret sin entertained and not repented of thou hast cause to fear because thy Lord is angry But if thou keep thy daily Watch upon thy Soul and thy Life if thou find the presence of thy Saviour in thy Soul and thy Heart though of it self a sinful Heart yet cleansed and delivered from the power of any evil way an honest Heart acted by the love of God in Christ thou mayest then look above them and having thine Eye fixed upon the Lord of Events walk quietly and untroubled through the midst of those dangers that do incompass thee It is true that in the great Concussions of the World God expects a suitable affection even from the most innocent Heart an affection of Reverence and awe of his Presence and working Jeremiah 10.7 Who would not fear thee O king of nations But the fear of an honest Heart is the fear of Reverence not of Consternation a Fear mingled with Love a Fear mingled with Faith and confidence a Fear mingled with Praise and Glorifying God a Fear terminated in the great Lord that works not in the Instrument not in the immediate Object of Terror a Fear mingled with Comfort not over-run with distraction When therefore thou meetest with Objects of Fear first learn to distinguish their kinds some there are that come as it were from the immediate hand of God such are Famine Pestilence Wars Fires Inundations Earthquakes and the like entertain them with Reverence to the great and Just and Powerful hand of God not slightly or saucily or presumptuously yet without consternation or distraction of Mind carry up thy Soul above the Objects to the Hand that guides them make him thy Dependance and his Will the measure of thine own under them use all warrantable means with Dependance upon his Power and Submission to his Will to avoid them The wise Man seeth the Plague and hideth himself Prov. 22.3 Prov. 27.12 If thou escape the danger bless the God that hath preserved thee if thou fall in them yet still bless the God that hath not left thee and value ten thousand Deaths with his Presence and Light upon thy Soul above the most sublimated Life without it Again there are some Objects of Fear which though they are guided and mastered by the hand of God yet they are immediately the works of Men and so less terrible such are wrought by the power oppression cruelty and malice of Men these may and ought to be entertained with more resolution and confidence That one Example may serve for all when the power and injustice of Man shall meet with an unarmed and weak innocence Dan. 3.16 O Nebuchadnezzar we are not careful to answer thee in this matter our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of thine hand O king But if not be it known unto thee O king we will not serve thy Gods As if they should have said It is true thou art a King and where the word of a King is there is Power and to magnifie thy self and thy Glory in the face of thy Kingdom thou hast taken up this publick Resolution of the Dedication of thine Idol and this thy Purpose is stablished by a Decree a Mischief framed by a Law and this Decree armed with Death and a cruel and terrible Death we know we cross thy proud and impious Will impatient of the seeming neglect of thy Power by three poor despised Hebrews in the midst of thy Glory and People we see fury and rage enough in thy countenance to devour us before the Furnace be hot we see thy Courtiers adding fewel to thy rage and thy Instruments greedily catching after the least Warrant from thee for our Execution and we are compassed with Flesh and Blood which cannot but shrink at the preapprehension of this inevitable and terrible dissolution yet for all this know that we have learned to tutor our Fear not to fear a Man that shall die and the Son of Man that shall be made as Grass Isa 51.11 we have learned that the fear of Man bringeth a snare but he that trusteth in the Lord shall be safe Prov. 29.25 And therefore we are not much perplexed what Answer to return to these thy Commands and Threats we serve that God in whose hand thou art as the Ax or the Saw in his hand that shaketh it in whose hand thy Breath is and he can command away thy Breath and then what becomes of thy Word that Lord in whose hand thy Heart is and he can turn it as the River of Water and can set thy Command against thy Decree that God in whose hands are the issues of death and who can arm an inconsiderable Occurrence to divert and frustrate thy Purpose in whose hands are all the Powers of Heaven and Earth and can correct and controll that Fire which thou intendest for the execution of thy Fury And this is the God whom we serve and hath made a Covenant with us to preserve us in the Fire and we are no less confident of his Love and of his Truth than of his Wisdom and Power to deliver us he hath taught us that he is a present help in trouble Psal 46.1 that if we call upon him in the day of trouble he will deliver us Psal 50.15 Psalm 91.15 that in the Fire he will be with us and
that which is her Enemy 3. Stablish thy mind in the knowledge of God and of his Goodness and this being laid in the bottom will keep thy Ship from uncertain giddy floating The knowledge and Sense of the chiefest Good will carry the chiefest Motions of thy Will towards it and against all that is contrary to it and by this means the Motions of thy Will will be certain steddy uniform and regular the inclination of thy Will to any thing else will be measured by this and subordinate unto it if the Good propounded consist not with the Fruition of thy chiefest Good thy Will will reject that Good propounded and if it consist with it it will measure a Motion of the Will towards that Good proportionable to it and the want of the Knowledge or Sence of this Good sends the Motions of thy Will on gadding after every Vanity stedfast in nothing willing what it hath not and weary of what it hath pursuing a Butter-fly or a Glow-worm with the same eagerness and intention of Soul as it would do a substantial and satisfactory Good when thou seest a Child fixing the intention of his mind upon a Rattle or a Hobby-horse more than upon a goodly Mannour or upon a Feather or a Riband more than upon a Title of Honour conjoyned with Power and when he hath these Toys to be weary of them and pursue something else thou canst easily see the ground of this Errour in his Valuation to arise from his Ignorance of the true difference between them and this unstability in his content in them doth arise from the emptiness and unusefulness of them and that disproportion which he finds in them to his expectation his infant reason being yet better able to value in Fruition than in expectation And yet thou dost not consider that the disproportion of those things which thy riper Will pursues as Good as to the chiefest Good is infinitely greater than that of the most Childish enjoyment to those things wherein the most and wisest of Men place their chief expectation and that the Errour of the most childish Judgment laid in the Ballance with the Judgment of the wise Men of the World wants fewer Grains to make it equal than that of the wisest Man in the World not having his Soul ballasted with the Love and Knowledge of God laid in the Scales with one that makes his Creator his chiefest hope and expectation Keep a Guard upon thy Conscience The chief work of Conscience in the Soul consists in these things 1. The reception of sound practical Principles this is the Foundation of all its subsequent working the Major proposition 2. The discovery of those Actions or purposes which are in the Soul 3. The comparing of those Actions or purposes with those former practical grounds 4. The Conclusion or Judgment upon those Actions and Principles thus compared of Absolution or Approbation or of Condemnation and Rejection 5. The Motion of the Conscience towards the Soul upon this conviction viz. Perswasion or Dissuasion to or from the Act in question if future stirring or comforting the Soul in reference to the Act if past Thy Conscience is that Cart by which thou dost or shouldest steer thy Course in this World towards the other and therefore it is of highest Concernment to have an eye upon it and therefore 1. Learn to furnish it with practical Principles of Truth and Soundness These Principles are for any thing that appears to me extrinsecal to the Soul the Dictates of the Divine Law and Will conveyed into the Conscience either by the immediate Revelation and Demonstration of God unto the Soul thus to Adam in a perfect measure and to those Holy men of God the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles or by the Course and way of his Providence either by unwritten Tradition Rom. 2.15 and this was a more uncertain Dispensation because more easie to be corrupted by the Practices and teachings of Men which were so mingled with it that it was very hard to discover the Wheat from the Chaff so that if we should now go to gather up Principles for the Conscience out of the Practices of Men or Nations or the Collections of humane Laws or Authors we should gather up Principles full of uncertainty contrarieties and inconsistencies among themselves and such of them as had any sound Conformity to truth were so general that several Men or the same Man at several times or upon several occasions would deduce from them a justification of contrary Practices as we see is done among divers Men that admit the same general Principles of Practice and yet upon the same Principles their Consciences when they come to particular Actions act quite contrary one to the other the great and merciful God hath therefore by a wonderful Course of his Providence conveyed unto us a Collection of practical Principles made by himself even the Word of his Truth admirably adequated to our use especially in two things 1. Of their Truth and Infallibility we cannot mistake them for they are the very Revelations of the God of Truth unmingled with the Sophistications and Corruptions of Men Gold seven times tryed 2. Their Particularity and Certainty there is scarce an Action in a Mans whole life but a Man shall find a Rule fitted for it David that had but a part of it and a small and a dark part of it in Comparison of what we have câ—lls it a Perfect Law converting the Soul a sure Testimony making wise the Simple Psal 19.7 a Commandment exceeding all other perfection Psal 119.95 that made him wiser than his Enemies and Teachers Ibid 98. a Word able to make the Man of God peâ—fect throughly furnished to all good Works 2 Tim. 3.17 and though the very words of the Book are full of admirable Truth and Conviction infinitely out-going all the writings of Men yet there is more in it than this even a Promise of a Blessing of it to as many as seriously make it their study and Rule of Life and Faith and a fulfilling of that Promise the Son of God sending his own Spirit along with the use of that Word Life with the Letter into the Soul And this was that which made this Law of God though comprised in a little Volume to be so exceeding wide and precious to David there went along with it and with his Meditation of it a Spirit of Life and Light that shewed him larger Dimensions of it than could be found by the bare strength of his natural Understanding 2. Take leisure upon all thy Actions and purposes to acquaint thy Conscience with them that so thy Conscience may have time to deliberate and to compare it with its Principle the Word of God. Precipitancy and Hastiness in Actions robs the Conscience of that employment which God hath given to it and as it is the Mother of all sin so it brings a double inconvenience to a Man even from his Conscience viz. 1. A deadness and
which was lost in Adam is re-imprinted by him that was the express Image of his Father by the secret transmission of his own pure and operative Spirit into all those that are united unto him and thereby the Will of God is fulfilled Be ye holy for I am holy 1 Pet. 1.16 4. It is necessary as a Preparation or Pre-disposition of the Soul to that everlasting condition of Blessedness which it expects in Heaven the place a holy place Heb. 10.19 an immortal and undefiled Inheritance 1 Pet. 1.4 where nothing that defileth can enter Rev. 21.27 The company an holy company the company of pure Angels and the Spirits of just Men made perfect Heb. 12.22 23. The Business a pure and holy Employment Rev. 19.2 c. The Presence a glorious and holy Presence the Presence of that God that cannot behold any unclean thing whose Name is Holy the Presence of our Mediator who is holy harmless separate from sinners Heb. 7.26 And what congruity can such a Soul have to such a Hope who spends his whole Life in a way quite contrary unto it He therefore that hath this Hope purifieth himself even as he is pure 1 John 3.3 And since all these tâ—ings shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holiness and godly conversation Couldest thou carry thy sinful and impure Heart into Heaven with thee yet thou couldest not see God which is the Heaven of Heaven Matth. 5. the pure in Heart shall see God Heb. 12.14 Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. CHAP. XXV Of the Means of Sanctification and 1. On God's part his Word and his Spirit 2. THE Means whereby this is effected are either properly on God's part or on ours On God's part his Word and his Spirit 1. The Word of God He having to deal with Creatures which he hath endued with Sense and understanding hath been pleased in his Wisdom and Providence to preserve and deliver unto us his written Word whereby the Truths therein contained may be united to our Understanding And this Word as it contains the holy Counsels of the holy God so the Truths therein contained do naturally tend to our Sanctification though of it self as a bare Moral Cause it be not sufficient to effect it in respect of our indisposition and deadness which must have a Spirit of Life to quicken us and make that Word operative upon us Now in respect of the tendency of this Word to our Sanctification and in as much as God is pleased by it to work this work in us therefore often our Sanctification is attributed at least instrumentally to it John 17.17 Sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is truth Psal 19.7 the law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul John 15.3 Now are ye clean through the word that I have spoken All which tend to no more than this that this Word of God contains those Truths in it which being truly known and believed do conform the Soul to the Will of God that Image which he first cast consisting in Righteousness and true Holiness Now the general Truths which this Book Exhibits to us tending to this end are principally two 1. It discovers what that will of God concerning Man is and this it doth two ways 1. By Precepts of most excellent and sound Justice and Reason which are nothing else but the Repetitions of that Law which was at first in our Nature 2. By Examples especially that Example of our Saviour's who was the Image of the invisible God Colos 1.15 and therefore in our imitation of him we re-assume that impression of God's Image which we once lost Now Christ's Life as it was a Meritorious Righteousness so it was an Exemplary Righteousness Matth. 11.29 Learn of me for I am meek John 13.15 For I have given you an Example that ye should do as I have done Ephes 4.13 the measure of his statuâ—e Philip. 2.5 the mind of Christ 2. It discovers a great deal of convincing Reason why we should conform to this Will of God 1. In respect of the Commands themselves it shews their Righteousness Justice and Perfection and that in our conformity to them consists our Perfection 2. In respect of God that commands them 1. It is he requires it that is the Author and Lord of thy Being and thou canst not chuse but infinitely owe what he requires 2. It is he requires it that will not cannot be mocked he is infinitely able to avenge the rebellion of his Creature 3. It is he commands it that hath been a Bountiful Merciful God unto thee that when thou hast incurred his Curse hath provided a Sacrifice to expiate it when thou hast disabled thy self to obey provides a Spirit of his own to assist thee that when thou fallest pities pardons and restores thee and though he owes it not to thee rewards his own Grace and work in thee with an immortal Glory to thee And what natural ingenuity can chuse but ingage to the uttermost expression of his thankfulness to such a God by a most advantageous Obedience 3. In respect of thy self if thou disobey the loss is thy own if thou obey the benefit is thine Deut. 30.15 For I have set before thee Life and Good and Death and Evil. And herein among divers others is the Excellency of the Word of God as it contains Precepts of most singular Purity and evidencing their own Perfection so it inforceth the Obedience upon Reasons of greater strength and more powerful Perswasions than all the Writings of Men ever did or could by annexing Rewards and Punishments of a higher constitution than the divinest Philosophers ever thought of 2. The Spirit of God Hence this work is attributed to the Spirit of God 1 Pet. 1.2 Through Sanctification of the Spirit unto Obedience and this principally these three ways 1. In preparing and disposing the Heart 2. In accompanying and coming in with the Word 3. In following that Work with a continual assistance of direction and strength 1. As to the first viz. the Preparation of the Heart Since the defacing of the Image of God in the Soul our Hearts like the first Creation are without form and void and darkness is upon the face of it till the Spirit of God move upon the face of these Waters Gen. 1.2 a Heart filled with evil thoughts and that continually Gen. 6.5 till this Spirit strive with it Gen. 6.3 a Heart dammed and blocked up with Lusts and Earth and Disorders so that there is no â—ss for Christ till the Spirit of God open it Acts 〈◊〉 â—n obstinate and a hard Heart an iron sinew 〈…〉 of brass Isa 48.4 till the Spirit of the 〈…〉 and a Heart full of madness Eccles 9. 〈…〉 Spirit be chased away and the Heart 〈…〉 Spirit of God. There oftentimes goes a secret disposition and calming of Heart before whereby some external act of the Providence of God which is prepared and
fitted for that occasion strikes effectually upon the Heart and works upon it whether it be an Affliction or a Blessing or a Deliverance or a Word of God. Thus when Nathaniel was under the Fig tree Christ saw him and prepared his Heart to entertain the call of Philip John 1.48 2. The concomitant act of the Spirit of God especially with the Word of God and some other extraordinary acts of his Providence And herein it hath a double work 1. Of Strength to drive on this Word and hence it is called the Sword of the Spirit The Spirit of God is that Arm that manageth this Sword Ephes 6.17 To the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit Heb. 4.12 When thou seest therefore a tumultuous disorderly Heart filled with Pride and obstinacy yet brought upon his Knees by a seemingly weak Admonition Reproof or other passage of the Word of God wonder not at the change for the powerful and mighty Arm of the Spirit of God hath shaken this little dart between the joynts of his harness even into the midst of his Soul. What ailed thee O thou Sea that thou fleddest c. Tremble thou Earth at the presence of the Lord at the presence of the God of Jacob Psal 114.5.2 Of Life to go along with it into the Spirit of a Man John 6.63 The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life The passage between the Sense and the Spirit of a Man is of a great distance and full of many turnings and hence the words of Men for the most part die and lose their efficacy before they come at the Spirit of a Man sometimes they die in the Ear sometimes they get into the Brain and die there in a Speculation sometimes they strike a little but yet live not long there for the words have no Life in them But with this Word there goes a Life which goes along with it even to the uttermost corner of thy Soul even thy Spirit and there it continues alive 1 John 3.9 His seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin and hence it is that the Commands of God even to us that are dead are not incongruous when God pleaseth that his Work shall be wrought in the Heart for a Spirit of Life goes along with the Command even to the penetralia animae John 5.25 The time is that the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live And as thus the Spirit of God carries the Word of God with Life and Vigour into the choicest parts of the Soul so doth it with all other Dispensations of Divine Providence If thou hast an outward Blessing given thee it will along with the Sense of thy Blessing carry in the Sense of the Goodness of God and teach thee Thankfulness and Moderation If an Affliction it will get along into thy Soul with that Affliction and teach thee to examine thy self and to search and try thy ways and having discovered thy sin it will teach thee Humiliation and Repentance and if upon thy search thou find thine Integrity yet it will teach thee Humility Thankfulness Contentedness Dependance upon God it will with every Dispensation of Providence go along with it into thy Soul and carry that message with it that God by this his Dispensation intends to send thee And thus it is a Sanctifying Spirit by way of concomitance with the Word and Providence 3. The Spirit of God sanctifies the Heart by its own immediate and Continual Assistance It contests with thy daily Temptations that are from without and conquers them and with thy hourly Corruptions that are within thee and wasts and subdues them In the midst of thy Difficulties it will be thy Counsellor a secret voice behind thee saying This is the way walk in it In the midst of thy Temptations it will be thy Strength and a Grace sufficient for thee In the midst of thy Troubles it will be thy Light and thy Comfort In the midst of thy Corruptions it will be thy Cleanser a Spirit of burning to consume those swarms of Lusts that cover and fill thy Heart In thy Failings and Falls it will be thy Remembrancer and teach thee to repent and humble thy self This was that Monitor that furnished Joseph with an answer to a most importunate and advantageous Temptation How shall I do this great wickedness and sin against God Gen. 39.9 that furnished Job with silencing Answers to all those temptations to Insolence Pride Self-confidence and Injustice Job 9.1 that after David's Sin smote David's Heart before David's Heart smote him and taught him Confession and Sorrow and to beg a Pardon 2 Sam. 24.10 Only beware thou neglect not the Voice of this Spirit of God It may be thy neglect may quench it and thou mayest never hear that Voice more or at least it will certainly grieve it and canst thou think of grieving that Spirit without a Tear which is content to descend into thy impure polluted Heart to make it a Heart fitted for Glory Thy folly is great and thy ingratitude greater When God speaks once and twice and Man perceives him not Job 33.14 it sometimes falls out that he never speaks to that Man more Ephraim is set upon Idols let him alone Hos 4.17 and that is the saddest Condition in the World but if he do his Mercy will be a severe Mercy he will speak louder Job 33.22 when the still Voice is not heard his Soul draweth near to the grave and his Life to the destroyers The observation of the secret Admonition and Reasonings of the Spirit of God in the Heart as it is an effectual means so it is a calm and a comfortable means to cleanse and sanctifie thy Heart and the â—oâ—eâ—itâ—i attended unto the more it will be conversant with thy Soul for thy Instruction Strength and Comfort Prov. 6.22 When thou goest it shall lead thee when thou sleepest it shall keep thee and when thou awakest it shall talk with thee CHAP. XXVI Of the Means of Sanctification 2. On Man's part viz. Faith Love Fear Hope ON our part the Instruments of our Sanctification are those supernatural acts or habits of the Soul wrought by the finger of God Faith Hope and Love. 1. Faith Acts 15.9 God also purifying their Hearts by Faith. And this it doth as it is an Act receiving into the Soul the Word of God and subscribing to the Truth and Goodness of it receving it not as the word of Man but as the Word of the just and true God. 1. It therein finds and believes the great Debt of Duty that the Creature owes to his Creator What can be unjust for God to require of that Being which he gave and made As the Gift of a Being is an infinite Gift because it is an infinite Motion there being no greater disproportion imaginable than between not being and being so the engagement of Obedience and Conformity from that Creature to the Will and good Pleasure of
its Author is infinite and boundless by all the Justice that can be 2. Faith doth find in that Word a farther ingagement of Conformity and Obedience if a farther may be in that it finds the immense overflowing Love of God to Man It is that Love that did at first furnish him with those Excellencies of his Nature with that greater excellency his image and Superscription It is that Love that upholds his temporal Being and blesseth it It is that love that when he was lost sent a Sacrifice and a Righteousness for him whereby he is not only pardoned from his Guilt and Curse but restored to Glory and immortality And this it doth truly and really believe and is thereby convinced that there is a greater obligation than that of his Nature to live conformable to the Will and Mind of so unspeakable a Benefactor 3. Faith doth find in this Word of God his Mind and Will and believes it to be that very Rule the conformity whereunto is well pleasing and acceptable to God. Mic. 6.8 and what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God It looks upon every Admonition Exhortation Reprehension and Direction as the very immediate Message of God unto the Soul and entertains it with the same awe and reverence as if it were audibly delivered in Thunder and trembles at it and therefore it receives it in the power and Life of it and in the uttermost compass and extent of it it will not take this part as most consonant to thy Temper Condition Designs Constitution or Ends and reject another part where it crosseth them because it is equally the Will and Command of the great God and so received 4. Faith finds in this Word the Rectitude Justice and Regularity of the Will of God concerning Man they are not only just as proceeding from him to whom his Creature owes an infinite Obedience as was the Command to Adam for forbearing the forbidden Fruit or to Abraham to sacrifice his Son but Faith finds in these Commands a natural Justice and Reasonableness and Perfection and concludes with David Psal 19. That his Statutes are right and his Commands pure such as include in themselves a natural and absolute Beauty and such as confer upon the Creature a Perfection and Happiness such as are exactly conformable to thy Nature were thy Nature conformable to it self for as the Rule or Law that God hath given to every Creature is that wherein consists its Beauty Preservation and Perfection according to the degree wherein it is placed and therefore every Creature labours according to its own Nature to continue in that Rule and when it misseth it it contracts Deformity and Corruption so the Divine Law or Command of God given to Man is that wherein consists his Perfection as being a Rule most exactly conformable to the reasonable Nature of Man sin hath deformed and blinded us that we cannot now see that Perfection and Excellency that is in our Conformity to his Will and hath perverted and corrupted us that as we are in this corrupted condition we cannot desire it but when God is pleased to anoint our eyes with the Eye-salve of Faith and presents this Glass this image of his mind in his Word unto that Eve Faith again discerns and discerning cannot chuse but desire that Beauty Perfection and Rectitude which is there discovered in the Commands of God and the conformity of the Soul to the â—ame 5. Faith doth find in that Word and finding it doth most assuredly believe the Presence of the Glorious and infinite God in every place even in the darkest and most remote Corners and Chambers of the Heart searching weighing and discerning the Spirit every thought of the Heart every word of the Tongue every action of the Life and measuring them exactly with the Rule that he hath given and this keeps the Heart in a continual awe of the Presence of God purgeth out all Hypocrisie sets a continual Watch upon the whole Man lays a Bridle upon the very thoughts and brings them into subjection to this Rule because that clear and pure and severe eye of the Great and Infinite God searcheth the most retired thoughts of the Heart and observes what conformity they hold with his most Just and Reasonable Command 6. Faith finds in this Word of God and doth more really and practically believe that that great God which hath given us his Will and is a witness to the Obedience and Disobedience of it hath most certainly annexed an everlasting Curse to the Disobedience of it so it hath most certainly annexed an everlasting Glory to the Obedience thereunto not as the merit of it but as the free and bountiful gift of his Goodness and Mercy in Jesus Christ And it finds and believes the Truth and Faithfulness and Glory and Power of the Infinite God there engaged for the performance of it and therefore it binds the Heart to the Obedience of this Will of God and Conformity unto it which is our Sanctification Thus the word mingled with Faith cleanseth and sanctifieth and perfecteth and purifieth the Heart and Life And as thus in Man God useth this instrument on Mans part to sanctifie his Creature and make him conformable to himself so Secondarily upon this Act of Faith upon the Word of God as its Object the Heart is likewise cleansed by Fear Hope and Love by way of emanation from this Act of Faith. Love Fear and Hope are those several Motions or Affections of the Soul that arise from the same Act of Faith only as Faith is diversified according to those different Objects apprehended by Faith or according to the different Notions Relations or Actions of the same Object as for instance God apprehended in his Goodness Love and Bounty moves our Love towards him as apprehended in his Glory Majesty Power and Justice excites Fear as apprehended in his Faithfulness Truth and Promises begets Hope and each of these Affections thus directed do habituate and dispose the Soul and Life to a religious frame and Constitution which is our Sanctification as will appear in these particulars 1. The Love of God this is that true Principle of all true Obedience where it is not the Obedience is a dead and unacceptable Obedience for God that is a Spirit and will be worshipped in Spirit and Truth will be obeyed likewise in Spirit and Truth and the outward Conformity without this is but a dead Obedience and Hypocrisie and where it is it will work a Conformity of the Heart and Life to the mind of God upon which it is pitched and therefore it is called the First and Great Commandment Matth. 22.51 the fulfilling of the Law because when it is once wrought in the Heart whatsoever it can discover to be agreeable to the Will of him that she loves it will most sincerely and intirely obey John 14.15.24 If ye love me keep my Commandments he that loveth
unseemly a return is this for so much Love and Goodness as thou hast received how canst thou come in thy Prayers in thy Hopes in thy Dependance to that God whom against the bonds of ordinary Gratitude thou art now offending how canst thou ever expect to have the light and favour of his Countenance whom contrary to all thy engagements of Duty and Covenant thou art now about to injure canst thou profess thou lovest him whom thou darest to abuse to disobey even to his Face 3. Hope the Word of God hath promised in Christ Glory and immortality and the sight of himself to those that are pure in Heart Matth. 5.8 This truth contained in these Promises is received and entertained in the Heart by Faith and as the Motion of the Heart towards an absent but a possible and expected Good is Hope so it is here it is the Motion of the Soul arising upon Faith as it presents the truth of that Blessedness which wâ— do not yet but shall enjoy and this Motion of the Soul purifieth the Heart 1 John 3.3 He that haâ— this hope purifieth himself even as he is pure and bring the Heart and Life to Obedience Psal 119.1 6. I have hoped in thy Salvation and done thy Commanâ—ments Our love of God makes our Obedience sincere our fear of him makes our obedience awful and reverent our hope in him makes our obedience chearful Rom. 15.13 Patient Rom. 8.25 Constant Heb. 3.6 and Active Phil. 3.15 Pressing oâ— to the price of the high calling of God in Christ This was that that made Moses rather chuse Afflictions than the Pleasure of sin for a Season for he had an eye to the recompence of reward Heb. 11.26 which carried our Redeemer with choice and Victory through the Cross and shame for the joy that was set before him Heb. 12.2 Now this affection thus fixed and acted purifieth the Heart and Life upon these Considerations 1. It presents a Man with an expectation of an everlasting blesâ—d Station in the Presence of the most holy God and this works an endeavour of a present Conformity of his Mind and Life to that condition which it eâ—pects to enjoy everlastingly hereafter No Man 〈◊〉 hope for that which he desires not for the presâ— to enjoy he that hopes for an eternal Life in Holinâ— will thrust himself into as much of it as he câ— while he lives here and will consider how unbâ—coming any sin is of him who lives in a câ—tinued hope of enjoying a condition free from 〈◊〉 2. Hope doth link the Soul to the thing it hoâ— for which is of so great worth Glory and 〈◊〉 â—pectation that it carries the Soul through all â—ficulties to the attaining of it it makes 〈◊〉 which is future in Fruition present in appreâ—sion and thereby masters all those evils of Sense that actually come in the way and thus it lifteth up the Soul above all the present inconveniencies that may accompany or interrupt her way to Glory Thy Creator hath chalked thee out a way to walk in and it is true it is a narrow way and thou art cloathed with flesh and blood which cannot inherit the Kingdom of God the way will be grievous and troublesome unto it thou must deny thy self cut off thy right hand pluck out thy right eye thou must learn to unlove nay to hate those things wherein thy corrupted Nature most delights and take up thy Cross and follow thy Saviour and thy way is not only narrow and unpleasant to thy Nature but thou shalt find it it may be strawed with Afflictions with Temptations with Scorns with Poverty Wants Persecutions nay with the loss of Life it self and yet on thou must go and must not draw back for then thy Labour is all lost But here is that which will bear thee up through all the difficulties though thou art laden with the burden of thy own Flesh and Corruptions and art ready to slip upon every Temptation yet thou art not alone but thy Saviour stands by thee to bear thy burden to take thee by the hand to lift thee up from thy falls to support thee with his Grace which he hath promised shall be sufficient for thee to accept thy endeavours and to pitty and pardon and recover thy relapses Though thou dost loose and irrecoverably let go many Contentments Pleasures and external advantages yet thou seest with thee in the Promise and before thee in thy hope that which will abundantly recompence all thy losses even Pleasures at his right hand for ever Though thy journey be troublesome yet it is not long thy home thy Fathers house is in thine eye where thou mayst see thy Saviour preparing a place for thee and a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory which will sweeten thy light Afflictions which are but for a moment 2 Cor. 4.17 CHAP. XXVII Of the Extent and Degrees of Sanctification 3. WE come to consider the Extent or Degrees of it what it is or should and may be in this Life We find in the Book of God mention of perfect Men and Men of perfect Hearts Noah Gen. 6.9 Abraham Gen. 17.1 Job 1.8 David 1 Kings 9.4 14.8 Asa 1 Kings 15.14 and yet those several Men had their several Sins and Faults recorded in the same Book We find Psal 37.37 a perfect Man and yet Eccles 7.20 not a just Man that doth good and sinneth not Paul Ephes 4.12 13. tells us of a growing up to a perfect Man to the Measure of the stature of Christ and yet the same Paul Rom. 7.14 complains of himself to be carnal sold under sin The same S. John that 1 John 3.9 saith That he that is born of God sinneth not tells us 1 John 1.8 that if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us 2 Cor. 13.11 Finally brethren be perfect We are therefore to consider wherein this Perfection of our Sanctification consisteth not and wherein it consisteth The Perfection required of us and which we may and must attain is an Evangelical Perfection which though it be not perfect yet is accepted of God in Christ 1. Sincerity and Integrity of Heart Jerem. 24.7 They shall return to me with their whole heart The Sanctification required of us is not only a Sanctification of our external Actions those are but the fruits of Sanctification of the Man for as any act is therefore 〈◊〉 because it is but the production of that sin which is â—st in the Heart so is any action therefore holy because it proceeds from a holy and a sanctified motion of the Heart otherwise it is but Hypocrisie This Intâ—y of Heart was Noah's David's â—sa's Perfection it was Enoch's walking with God. When a Man 〈◊〉 with an humble confidence bring his Service his Words and Actions in the presence of God clearly with such a Confession as this O Lord I know that my Heart is deceitful above all who can know it and I know that I
am an unclean things and all my righteousnesses are as filthy rags Isa â—â— 6 and my own Heart tells me that even to my most exact observance there be secret adheâ— of sin and defect and how much more are thâ— in thy sight who seest through every cranny of the Soul and therefore thou mayest justly reject them yet O Lord thou knowest that that little good that is in them proceeds from an upright Heart from an unfeigned desire to obey thee that it is my Hearts desire and my hearty and daily endeavour to serve thee better that it is the sorrow and gâ—f of my Heart that my returns of obedience and conformity unto thee are so infinite short of what I every way owe unto thee I do not content my self with these loose and half performances that I make before thee and though I see my best obedience gives me daily occasions of repentance yet I will not give over but what I want in my own strength I will beg thy Grace to perfect and thy Mercy to accept according to what I have and to pardon what I want 2 Cor. 8.12 and since I have prepared my Heart to seek the Lord God the good Lord pardon me though I am not cleansed according to the purification of thy Sanctuary 2 Chron. 30.19 2. An over-matching of the Power of Sin by the Power of Sanctifying Grace It is true that in the best Condition we can arrive unto in this World there is with us a body of Sin and Death as well as a Principle of Holiness and Life Rom. 7.24 a lusting of the Flesh against the Spirit as well as of the Spirit against the Flesh Gal. 5.17 a wrestling against Flesh and Blood actuated by Principalities and Powers Ephes 6.12 But where God is pleased to begin this work in the Heart though it never arrives to the abolition of sin yet it ever ariseth to a Victory over it Rom. 6.15 Sin shall not have dominion over you because you are not under the Law but under Grace And now as where there is but one degree of heat in any subject more than there is of cold though that subject be not perfectly hot but there is a mixture of cold in every atom of it yet is denominated from the predominate quality so this Man though he be not exactly conformable to the exact Rule of Righteousness and therefore could not in the severe Justice of God be accepted but that rigorous course of the Law would lay hold upon him Gal. 3.10 Cursed be every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them which Book of the Law required a Love of God with all the Heart Might and Soul and that not only all that Heart Might and Soul which a Man now hath but which a Man once had and by his own fault hath lost and therefore that Law being weak through the Flesh Rom. 8.2 that is meeting with an impotency in us exactly to fulfil it became rather a Law of Death than Life yet when Christ came into the World and brought with him a perfect Righteousness of his own whereby to justifie us in the presence of God he did likewise by an Eternal Covenant of Peace with the Father stipulate for an acceptation of this imperfect Righteousness of ours which is wrought in us by his Grace and Spirit So that as the Righteousness of Christ the Lord our Righteousness which was perfect in Degrees was by the acceptation of the Father made our Justification so the Righteousness which is begun in us here by his Grace though mingled with our own defects is accepted by God with a Promise of increase of our Glory And the same Christ that hath fulfilled a perfect Righteousness for our Justification doth continually by his own Spirit begin and support a true though imperfect Righteousness in us to our Sanctification and helps against and pardons our many infirmities and defects as he hath promised Jer. 3.12 Return thou back-sliding Israel saith the Lord and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you Jer. 31.19 Surely 〈◊〉 I was turned I repented Is Ephraim my dear 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 a pleasant child for since I spake against him I do 〈◊〉 remember him still Isa 42.3 A bruised reed shall â—e nâ—t break and smoaking flax shall he not quench Isa â—â— 11 He shall â—ed his flâ—ck like a shepherd he shall gather 〈…〉 with his 〈◊〉 and carry them in his bosom and shall gerth lead thâ—se that are with young Hos 11.3 〈◊〉 Ephraim also to go taking them by the arm Which several expressions shew 1. The Original of that initiate Righteousness in us even the Grace of God in Christ continually by degrees mastering our corruptions and in some measure conforming us unto him â— His Tenderness towards those small inceptions of his Grace in us cherishing and encouraging 〈◊〉 His Mercy and Goodness accepting of our sincerity and pardoning our weakness And this is that Evangelical Perfection of our Righteousness and Sanctification here And from this Advantage that the Grace of God hath over our Perfections do arise these four Consequents of it 1. Universality of Obedience 2. Constancy in it 3. Growth and increase in it 4. Renewing of our Repentance all which as they are the gifts of God so they do naturally flow from the over-matching of our Corruptions by Grace as appears in these Particulars 1. Vniversality of Obedience The Heart wherein the Grace of God hath over-matched his sinful Nature cannot allow it self in any known Sin or any known neglect of any one Command but hath respect to all God's Commandments Psal 119.6 Whosoever shall keep the whole yet if he offend in one point he is guilty of all James 2.10 The Grace of God and Sin are universally opposite one to another and as they are so in the abstract so are they in the concrete Where Sin hath an advantage in the Soul it doth oppose universally the whole Will of God and where Grace is in the Soul it doth oppose the whole will of Sin and therefore where any one Sin or neglect of any one Command of God is entertained knowingly and advisedly in the Soul there the Grace of God hath not the upper hand for the same Principle by which it acts viz. the Love of God equally engageth the Soul to every Duty and against every Sin according to the measure of Knowledge that is commmunicated to the Soul. 2. Constancy and Perseverance The change that is wrought in our Nature it is true is not in the essence of it but it is the presence of the Grace of Christ in the Heart that preserves and upholds the Heart and Life in Holiness and Righteousness If that could be withdrawn or intermitted we should like the Iron removed from the Fire soon return to our ancient Nature again but that great God whose presence alone supports all the things in Heaven and Earth in their being and
operations and whose Gifts and Callings are without Repentance hath promised to be with us to the end of the World He cannot sin because his sâ—â—d abideth in him 1 John 3.9 It is true there may be intermissions of the acting of Grace in the Heart and there may be falls in the Life but to be given over to a course of sin without repentance to be brought under the power and dominion of Sin as a King or a Ruler the Honour and Truth of God is engaged in it it shall not be 2 Thes 3.3 The Lord is faithful who shall stablish you John â—0 28 Nâ—er shall any man pluck them out of my hand Rom. 6.14 Sin shall not have dominion over you for 〈…〉 under the Law but under Grace And these Promises of God cannot make the Heart of any one to whom they truly belong any whit the more careless or loose in his watch over himself for that very Spirit whereby those Promises are sealed to us is an active vigilant pure Spirit and puts the Heart and Life upon those Practices that do naturally and properly conduce to this very Perseverance viz. Assiduity in Duties Humble and Watchful walking before God Examination and search of the state of our Souls and Lives Jealousie over the Treachery of our own Hearts and the snares that are within us and without us a Guard upon our Affections and Senses a frequent Consideration of the Will of God of his Goodness to us in Christ of the Price wherewith we are bought of the Hope whereunto we are redeemed and all those other helps that conduce to the settling and stablishing of our Hearts and Lives in a Conformity to the Will of God and in avoiding of all those things which are contrary thereunto and consequently as contraries do would impair corrupt and destroy that Life of Grace which he hath begun in us And from hence ariseth 3. An Increase and Growth in a more exact Conformity to the Will of God than formerly This is that which is so often commended unto us by the Spirit of God Colos 2.7 Rooted and built up in him Colos 4.12 Compleat in all the will of God Phil. 1.9 that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment 1 Cor. 15.58 abounding in the work of the Lord Heb. 13.21 make you perfect in good works to do his will Phil. 3.13 forgetting what is past and reaching forth to the things that are before Ephes 4.13 growing to a perfect man 2.16 increase of the body 2 Pet. 3.17 beware lest ye fall from your own stedfastness but grow in grace Jude 20. building up your selves in your most holy faith Prov. 4.18 Increasing more and more unto the perfect day John 15.2 Every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit And as this is the Will of God so it is as naturally the effect of this Life that is wrought in the Heart as it is the effect of natural Life in the Body for it is an active and operative Life If any quality have got the mastery in a mixt Body it doth ever more and more by degrees waste and consume the contrary qualities and assimulates the whole unto it self And although as long as our Flesh hangs about us it is impossible that a compleat and absolute conquest can be wrought of all that Sin that is in us because it is a spring of Corruption yet it is wasted weakned and decayed By this work of Grace Saul's House waxeth weaker and weaker Every habit though it be moral or natural only receiveth an augmentation and degrees by its continual actings And the Grace of God which is more operative and active in the Heart than any habit can be for it is accompanied with the immediate Power and Efficacy of the Divine Spirit never stands still but like the little Leven that was hid in the great quantity of Meal it never gives over till the whole be leavened 4. Renewed Repentance Thy corrupt Nature is a Body of Sin and Death a spring of Corruption that will ever cast up mire and dirt and Grace in thy Heart is a spring of living Waters that as often as that corrupts will be washing it again When thou hast made the chamber of thy Heart as clean as thou canst yet there will be leaks in it that will let in Corruptions enough quickly to make it as foul as ever Grace by the continual examination of thy self humbling of thy Heart before God renewing thy Covenant with him doth not only pump out the filth that would poyson and drown and dam thee but stops the decays and leaks of this thy infirm Vessel When the Grace of God at first found thee thou wast dead in trespasses and sins and it came into thee and by Repentance did exercise its own act of Life to quicken thee And that same Body of Death that did at first inclose thee is still about thee and takes all opportunities to get its old mastery of thee and by this means thou catchest many a fall and bruise but that same Life by which thou livest re-acts against those inroads of sin and death and doth conquer them so that though thy renewed sins are not thy ruine yet they ought to be thy burden though they must not make thee despair yet they cannot chuse but make thee mourn though thy Saviour hath born their Guilt yet it is but equal thou shouldest bear thy shame When thou hadst no Life in thee thou couldest not feel thy self dead But now thou hast Life in thee thou canst not chuse but be sensible of thy sickness and thy hurts which thy own folly have occasioned and judge and condemn and avoid that Folly of thine that occasioned it Though thou canst not be rid of thy sins that fight against thy Life yet thou wilt not entertain them with better Entertainment than Bread of Affliction and Water of Affliction Though thou canst not expiate for any of them yet thou canst not look upon them without indignation as Traytors against thy Life and thy Peace thou canst not look upon thy self without loathing and detestation thou canst not look unto Christ without shame and confusion that one that he hath redeemed from so great a Misery with so great a Price to so great a nearness as to be a member of himself a partaker of his Spirit a Co-heir of his Glory should so unworthily so unthankfully in his sight dishonour his Head and pollute himself Thou canst not look upon what is past without Repentance nor upon what is to come without a Resolution of more Vigilance and keeping a better Guard upon thy self And yet in the midst of all these thy perplexed thoughts thou canst not chuse but admire and bless that Mercy of Christ that when thou deniest him looks back upon thee as once on Peter and with that look sends in a Messenger that makes thee go by thy self and bewail thy Relapse that leaves
to him but he is but what he was before he had it and when he loseth it will be what he was before he left it in all points save meerly outside and vulgar opinion He looks upon himself under the Beauty of his external Ornaments as a little Clay drest up in Gallantry that that may more justly make him proud that made it than him that wears it that alters not the Soul or Body that is under it nor is become part of it he looks upon his Strength or Beauty or temperature of Body as that which a few years will lay in the Dust and the Worms will master it as that which is not able to contest with the least Distemper either within it or without it and yet the good that is in it while it lasts is but a borrowed good He looks upon his Knowledge Vnderstanding and Wisdom as that which is infinitely short of what it was or what it might be the most that we know being infinitely short of what we know not and what we should know that his increase of Knowledge is but an increase of his Account an aggravation of those sins which would be of lesser magnitude had they not been committed against a greater Light that the most of what we know and that makes up the most of Men great in their own conceits is that which will be utterly unuseful after this life Of what use will those Volumes of Learning concerning Human Laws Physicks the Mathematicks Natural Philosophy and the Knowledge of the Contemperation of mixt Bodies be when the Earth with the works thereof shall be burnt up Political dispensations shall cease either the things shall not continue and so the knowledge of them be useless or the truth shall be more compendiously and clearly discovered to us and so the Labour to acquire them unnecessary It looks upon the best practical Habits or Actions it doth as things that need an expiation rather than deserving a reward it finds in it self a little small Grain of Gold in them but so covered and stifled with dross and filth that that which is good is scarce worth the accepting Finally he looks upon nothing as his own but the sin of his Nature that hath stained and polluted the sin of his Life that makes him odious in the Presence of God the sin of his Services as that which adulterates and spoyls them and whatsoever is useful or comfortable in his external Accessions whatsoever is beautiful in his Body or Soul he looks upon as anothers not as his and blesseth him for it carries the glory to him takes upon himself the shame and abhorrence of his own Deformities and magnifies the patience of his Creator in sparing him and his bounty in lending to him whatsoever of good he finds in himself or any way belonging to him And out of this right and sober judgment concerning himself and the reflection of the mind thereupon spring those Vertues of Humility Meekness Gentleness Patience Moderation Contentedness Thankfulness Quietness whereby a Man entertains all the Dispensations of God with such a frame and Temper of Spirit as he expects In thy addresses to God it will teach thee Lowliness and Reverence remembring thee of thy own Vileness and his Perfection and that infinite distance between thee a Man a sinful Man and Him the great and glorious God Gen. 18.27 Now I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord that am but Dust and Ashes Luk. 18.13 the Publican standing a far off would not lift up his eyes to Heaven In the midst of Blessings either of this Life or that to come it will teach thee Admiration and Thankfulness 2 Sam. 7.18 What am I O Lord and what is my Fathers house that thou hast brought me hitherto Psal 8.4 When I consider the Heavens c. What is Man that thou art mindful of him that a sinful Man that owes so much to God and performs so little should receive such Blessings such Mercies and such Bounty from the hand of an injured God. In the midst of the severest Afflictions it will teach thee Patience and Quietness of mind and Contentedness when the Soul shall sit down and consider it self and justifie yea and magnifie God in this very dealing with her O Lord by that light that thou hast lent me I do see my self and therein behold nothing of my own but Deformity and Rebellion against thee unthankfulness and vileness and now I eat but the Fruit of my own ways and thou art just when thou judgest Nay thou dealest not with me according to the severest Rule of Justice thou hast punished me less than mine iniquities deserve Ezra 9.13 I have forfeited all unto thee but thou hast not taken all from me I have deserved that thy whole fury should be poured out upon me but thou hast afflicted me in measure thou hast left me my life thou hast left me my hope thou hast left me some Light of thy Countenance which is better than my Life thou hast left me Liberty and Encouragement to pour out my Soul before thee and dost entertain it if thou hadst deprived me of all this yet thou hadst not been unjust and in that thou hast left me these or any of these or any other mercy thou art gracious Nay more than all this I find in that very thing wherein thy hand lyeth heaviest upon me a mercy and that thou hast afflicted me in very faithfulness Psal 119.75 in love Rev. 3.19 and for my profit and advantage Heb. 12.10 that I should not be condemned with the World 1 Cor. 11.32 my heart began to grow wanton to be lingring too much after the World to be taken up too much with Vanity and things that must perish to me and I to them I began to grow confident upon my Wit my Wealth my Power to grow negligent cold and careless in my Duty to thee in my Dependance upon thee in my Obedience to thee The Consolations of God the Presence of my Saviour my Life by Faith my hope of Glory began to grow small unto me Job 15.11 And this I plainly see was the state of my Soul and therefore I desire to receive these thy Afflictions not only as Punishments but as Medicines as Messages as well of thy care of me and thy mercy to me as of thy Justice upon me that they may not only be an exercise of my Patience but an Object of my Thankfulness of my Joyfulness that they may not only be a conviction of thy Detestation of my sin but a pledge of thy Love to my Person I shall therefore endeavour to bear thy hand as becomes me with Patience because I deserve them with Thankfulness because they are moderate and with Comfort because they are thy Ministers sent me for my good and as I shall thus learn to entertain them so I shall endeavour to use and improve them to that end thou sendest them to take me off from the World to bring me
Business of thy Soul or if thou hast who can tell whether that deceitful World which hath robbed thee of that time which was due to anothers Business may not with much more ease harden thy Heart and take up the whole time of thy Life though thou shouldest live many ages But if thou devote the first and choicest of thy endeavours to thy great Concernment grant that the residue of thy Life be not sufficient for thy Provisions for thy self or thy Posterity in this World thy exchange is happy thou hast secured an everlasting weight of Glory a Kingdom immortal and undefiled that fadeth not away in that time wherein perhaps thou mightest or it may be thou mightest not have gotten some small temporal Provision which by this time thou art ready to leave and thy immortal Soul left in an anxious unsatisfied unsafe Condition But this is not all though the gain of Eternity would infinitely over-weigh the loss of those Temporals which it may be in this time thou mightest have gotten yet thou must know thou servest such a Master that whilst thou obeyest him in seeking thy chiefest good in the chiefest place will not only give thee that Eternity which thou thus seekest but will add unto thee the things of this Life which yet thou neglectest And whiles he gives thee that great and everlasting Treasure which he commands thee to seek will not deprive thee of the Conveniences of this World though thou seekest them not All these things shall be added unto you And here learn a compendious and safe way of getting the external Conveniences of the World if thou labour first to be rich thou mayest lose thy labour and miss of being what thou labourest to be but thou art sure or at least likely to miss of being happy but if thou first endeavour after Peace with God in Christ thou art sure to attain Blessedness hereafter and shalt not want a convenient Competency here 2. As in the Order so in the Seasons or Times of seeking after Wealth when a Man shall encroach upon those times which either by the Command or Dispensation of God or thy own voluntary Consecrations are dedicated to the service of God or of his Neighbour It were but equal if he that is the Lord of our Times and of our Lives should require all our Time in his own immediate Service but when he allows us unto our own occasions the greatest part of our time wherein we may do all that we have to do and requires a small portion of our time for his immediate service and that also for our own everlasting advantage it is the highest sacriledge to God and injury to our selves to steal that from him which while we do it we rob our selves I thank God I ever found that in the strictest observation of the times of his Worship I ever met with the best Advantage to my worldly Occasions and that when ever my worldly Occasions incroached upon those times I ever met with disappointment though in things of the most hopeful and probable success And ever let it be so with me It hath been and ever shall be to me a Conviction beyond all Argument and Demonstration whatsoever That God expects the observation of his Times and that whilst I find my self thus dealt with God hath not given over his care of me It would be a sad presage unto me of the severe anger of my Maker if my inadvertence should cast me upon a temporal Undertaking upon his Day and that it should prosper The End of Wealth is to supply the Exigence of our Nature in Food and Raiment and when God did in an extraordinary way supply the latter without the assistance of the former to the Israelites by Manna the seventh Day was without Manna and the sixth Day supplied that defect with a double proportion Exod. 16.29 And I shall never doubt but the same Providence will in the six days of the Week improve my Endeavours one in seven though I rest upon a seventh day from my own Occasions for The earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof and it is he that gives power to get Wealth Isa 58.13 If thou turn thy foot from the sabbatb from doing thy pleasure upon my holy day and call the sabbath a delight the holy of the Lord honourable and shalt honour him not doing thine own ways nor finding thine own pleasure nor speaking thine own words then shalt thou delight thy self in the Lord and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it Blessed Lord that requires but a portion of our time and that also for our own advantage and whilst thou thereby dost improve our everlasting Blessedness thou dost not deny our temporal Benefit but dost make even that portion of time that we spend in thy service an improvement of the rest of our time for our temporal Advantage And what we say concerning that portion of our time which we sequester to God from our outward Occasions the same we may say concerning that portion of our Wealth or Estate which we give either to his service or by his command When thou denyest either thou mayest look for much and it may come to little when thou bringest it home he will blow upon it Haggai 1.9 That which is detained from works of Piety or Charity will eat holes in thy Bag and let out it self and the rest which had it been daily bestowed it would have preserved the rest and returned with increase Malachi 3.10 Bring all the tithes into the store-house that there may be meat in my house and prove me now herewith saith the Lord of hosts if I will not open unto you the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it Prov. 28.27 He that giveth to the poor shall not lack Prov. 19.17 He that hath pitâ— on the poor lendeth unto the Lord and that which he hath given will he pay him again Thou owest all thou hast to thy Maker and if thou shouldest give him all thou hast thou givest him but his own 1 Chron. 29.14 He calls to thee but for a part of what he hath lent thee and yet he is pleased so far to accept thy chearful obedience herein that he is pleased to become thy debtor even for that which thou owest him This is thy honour and this will be thy profit thou shalt receive thy Loan with advantage I can safely and without vanity say I have hitherto found this Truth exactly fulfilled In those Weeks and Years wherein I have thus sowed sparingly I have even in Temporals reaped sparingly and I ever found when my hand was most liberal I never lost by it but found a return an hundred fold more than my expence And the Bread that I have thus cast upon the Waters I found it within a
every particular Action and Occasion of our Lives in reference to others These are principally two viz. that of Matth. 22.39 taken out of Leviticus 19.18 and again enforced by the Apostle Rom. 3.9 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self and that other which is but a repetition of the former in different words Matth. 7.12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets It is a certain Rule and easily applicable to every Action of our Lives because if a Man will not wilfully blind himself he is able to judge whether the Action he now doth or resolveth be such as he would be contented should be done to him were the Persons and conditions changed And because these two great Rules are the best and clearest direction of our Consciences and the Conscience is not regular where it is not conformable to these Rules we shall examine them more particularly Then as to the first Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self wherein we must take this word Neighbour as our Saviour himself expounds it that it includes every Person of what Relation or Condition soever though a Person is my Enemy therefore Matth. 5.43 our Saviour confutes that false Gloss of the Jewish Masters that did contradistinguish a Neighbour to an Enemy and tells us that an Enemy is to be the Object of our Love and Beneficence Luke 10.33 a Jew and a Samaritane between whom there was not only a kind of civil and national Enmity but an Hatred grounded upon difference in Religion in so much that the Jews could not use a more bitter reproach against our Saviour than to stile him a Samaritan John 8.48 yet these were within the comprehension of this Command So that whatsoever he be whether knit unto me in any relation or not nay though extreamly contrary unto me either in civil Enmity or in Religion yet such a Person is the subject of this Command This being premised these things are evidently consequent upon this Command 1. That every Man is bound to love himself 2. That every Man is bound to love another as he loves himself 1. Concerning the former it is certainly a Duty and if it were not a Man might easily elude this Precept for if I might hate my self the rule and measure of my Love to my Neighbour were lost therefore a Love to my self is implicitly injoyned in this Precept of our Saviour as well as in the Inclination of Nature Ephes 5.29 No man ever hated his own flesh but the Errors of Self-love are that which our Saviour elsewhere so often reproves 1. When a Man mistakes and esteems that himself which indeed is not when a Man takes that for an Eye or a Hand or a Foot viz. parts of himself which indeed are not Matth. 5.29 When a Man shall make the lust of his Eye as dear as his Eye and the corruption of his Hand as dear as his Hand to these our Saviour commands cruelty to be shewn to be cut off and pulled out when a Man shall mistake that old Man that is in him to be himself which is to be put off and crucified Ephes 4.22 and shall take those to be members of himself which are members of the old Man which are not to be loved but mortified Colos 3.5 Such is the disorder and corruption of our Nature that we esteem our Sins and Lusts to be part of our Essentials and thereby misplace our Love upon them in stead of our selves And this is a Self Love forbidden nay they are our only Enemies Enemies that fight against our Souls 2. When our Love though it be partly right placed yet it is either beyond the due measure and proportion or doth not take in our whole Selves Every one is bound by the Laws of God and Nature to love his own Flesh but he that so loveth his own Flesh that he neglects his Soul he loves not his whole self and consequently hath indeed less love for himself than he should have Thus he that loseth his Life shall save it That Man that for the advantage of a temporal Life much less for the advantage of some temporal Profit or Pleasure shall hazard his everlasting Soul loves himself less than he should because he prefers the temporary advantage of his worse part before the eternal advantage of his better part 3. When Love to a Man's self wants the due subordination to our Love to God. The Good that is in God is infinite and the Good that we receive from him is the highest Good we are capable of for our Being which is our Capacity to receive any Good and all the Comforts Benefits and Conveniences that fill up that Capacity we receive from him and therefore our Love to him ought to take up the whole Compass and Capacity of our Soul. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy might the first and great Commandment Matth. 22.37 And as the Being of the Creature is a dependant Being so his own Love to himself ought to be a subordinate Love to him upon whom it hath his dependance Luke 26.14 If any man come to me and hate not his father c. yea and his own life he cannot be my disciple Yet such is the wonderful Bounty and Wisdom of the Will of God that in Conformity thereunto a man exactly conforms to his own Happiness Our highest and most universal Love to God is joyned with a true and exact Love to our selves for he hath conjoyned the Happiness of the Creature with the Duty to himself Both which we find Matth. 16.25 Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it It may so happen that thy Love to thy Saviour may not consist with thy external Honour Wealth or Peace nay not with the enjoyment of thy own Life but it shall ever consist with the life and blessedness of thy Soul unto all Eternity and what can be an exchange equivalent to thy immortal Soul Thus whilst thou hatest thy Life when the Love and Duty thou owest to God calls for it thou dost at once perform a double duty of Love to God and Love to thy self 2. From hence it appears that in the relation between my Neighbour and my self there is a priority of Love due to my self to that Love I owe to my Neighbour for the Love to my self is presupposed and made the Rule of that Love I owe to my Neighbour therefore in an equality of Concernment to my self and my Neighbour I am to prefer my self as if this unhappy Necessity should lie upon me either to preserve my own Life or that my Neighbour must lose his and that without my fault I may I must prefer the saving of my own Life But where there is an inequality of Concernment there the difficulty is great to discover the measure of my Duty to my Neighbour
de quibus infrá 3. From hence it is evident that I am bound to love my Neighbour This is evident and it is that great Command of the New Testament 1 John 4.20 4. From hence it is evident and it is the scoâ—â— and substance of the Command that we must love our Neighbour as our selves Now this word as imports Equality therefore it is considerable how far this Equality of Love to our Neighbour as to our selves is to be extended 1. Our Love to our Neighbour must be of equal Sincerity and Integrity with that Love a Man bears to himself A Man loves himself sincerely he doth not pretend or bear a dissembled Love to himself but it is in good earnest and with his Heart I must love my Neighbour as truly as I love my self This is an Equality of Nature or Essence 2. Our Love to our Neighbour must be of the same order or method as our Love to our selves As we are to prefer our chiefest Good before our temporal Good and the good of our Souls before that of our Bodies so we ought to hold the same order in the Love we shew to our Neighbour Levit. 19.17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart but shalt reprove him There is sometimes a merciful Cruelty to be shewn to our Brother pulling him out of the Fire and holds resemblance to the Love of God to us that reproves that he may not strike and strikes that he may not destroy And this is an Equality of Order 3. But an Equality of Degree is not required as it seems and as is before touched But though in an Equality we may prefer our selves yet when there is a disproportion there in many cases our Neighbour's Good is to be preferred before our own 1. The salvation of our Neighbour's Soul is to be preferred before the preservation of our own temporal Life much more ought we to deny our selves in those things which are onely useful or pleasing to our Sense if the salvation of anothers Soul is concerned in it And this was that which was meant 1 Cor. 10.24 1 Cor. 8.13 Rom. 14.21 If meat make my brother offend I will eat no flesh while the world standeth lest I make my brother offend And as our Saviour laid down his natural Life to redeem our everlasting Souls from an eternal Death so hath he lefâ— the same for an Example and a Command to us John 13.34 A new command I give unto you that ye 〈◊〉 one another as I have loved you He had before commanded us that we should love our Neighbour as our selves and because we might take out that Lesson by his Example Christ the Son of God who had all perfection in himself and consequently did and must love himself yet preferred the salvation of our Souls before the preservation of his natural Life to be in this an Example to us that if the exigence of the salvation of my Brother's Soul could not consist with the preservation of my own Life I am bound to lay down that Life of mine rather than his Soul should be lost 1 John 3.16 Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren 2. We are by vertue of this Precept to prefer the preservation of our Neighbours temporal Life which otherwise would inevitably happen before our own Safety the hazard whereof may possibly but not necessarily endanger our own This among other Examples is evidenced in the Example of Esther Esther 4.16 A Decree was passed for the Massacre of the Jews which would necessarily have ensued if there were not a speedy prevention the only means to prevent it was Esthers Address to the King and such an immediate Address without an Invitation was present Death by the Law Esther 4.11 yet Esther resolves in that Exigence to adventure her Life Esther 4.16 I will go unto the King which is not according to the Law and if I perish I perish So that although the Concernment be equal my Neighbour's Life and my own Life in which case were there not a disproportion of the Danger I were bound to preserve my own Life rather than to lose it with the preservation of my Neighbours yet when the loss of my Neighbour Life is necessary without incurring some danger of my own I am to trust the good Providence of God with my own Life in a dangerous Adventure of it rather than to see my Brother inevitably perish And the like proportion holds in matters of a lower Concernment 3. Therefore much more it follows that if the being of my Neighbour cannot consist without the parting with somewhat that consists with my temporal well-being I am to prefer my Neighbour's being before my own well-being Thus I am bound to lose my Estate rather than see my Neighbour lose his Life if my Estate would preserve it But this is still intendible only in case of an injurious taking away his Life for if by the due course of Justice my Neighbour's Life be required I am not bound to buy his Pardon with the expence of my whole Estate and so in case my Neighbour shall wilfully cast away his own Life in such Cases there is a Latitude of Christian Discretion left unto me and I am not then a debtor to his Life 4. If my Neighbour's Necessity come in competition with my Convenience only I am bound by this Law of Love to prefer my Neighbour's Necessity before my own Convenience If there be a poor Man whose Exigences are such that he hath wherewith to preserve Life only but not to satisfie Nature and I have wherewith to satisfie the Exigences of my Nature with some Advantage I am bound out of that to supply his Necessity And though my corrupted Reason may object that my future Condition may stand in need of that which I now part with to anothers Necessity we are in this to trust the Almighty to whom I lend in this my Charity and though of his own yet he is content for his own to become my Debtor And that Man cannot want when God is pleased to become his Debtor He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord and he will repay him Proverbs 19.17 Yet in the measuring of Supplies for my own Necessity I am to account for all those for whom I am bound to provide for he that provideth not for his own Family is worse than an Infidel 1 Tim. 5.8 yet herein take heed that thy Heart deceive thee not CHAP. XXXI Of the second general Precept of Righteousness Doing as we would be done unto 2. THE Second Precept Matth. 7.12 Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets This is nothing else but a practical Experiment of the former for every Man is presumed to love himself and in order and subservience to that Love to be able to judge whether
were presently under the Sentence of Everlasting Death though delivered from it by the Messiah that promised seed 2. They lost the estate of Immortality of their Bodies though they lost not the state of Immortality of their Souls which were essensentially Immortal 3. They lost their Innocence their Happy Estate in Paradise the clear and supernatural Light of their Understanding the Rectitude of their Wills the right Order of their Affections and their Souls lost much of its Perfection though not its essential Spirituality and Immortality 4. All that were after derived from them by ordinary Generation though they had immortal Souls yet their Faculties were imbased and corrupted and greatly disordered and without the extraordinary Grace of God preventing and assisting them prone to all kind of evil and sin and thereby obnoxious to the wrath of God and to everlasting Death And this is the Condition of all the Posterity of Adam by Nature except Jesus Christ 10. God Almighty in his eternal wisdom and foreknowledge of the fall of Man in his infinite Wisdom and Goodness purposed to send forth his Son to take the Humane Nature and to become a King a Priest and a Prophet and also a Sacrifice to expiate the Sins of Mankind and to make them again partakers of the great and essential part of that Happiness which the first Man lost by his Fall and so to recover unto himself a Creature that might actually glorifie and serve him 11. And to make this Purpose effectual to our first Parents and to those that succeeded them before the coming of Christ the purposed Redeemer Almighty God was pleased to use two Expedients 1. He gave out the Promise of the Messiah or the Seed of the Woman the seed in whom all Nations should be blessed and the Belief of this though darkly revealed became an Instrument or Means to render the promised Messiah effectual to them to partake of the Benefits of his Redemption when it was joyned with the Obedience to the revealed Will of God in Sincerity 2. He gave out Precepts directing Men to their Duty and to the sincere Endeavour of Obedience to those Precepts he annexed the Benefit of Remission of Sins and Acceptance of their Persons and Duties through the Messiah or Christ that was to come 12. In the fulness or appointment of time namely about four thousand years after the Creation of Mankind the Son of God by a miraculous Conception of the Virgin Mary without the conjunction of Man assumed the Humane Nature became Man lived about three and thirty years discovered the Mind and Will of God touching Mankind confirmed his Doctrine with unquestionable Miracles and Evidences from Heaven and lived a most Holy and Spotless Life and then was without cause crucified by the Jews was buried the third day he rose from the dead lived again according as he promised and conversed with his Disciples forty days then ascended into the glorious Heavens where he is in a state of Glory and Power 13. And after his Ascension he sent upon his Apostles as he promised the Power of the Holy Spirit whereby they did many Miracles in witness of the truth of the Doctrine and History of Christ 14 The Reasons and Ends why the Son of God thus took our Nature became Man and died for us were these 1. That the Eternal Counsel and Purpose of God for the Recovering and Redemption of Mankind out of their lost Condition and all those Predictions and Prophecies touching the same might be fulfilled and thereby the great God to have the Glory of his Wisdom Mercy Power and Truth 2. That there might be a common Remedy for the Recovery of Mankind to their duty and subjection to Almighty God that they might actively glorifie their Creator according to the End of their Creation 3. That there might be a common Remedy afforded to Mankind to obtain in substance that Happiness which they lost in their first Parents and by their own renewed Transgressions and a Means provided for the pardon of their Sins and saving of their immortal Souls and yet without derogation of the Divine Justice and the Honour of his Government 15. In order to these great Ends the Son of God was thus sent from Heaven and Commissionated as it were by the Father principally to do these Great Businesses in this World first to acquaint the World with the whole Will of God concerning Mankind 2. To lay down a full and sufficient Sacrifice for the Sins of the World by his own Death and Passion 3. To give the World all possible Assurance both of the Truth of his Doctrine and the Sufficiency of his Satisfaction by his wonderful Miracles by his Resurrection and Ascension and by the Diffusion of the Gifts of the Spirit upon his Apostles and Believers after his Ascension 16. Touching the first of these namely the manifestation of the Divine Will touching Mankind this contains the Doctrine of the Gospel the Message sent from Heaven by the Son of God touching all things to be believed and to be done by the Children of Men in order to their Redemption and attaining of everlasting Happiness And this was necessary because the World was full of Darkness and Ignorance And many things that were now necessary for Men to know were but darkly revealed unto the former Ages of the World. The Son of God therefore came to bring Life and Immortality to light by the Gospel 17. The Doctrines of the Gospel which Christ brought with him into the World were principally these 1. That all Men have Immortal Souls which must live to all Eternity notwithstanding the death of their Bodies 2. That there should come a Dissolution of this present World and at that time there shall be a Resurrection of all that had been dead and a change of all that should be then living into an Immortal Estate 3. That there should at that day be a Final Judgment where all Men should be doomed some to everlasting Life and Happiness some to everlasting Misery 4. That in the strict Rule of Divine Justice the Wages of every Sin is everlasting Death and Misery which is fully described in the Gospel 5. That all Mankind is obnoxious to everlasting Death and Misery because all Mankind have sinned and are born in Sin. So that without the help of Mercy from God all Mankind are in a lost and desperate Condition 6. That yet for all this Almighty God is willing that his Creature should be reconciled to him is desirous to pardon his Sins to be at peace with him and everlastingly to save him and to restore unto him that everlasting Happiness that he had lost by his own sin and the sin of our first Parents 7. But yet that all this should be done in such a way as might be consistent with the Honour of his Justice and of his Government as well as of his Mercy and of his Bounty and therefore that he will have a Sacrifice and a Price
several men or one man at several times and yet they may be of different natures one may be a Chastisement another may be a Trial and another may be a Favour it is according as the thing sent hath its Commission from him that sends it If it be a Chastisement it is not without a sting If it be a Tryal it is not without an issue If it be a Favour it is not without a great measure of comforts mingled with it 1. A Chastisement for a sin past carries with it the poison and malignity of the sin which causes it as the fruit carries the nature of that seed from whence it grows Jer. 21.14 Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee this is thy wickedness because it is bitter Jer. 4.18 the Affliction tasted of the sin Psal 40.12 Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me Psal 38.3 There is no rest in my bones because of my sin And this like the Trumpet in the Mount waxeth louder and louder and Prayers for Deliverance prove fruitless though they come from a Joshua Josh 7.10 till the accursed thing be sought out for till then the message that the Affliction brings is not received and it will not give over vexing the man till it hath done his Errand When a man begins to examine his ways and finds out the root of his trouble and humbles himself before God for his sin then and not till then can he expect a Deliverance When David Psal 38. had run over the Catalogue of his Sufferings his Prayer for Deliverance was never seasonable v. 22. till he had undertaken Confession and Repentance of his Sin v. 18. If upon the gentle Admonitions of the Almighty in the Conscience a man listens not he hath a Messenger sent to him that will be heard Job 33.16 Then he openeth the ear of man and it may be by a disease in his Body or some other affliction and he stands by to see how this message is entertained v. 27 28. And if any say I have sinned and perverted what was right and it profited me not then he will deliver his Soul c. A Chastisement for a sin hath at the same time an Act of Justice as it looks backward to the sin and an Act of Mercy as it looks forward to an Amendment and the latter is the principal End of God in it And therefore with the Repentance either the Chastisement is ........ if immanent or if transient and past is sweetned with a sense of God's Reconciliation 2. If it be a Tryal that carries with it his message for if upon an impartial inquiry a man cannot find any eminent sin unrepented of yet it pleaseth God to lay his hand upon him yet it brings these Lessons with it 1. To acknowledge the Justice of God for all this It is somewhat strange that Job could so much justifie himself against his Sufferings and yet was made to possess the sins of his youth Those little sins which were passed twenty or thirty years since and had all the extenuations of the infirmity of Nature have malignity enough in them to deserve those Sufferings that thou now art under and it was the Patience of God towards thee that they were thus long before they bore their fruit when thou art in a better condition to make use of the punishment than thou wert shortly after their commission And it may be thy Repentance even for those long past transgressions was not particular or deep enough and it is no loss of time or labour to thee to mourn again over thy stale transgressions but howsoever let it be thy care to search thy self it will make thee better acquainted with thy self If thou find a sin not deeply enough sorrowed for thy affliction hath deserved well at thy hands and if thou find it not yet thy affliction is well recompensed by giving thee an opportunity to discover that to thy self which contents thy Conscience more valuably than thy affliction hath done thee prejudice 2. To acknowledge the Sovereignty of God and to submit to his Will with an obedient Patience 1 Sam. 3.18 It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good Psal 39.9 I was dumb and opened not my mouth because thou didst it Jer. 18.6 Behold as the clay is in the hand of the potter so are ye in my hands Though thou canst not see a cause for thy afflictions that might signally deserve it nor canst see an end in it yet thou canst not chuse but find a use of it to teach thee with Wisdom to acknowledge and with Patience to submit unto the most justly unlimited Power and Authority of the Almighty God over the Work of his own hands and to put thy mouth in the dust and to wait for him and upon him Jam. 3.28 29. till he give an expected End Jer. 29.11 3. To depend and rest upon his Mercy and Goodness for deliverance from or strength and comfort in thy Affliction As the Creature is essentially dependent upon God so it is its Duty and Perfection and he useth the absence of external confidences and comforts upon which we are most apt to rest to call man to his duty to fix his heart upon him Psal 112.7 External Confluences many times rob God of that Love and that Dependence we owe to him and if the loss or want of them send thy Love and Confidence to him to whom it belongs thou art no loser by thy loss 4. To walk more strictly and vigilantly with God. Though thou canst not upon thy Examination find a cause of thy cross that may eminently discover it self in it yet thou canst not chuse but know thou art far short of that Duty and degree of Perfection in thy heart and life which by that assistance of his Grace that thou hast thou mayest arrive unto thy affliction though it put thee not in mind of any notable sin which should humble thee it may very well put thee in mind of thy neglects and want of intention in thy duty 5. Though thy Disease needs not this Physick to cure thee yet thy Corruption needs it to prevent thee thou hast within thee a Fountain of Corruptions that were they not restrained or allayed would upon a small opportunity turn to a desperate disease in thy Soul and those Corruptions of thine live and feed upon external superfluities and supplies and the Wise God foresees it may be that in a month or two or more or less thy full Enjoyments would ripen this or that corruption into a distemper that might be dangerous if not fatal to thy Soul and he sends this Messenger to abate or allay or divert or cross or weaken this corruption to put in a little Wormwood into thy sweet Cup that thou mayest take it with more moderation and not so greedily to throw some dirt upon thy self-opinion or growing pride that may spoil the growth of it to give a check to thy desires of external Wealth or