was made under the curse of the law in the 13. verse of Gal. 3. The curse and the worke of the law was not separated to Christ when hee came to satisfie justice no more is it to any soule In the 11. verse is a second position of the Apostle which is also a confirmation of the former The position is this That no man is justified by the law in the sight of God the demonstration of this truth followeth in the end of the same verse and in the 12. verse which shews First that God never intended life by the law Gal. 3.21 If there had been a law which could have given life verily righteousnesse should have been by the law this is plaine it is not Gods meaning that righteousnesse should be by the law because he hath not given such a law out of Christ which is able to give life Ephes 2.8 For by grace yee are saved through faith Ephes 2.8 and that not of your selves it is the gift of God All salvation is of grace wholly out of our selves God had another end in giving the law then that the soules of his people should worke life from it and this end is fuller of glory to his own grace and of safety to our eternall soules namely that sin might become exceeding sinfull and grace to be exceeding riches of grace The Apostle tels us he had not known sinne but by the law and had there been no law there had beene no transgression If no transgression had been nor any sin known then the glory of free grace had not beene lifted up as now it is If the law had not discovered sinne the soule had never known the want nor the worth of a crucified Jesus who is the great gift of the free grace of God and a perfect eternall Redeemer of a poore lost soule Secondly As God never intended life to fallen man by the workes of the law Levit. 18.5 Gen. 2.10 so man can never gaine life by the workes of the law Levit. 18.5 Gen. 2.10 There must be a perfect doing of all the statutes and judgements of the Lord by every soule that meanes to live in them and have life from them It is not a tittle lesse then keeping the whole law which can advantage any soule that seekes life from it So as that soule which in it selfe cannot keepe the whole law shall never gain life by the workes of the law Gal. 2.16 Gal. 2.16 The Apostle there speakes positively twice that no man is justified by the workes of the law and that by the workes of the law no man shall be justified This is such a standing truth that nothing which either is or can be done shall contradict it The second observation is this Observ 2 That the law of works condemns every soule in the first Adam but justifies no soule The law speaks only thus doe and live which to fallen man is nothing but the language of death Rom. 7.8 9. A righteous law to an unrighteous soule gives life to the sinne but death to the soule Observe the Text When the Commandement came sinne revived and I dyed By the command sinne became exceeding sinfull A soule fallen from God can in it selfe make no other use of the knowledge of Gods righteous law but to sinne against it consult the Text in this case But sinne taking occasion by the commandement wrought in me all manner of concupiscense As if he had said When once God discovered his holy law that sinfull nature and unholinesse that is in me made use of it by way of opposition to run into all manner of concupiscence though the law of creation justifies a holy Creator yet it condemnes a fallen unholy creature By the workes of the law shall no man be justified in his sight but that soule which lives upon them shall be accursed and condemned in the want of one tittle there lies a curse a condemnation in the law to fallen man but no possibility of being justified by it in the sight of a holy just God But now that we may not be as soules without hope though he strips us here of all our owne righteousnesse and leaves us by nature under the curse of the law yet in the next verse hee shewes us a perfect redemption from the curse of the law by Christ who was made under the law to beare the curse and to fulfill the law for us And here I shall be a little more large then in what hath gone before for I have found by experience that the more cleare knowledge a soule hath in this point the more is the free grace of God with the comfort and safety of a poore soule advanced In this 13. verse the Apostle layes down a third position namely That every elect soule is redeemed from the curse of the law through or by Christs being made a curse for us Deut. 21.23 The Text speaks plainly thus he that is hanged is accursed it is a paralell place with the end of this 13. verse Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree Thus Christ was made a curse now that Christ was thus made a curse for us for his elect body which was under the law Gal. 4.4 5. looke into that Gal. 4.4 5. where the Text saith That when the fulnesse of time was come God sent his Sonne made of a woman made under the law to redeeme them that were under the law that wee might receive the adoption of sonnes None can doubt but that Christ is here meant by the Sonne of God and then the Text speaks plainly that God in the fulnesse of his owne time sent Christ in the flesh made under the law to redeeme his elect body that were under the workes and the curse of the law and to bring them to receive the adoption of sons and in this worke Christ was made a curse for us The first observation from hence is this That what-ever Christ hath borne for a believer that a believer is fully redeemed from It is the Apostles owne argument in this place for sayes he Christ being made a curse for us wee are thereby redeemed from the curse And the same Apostle in Rom. 8.32 33 34. Rom. 8.32 33 34. hath the same Argument If God delivered Christ up to death to dye for us then we are delivered and Christ having dyed for us who shall lay any thing to our charge It is God that justifies and Christ that dyed Christ had not dyed but that God might justifie Christ had not been made a curse for us but that God in justice might acquit us from the curse So in the two first verses of Rom. 8. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ And the law of the spirit of life in Christ makes the soul free from the law of sinne and death And in John 8.36 Joh. 8.36 If the Son therefore shall make you free you shall be free indeed This is our Saviours
is no other name under heaven by which men can be saved but by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Oh then where should poore sinning soules looke but to their interest in Christ as sons of God and co-heirs with Christ The Prophet Isaiah in Chap. 35.11 speaking in the verse before of Gods bruising and putting Christ to griefe making his soule an offering for our sins saith Hee shall see the travell of his soule and shall be satisfied God is satisfied with no other object but his sons he looks on all his people through him now wee must eye what God eyes the travell of Christ as our publique person and in that object the soule will live and sin will dye God hath lodged the glory of his grace here that all our reliefe should come in and through the Lord Christ He came from the bosome of Gods love upon this designe to be eyes to the blinde legges to the lame and to set the captive and those that are bound in fetters chains free Is not Christ then and the bosome of free-grace that gave him the only object for a sinning soule to looke on for reliefe an experienced soule in these objects will tell you that a glimpes of Gods love in the face of Christ is the only expeller of the being and the reigning of sin in it such experience as this the Apostle speaks of in 2 Cor. 5.14 15. For the love of Christ constrains us because we thus judge that if one dyed for all then we were all dead And that he dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him which dyed for them and rose againe Marke the spirit of the Apostle he eyed his interest as one with Christ in death and life and speaking of sin sayes he love constraines straines me thus to judge that I am dead to sinne and can live no longer to it because Christ is my interest This is an object indeed able to slay sinne in the soule to behold our interest in Christ that love which made this interest constraines our soules thus to judge and thus to act as being dead to sin because we are alive to Christ so that I hope it is clearely made out that a soule in a sinning condition must eye its interest in God as a Father and in Christ as a head and a husband For no other object besides this can either raise a soule fallen in sin or slay that sinne which lives in the soule Therefore the exhortation stands firm and should make its impression on our soules namely that wee should be much in beholding our interest as we are the children of God and as we are fixed with Christ in his eternall love I may safely say this is our duty as well as our priviledge to be alwayes eyeing our interest in the love of God for herein we serve the ends of God in magnifying his grace to us and shedding his love abroad in our hearts This is fully proved in that Rom. 8.14 15 16. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sonnes of God For yee have not received the spirit of bondage againe to feare but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we crie Abba Father The Spirit it it selfe bearing witnesse with our spirits that we are the children of God Marke it the Spirit is given to beare witnesse of our interest and this is not a spirit of bondage but that free spirit in which we behold our interest as children and sayes the Text cry out Abba-Father If we have received the Spirit it is our duty as well as our priviledge to improve it to this end the constant beholding of our interest as the children of God and in vers 17. of Rom. 8. If children then heirs heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ Oh eye this interest as we love our lives let us eye this interest this is our living upon that life which is hid with Christ in God the perfection of which shall be a full enjoyment of God and Christ to all eternity Againe let this perswade us to prize highly and thrust heartily for this most glorious appearance of Christ If our hearts put that day farre from us wee put our highest glory farre from us for till then we are as heirs under age not in full possession for free-grace hath given more and the blood of Christ hath purchased more and heaven containes more glory for us then the world can beare to be revealed but Christ shall come and manifest it all which glory shall consume the world all corruptible things shal dye before it and then soule and body both shall be carried above corruption to be filled and crowned with immortall glory though now we are sonnes yet many times there is such clouds of corruptions and afflictions on us that it hardly appeares what we are much lesse what we shall be Our glory now as children is more then the world can see and when Christ thus appears it shal be more then the world can bear Oh let this bear up our spirits the few moments that are behinde if all in this world be not enough Christ is hard by and he wil bring enough with him Wait cheerfully as those that believe such an appearance of Christ at hand in which we shall appeare in our interest and our union with him Againe let this teach us what value to put upon the world it is too weake a foundation to beare all our glory when we come to possesse our full inheritance as co-heirs with Christ the world will be too narrow to containe it and if it be so then surely the world is not worthy of our love our joy nor our feare That soule which God loves the world is too little for its love God only can and will satisfie that love he makes us love him because he loved us first the flames of love which he kindles in our bosoms he satisfies with that fountain of love which is in his own bosome That soul which hath interest in Christ and waits for his appearance the perishing world is too low a thing for him to rejoyce in But he may always rejoyce in the Lord for there is a sutable portion and truly there is no just cause for a Saint to feare the world when Christ hath undertaken for him at the throne of grace the world must hate us because it hates him whose image wee bear but here is reliefe enough Christ that is our interest in heaven he hath overcome the world for us wee may be encouraged to goe to the Father in Christs name to be kept from the evill of the world but there is no cause why wee should feare that the world shall overcome us for Christ is able and faithfull to preserve all those the Father hath committed to his charge Were the world as little in our affections as it is in our interest we should enjoy it more
Lord Jesus If we make duties our object 't is too low they are not our life but the fruits of life A man doth not live because he acts but he acts because he lives The Apostle desires to know nothing but Christ and him crucified and plainly speaks this not to be found in his owne righteousnesse but in Christs Ephes 2.8 9 10. For by grace are yee saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not of workes least any man should boast for wee are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good workes which God hath before ordained that we should walke in them Marke it here is workes as the fruits of our life and interest in Christ and the reason is given in the first words namely the great design of God for his own glory that all may spring from grace Now this is our interest in Christ and the life and sweet of all this will fill our soules when in the Spirit we looke on Christ as our life This may invite every soule to cast it selfe on Christ as its life and rest on him Let the soule that is the worst of sinners in its owne eye remember this it is of grace that we are saved and Christ is the great gift of Gods free-grace The Prodigall when hee said there was bread enough in his Fathers house doubtlesse eyed Christ There is in Gods eye price enough blood enough righteousnesse pure enough which makes life full enough for Christ is all this Rom. 8.33 34. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifies Who is be that condemneth it is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen againe who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us The Apostle here makes a challenge but he doth it upon a sure gound namely God justifying a soule through its interest with Christ in his death resurrection and intercession This treasure is laid up in God for thee poore soule that sayest thou hast no worthinesse of thy owne It is the will of God that the ends of the earth should looke up to Christ so that those might have milke and honey freely which have no price nor no money of their owne Poore soule I will give thee one Text to live upon for ever Ephes 2.4 5. But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ By grace yee are saved Make thy condition worse then this if thou canst to be dead in sins And then know this God is rich in mercie his love is exceeding great it exceeds the greatnesse of thy sins This love is so great that it can take soules dead in sins and quicken them together with Christ and if you will know the reason of all this it is by grace that we are saved What canst thou say now poore doubting soule All life is without thy selfe it is by grace that thou art saved If thou canst not see thy selfe worthy why yet see God is gracious It is not Gods designe to looke out worthy soules but to take unworthy soules and magnifie his grace on them It will be no presumption but faith and obedience to rest on Christ to such an end as to magnifie the free-grace of God when wee rest on Christ as our life wee doe as much as in us lies justifie and magnifie that free-grace which gave Christ to be our life And on the contrary when wee will not rest on Christ wholly as our life till wee have wrought up some qualifications in our selves we deny this gift of God and our like to be from free-grace The Text speaks plainly it is of grace that we are saved Oh let God have the glory of his grace for the life of our soules lies in it there is no other way to enjoy interest in Christ but to lay hands on him as the gift of grace and it appeares that a Christ-lesse soule is a dead soule Is it better to be dead soules then to have life meerely from grace If not oh then honour grace let Christ be our life though we are wholly dead in our selves yet cast thy selfe upon Christ as the gift of Gods free-grace for thy life But in the last place If Christ be only a Saints life and a Saint enjoyes this as he lives upon Christ in the Spirit Then let this teach us always at the throne of grace to be pleading the promise of the Father the Son to powr out the holy Spirit upon us and not rest satisfied without the Spirit in any or in all externals not in a bare literall knowledg no nor a Christ only in the flesh but only to know God and Christ and to live on them in the Spirit To know truths as they are in Jesus is to know them in the Spirit of Jesus and this is our Saviours owne promise John 14.26 That when the Comforter which is the holy Ghost comes he shall teach you all things We are therefore seeking something below Christ and so apt to deifie a form because we know so little of Christ in the Spirit In John 7.38 39. There is a glorious promise of the full powrings forth of the Spirit upon believers He that believes on me as the Scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water But this spake hee of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive I know nothing but this promise is the interest of all believers it is worth the pleading at the throne of grace The Apostle Rom. 8. tels us what use Saints make of the Spirit They walke by it above the flesh he cals it the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which hath made us free from the law of sinne and death this is the spirit that dwels in a Saint and shall raise him up at the last day In the 11. verse this Spirit is Gospel-administration Saints interest under the Gospel thus Saints worship God in the Spirit John 4.23 But the houre commeth and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth A Saint is wholly carried up to Christ his life by the Spirit and all the acts of his life is the workings of the Spirit in him Gal. 5.5.16 17 18. There the soule waites for the righteousnesse of Christ by faith through the Spirit and when he comes to walke in God and to live up his interest in Christ it is all through the Spirit and it is only through the Spirit of God in them that dead creatures are made living Ordinances The institution is doe this in remembrance of me Now it is the Spirit which gives an ordinance to this life Our Saviour tels us in John 6.63 The flesh profiteth nothing nor the word it is the Spirit that quickens and makes alive The reason is cleare God
and Christ is in the Spirit now to enjoy God in his originall love with Christ in all hee is as the fruits of this love this is our life and this can only be in the Spirit Oh then it concerns us to plead our interest as children for the spirit of Adoption as it is in Rom. 8.14 15 16. It is the breathings of the Spirit which makes dead bones to live Ordinances and soules will be both dead without Christ in the Spirit it is expedient to goe sayes Christ to send the comforter and it is as needfull that he give the Spirit without it we can never have fellowship with the Father nor the Sonne in whom only our joy our life and our glory will be full In this Spirit only can wee live upon Christ as hee is the bread of life and our bread of life CHAP. VI. Christs reigne by his Spirit is the Saints liberty from bondage Gal. 4.5 6. To redeeme them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sonnes And because yee are sonnes God hath sent forth the spirit of his Sonne into your hearts crying Abba-Father THE Apostle Paul in almost this whole Epistle makes it his businesse and designe to discover to Saints their liberty in Christ and as it appeares by the Apostles writing to them in the foregoing chapter and in this These Saints to which he did more particularly write lay under legall principles and moved with legal spirits now for a remedy of this to them and all Saints after them in these two verses the Apostle holds forth Christ under a double capacity namely Justification and Sanctification to the Believer And in both a perfect freedome from the law so far as it is freedome to be delivered from it The first of these two verses holds out Christ justifying of his people in the redemption of his blood from what ever the law could accuse them of or charge upon them The latter verse holds forth the fruits of this redemption or indeede a part of this redemption it selfe Namely this That because we are sonnes God hath sent forth the spirit of his Sonne into our hearts crying Abba Father Either of these two parts are worthy a Saints study and admiring for ever I shall lay the foundation of what shall follow in this Point Namely that it is part of the Redemption of the bloud of Christ to a believer that no law should command or rule in the conscience or spirit of a believer but the Law of love the spirit of Adoption is here given forth to that very end that in it the soule may keep its communion close with God and Christ and be alwayes able to cry Abba Father In the proofe of this we must consider the first and second Adam as wee were in the first Adam we lay under a law of Creation and a Covenant of workes as creatures to obey our Creator and in obeying to have life doe and live but transgresse and die In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death But in the second Adam the Lord Christ the Covenant we are under is not of workes but of grace the law is not in the letter but in the spirit not written in Tables of stone but in the hearts of his people by his Spirit as appeares clearely where the Covenant of Free-Grace is recorded as in Jer. 31.33 34. and in Heb. 8.10 In both places God doth not only covenant to be our God reconciled to us not imputing sin and iniquity to his people any more but also to put his Law in our inward parts and to write it in our hearts so that this way he will teach and rule in the hearts of his people under that covenant of which Christ is the Mediator God is a Spirit and when he promiseth to write his law in our hearts wee must understand him thus the workings of his spirit in the hearts of his people Letter shall be turned into spirit Christ shall be a King as well as a Saviour and as a spirituall King so his law and his government spirituall that the Lord Christ and his Father may appeare one in this great engagement of teaching and ruling in the hearts of his people by the Spirit let us looke into Christs promise Joh. 14.15 16 17.26 Jo. 16.13 14. Here the Lord Christ promiseth to performe that Office of his intercession to God for us that he would make good his owne covenant and give his spirit to comfort lead and guâ—de the soules of his people Now the making good of Gods covenant and the efficacy of Christs intercession for this spirit to rule in the hearts of his people every soule in its owne particular can best cleare up the faithfulnesse of God and Christ But the Apostle Paul in the power of the spirit sets it out at large in Rom. 8.2 3 4 5.9 10 11.14 15.26 27. Observe the exprestious of the holy Ghost in the second verse For the law of the â—pirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and 〈…〉 is mention of a double law and as distinct each from other as life and death the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus and the law of sin and death I looke on these two as that which depends on the two Covenants that of Workes and that of Grace or as it is else-where expressed the Law of the first and second husband which is the first and second Adam Now whilst the first Adam is alive in the conscience the conscience is kept under his law which is thus the law of sin and death as it makes known sin and the wages of sin which is death but sin saith the Text is not imputed where there is no law Rom. 5.13 and in Rom. 6.23 the wages of sin is death And then in Rom. 7. beginning the Apostle saith this law hath dominion over the conscience so long as the first husband lives From these places I judge I am not mistaken in the interpreting the law of sin and death but that the holy Ghost clearly meanes that law of Creation doe and live or the bare Letter of command in the conscience Only let us consider what is meant by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which I understand thus That through that union the soule of a believer hath with Christ it is made spirituall Christ in his Kingly Office in throned in the conscience and the the soule resting in the bosome of Christ as a dutifull Spouse in the bosome of her beloved husband and his law is the law of the spirit of life that law which is life it selfe and turnes letter into spirit One thing more I would explaine my self in that is how I understand the holy Ghost in this freedome that the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made to a believer from the law of sin and death by the spirit of life I understand Christ
in the spirit Now the freedome the Lord Christ hath made for the soules of believers from this law of Creation under the Covenant of workes It is double Namely from the condemning power the ruling or reigning power of the law in the conscience Of the first of these there is the least scruple and not being so fully within that I desire to hold to I shall wave it and keep only to the latter Namely how Christ hath freed the. Believer in his conscience from the ruling or reigning power of the law of creation in the letter only For light in this consider the 4th verse of Rom. 8. and so forward taking in the latter part of the 3. verse it wil appeare to be the designe of God in sending Christ in the the flesh that Christ in the Spirit might rule in the soules and spirits of his people God sending his Sonne in the likenesse of sinfull flesh that the righteousnesse of the law might be fulfilled in us who walke not after the flesh but after the spirit That is to walke after the rule which is not the flesh but the Spirit and so goes on to shew the difference betweenâ— flesh and spirite making it all along a part of our redemption in Christ to live in the Spirit making the Spirit our light and our life our rule and our strength In Rom. 8.14 There the Apostle speaks plainly and makes it a demonstration of our sonne ship to be ruled by the Spirit For as many as are ledde by the Spirit of God they are the sonnes of God Hee speakes in verse 16. following of the seale of the Spirit But here he speaks distinctly of the ruling power of the Spirit that hath power of a man to lead the man as it pleaseth and that is the terme here sonnes of God led by the Spirit of God that this Spirit is sufficient to rule the consciences of believers wee may plainly see in Rom. 6.14 Sinne shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace I know not what can be more plaine then this here is a promise sinne shall not have dominion over us And the reason given is that part of the redemption of Christ to the soule of a believer from the ruling power of the law to the ruling power of the spirit of grace Marke the inference therefore sinne shall not have dominion over you because sinne shall not find you under the ruling power of the law in your conscience which affords no stâ—ength against it but sinne shall finde you under the law of the spirit of grace which is in Christ the law of life to the soule and death to sinne therefore sinne and death shall be swallowed up of victory in you by the spirit of Christ as it was for you in the death of Christ Sinne hath its repulse in the soule from the change of the law that rules the law of sinne and death turned into the law of spirit and life I can doe all things through Christ that strengthens me saith the Apostle I am not delivered from the dominion of sinne because I have the light of the law of creation to discover sinâ— but I am under the law of the spirit of life and grace not only to discover but to destroy sinne Sin hath not dominion because that which opposes it is Christ not I. Thus I have endeavoured to let you understand that light God hath given mse in this part of the redemption of his blood for his Sonne to deliver us from the ruling power of any law in our consciences but the law of love in the spirit of life But that I may be rightly understood I desire you to remember a clause that I laid down in the beginning where I endeavored to open these verses the clause is this That the Believer in the blood and spirit of Christ hath a perfect freedome from the law so farre as it is freedome to be delivered I laid it so downe that I might have here roome to distinguish betweene the ruling power of the law and the matter and substance of the law In the first sense the ruling power of the Law I doe really believe from what hath beene delivered already and some further reasons that I shall discover That the conscience of a believer is by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus made free from the law of sinne and death But for the second part the matter or substance of the law which I take to be the whole revealed will of God and is in its utmost power and purity written in the heart of every believer Not only the whole revealed will of God in his word made flesh and dwelling among us but made Spirit and dwelling in us Thus to give you a little light I shall be more full in what followes give me leave to adde some further reasons to prove the former thing As first If the law in the letter be the rule in the conscience of a Believer then Moses not Christ must be the King for sayes the Text Moses was faithfull in his house as a servant but Christ as the sonne Moses may rule till Christ comes but as Christ had none to help him in the work of redemption no more will he in the work of ruling Secondly If Moses be to rule where Christ hath redeemed where is the making good of Gods Covenant to write his law in our hearts what benefit in the promise of the comforter that spirit of truth to lead into all truth Thirdly If the law rule and Moses be King the strength must be in our selves to obey for neither Moses nor the law in the letter can give any strength If either could Christ hath dyed in vaine and if strength be in our selves then Gods designe in sending Christ is lost which is to justifie his people freely by his grace so as there may be no roome for flesh to boast in not the law of works but the law of faith to be pleaded as appears in that third chapter to the Romans Lastly If the Law be to rule in the spirits of Gods people then obedience to that law must quiet satisfie the hearts of Gods people Now as the Apostle in Gal. 3.2 This only would I learne of you Received yee the Spirit by the workes of the law or by the hearing of faith So say I and appeale to the consciences and experience of every Saint that tasts the joyes of life in God received it you by the the workes of the Law or in the seale and workings of the spirit of life in which you are freed from the law of sinne and death So I shall come to that second part the matter and substance of the law Under this comprehend the whole revealed will of God in his word but to distinguish betweene that part of Gods word more distinctly known by the ten commandements from any other part of the revealed will
of God in his word but to the eye of a believer beholding God and every part of his revealed will in Christ all is alike In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God That was spoken of Christ now the Believer alwayes beholding God in Christ which is his originall word and the Scripture only Christ written out in the Spirit doth behold God in his originall and in his written word in every part of it one so that every part is of like beauty and pretiousnesse to the soule of a believer Having opened my selfe thus farre I shall doe it farther and declare that to have any hope left to live as sinfull nature pleases casting the revealed word of God behind their backs and under a notion of redemption to deny the Redeemer to talk of free-grace and to trample grace under foote to deny the Lord that bought them in walking as doe others that know not Christ This is so far from entring into my thoughts from that freedome I have pleaded for all this time that if I should name this and call it darknesse I should call it Aegyptian darkenesse so farre from freedome that it is bondage beyond expression The second of the Ephesians sets it out best in these termes The power of the Prince of the Aire ruling in the children of disobedience But that freedome I plead for is the power of the Lord of glory ruling by his Spirit in his children of light and life My aime is not to take away that holy just and good law of God out of the conscience of a believer but as God doth with his people in the new Covenant and in Christ the mediator of it establish them in a better covenant Heb. 8. upon better promises so would I only hold out the matter of the law taken out of the hand of Moses which was but a servant and established in the heart of Christ which is the Son and by the Son in the spirit of light and life written in the heart and conversation of every believing soule And lesse then this I thinke is not in the covenant of the Almighty when he convenants to put his law in our inward parts and to write it in our hearts For my authority in this I shall say as the Apostle Paul in the 3d of Rom. the last vers when in the greatest part of the chapter he hath pleaded this very cause that I doe he concludes in these words Doe we then make void the law through faith God forbid Yea we establish the law So that it is cleare the law of life that makes us free from the law of sin and death which is Christ living by his Spirit in the conscience is not to make void but to establish upon better promises from a law of death to be a law of life Thus much in generall But more particularly I lay downe this as my light that the law is now in the Spirit in the Gospel for a believer to walk by the law is made Gospel as Christ is made flesh the Gospel is both a perfect law of life and righteousnesse of grace and truth why should we separate that which God hath in his free-grace joyned together namely Law and Gospel in one under the government that is given to the childe Jesus Nor is the holinesse or sanctification that God lookes for in his believing Saints such as is falsehood by the law or outward command but by the preaching of faith by which the spirit is given which renewes and sanctifies a Believer and makes him the very law of Commandements in himselfe and his heart the very two Tables of Moses And though the law be a beame of Christ in substance and matter yet we are not to live by the light of one beame now when the Son of righteousnesse is risen himselfe that was a fitter light for those who lived in the regions of the shadow of death it is with the law now or light of righteousnesse as it was with the light in the creation when that which was scattered was gathered into one body of light So Christ now being revealed holinesse and righteousnesse as well as grace and love is revealed in him and and gathered up in him The word is now flesh and dwels amongst us and we behold his glory as the glory of the only begotten sonne full of truth as well as grace is in substance by the Spirit set downe 2 Cor. 3.16 17 18. verses There is the vaile taken away in turning to the Lord. There is Christ held forth to be the Spirit and the spirit of liberty to his people but observe the fruits of this liberty it is from sinne not to sinne but we all with open face beholding as in a glasse the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord or of the Lord the spirit so it is in the margine Thus is Christ that Sunne to us which warmes us in the very shining upon us the Believer works walks and lives under the Gospel as beholding his perfect redemption wrought in Christ and so brings forth the power of this redemption and salvation through the spirit of Adoption freely working to the praise of his free-grace and freely obeying from the life of this redemption doing every thing in love because of his love shed abroad in our hearts and neither taking in judgements hell or damnation nay not heaven or glory to force on the worke or quicken the duty but doing all from the spirit of life in Christ Jesus except when corruption or temptation hindereth the freenesse and spiritualnesse in the duty A Spirit at this pitch is Christ and his beloved both met in his garden of spices and by feeding on the honey in the honey-combe Christ fils the soule with himselfe and delights himselfe in that fulnesse that is himselfe So the soule in communion with Christ in the Spirit sees it selfe compleat in Christ so joyes in its Masters joy alwayes satisfying it selfe in that love that is Christ himselfe and is able to trumpet out its glory to the world My beloved is mine and I am his This is Christ and his office branches setting about God alwayes feeding on the banquet of love and fitting under the benner of love God beholding every elect soule in Christ the soule beholds God in Christ and Christ beholds himselfe and all his in God and this vision in one spirit swallowes up all into one God beholds every elect soule as Christ Christ beholds every branch in him as of him beholding us in that glory we shall have with him when he appeares in his fulnesse of glory and the believing soule in the Spirit beholding its justification sanctification and redemption and Christ one in eternall love the soule is in this light transformed into this love that is God himselfe so sees nothing of God but what is all God such a soule knowes no divided Christ
or parted God every tittle of revealed truth which is Christ written out by the Spirit it is all God and Christ in one and this Spirit that reveales Christ to the world in the word and to the believer in his soule this Spirit is God too that so all within the soule is God all about the soule is God and all comes from the soule is God and this is the freedome the believer in his conscience hath from the law in the letter it is not destroyed but established It is taken out of the hand of Moses the servant and put into the hand of Christ the Sonne it is not made void but fulfilled for us and in us who walke not after the flesh but after the spirit Now behold the Law in its glory changed from law to Gospel from letter to spirit from Moses to Christ from death to life from an angry God to a loving Father as it is Gospel so it is Spirit 't is Christ yea it is God himselfe On the glory of that Law which is God not only declaring the mind will of God but in the spirit of love filling the soule with strength to obey from whence we find Christ in the Gospel calling upon those that love him to keepe his Commandements God Christ and the Spirit being in the Law it becomes the law of life when the law had in it but a naked demonstration what a Creator might justly require of a fallen creature but gave no strength it is held forth under the termes of the law of sinne and death by which it had not that glory to invite a poore soule to looke on it because the soule could see nothing but its death in it but as Christ being made under the law to redeem them that were under the law hath satisfied his and our Father fully in it for us so hee hath turned this law into his law of love into Gospel into Spirit into himselfe and his Father Now this law hath that beauty which allures and takes every beleeving soule nature turned into grace it is now meate and drinke to a believer to doe the will of God in the Spirit First This will let us truly to understand who they be that be Antinomians Those that deny the Law if I may judge I should say it is those that would keepe it in the hand of the servant out of the Sonne what can be a greater denying of it then to keepe it in the Letter out of the Spirit to rob it of that glory which is God and Christ in the Spirit What soule dare put it selfe under the Law out of Christ when in so doing it makes it selfe a debter to the whole law And as the Apostle in Gal. 3.10 11. sayes So many as are under the workes of the law are under the curse of the law and under that law which can never justifie before God Now to keepe the law in such a state as this is will make every soule shun it not daring to come under it as seeing nothing but death in it Sathan is the soules greatest enemy in darkning it with legall principles that it sees not Christ so are those the greatest enemies to the holy just and good law of God that would pul that nature of Christ in his Spirit from it and leave it still the law of the letter in the hand of Moses when God and Christ hath made it Gospel-law the law of love in the Spirit The law may here complain as the Spouse did of those watch-men that rent her vaile those that rend Christ from the law rend the beautifull vaile the glory of the law from it These holds forth the law dead like Lazarus in the grave stinking and those that follow it weeping Or as Pharoah to the children of Isael doubling the tale of bricks and giving no straw what glory is there in this But those that hold out the Law in the Spirit holds it not only forth as a law that lives but a law that gives life so farre from requiring the tale of bricke to be doubled and give no straw that in every duty it brings Christ in whence we are able to doe all things This makes it plainely appeare who they be which deny the law and may justly be distinguished by the name of Antinomians Againe this exhorts Saints that seeing it is part of the redemption of the blood of Christ That no law but the law of love the spirit of life in Christ should rule or reigne in the conscience of a believer To take the counsell of the Apostle in Gal. 5.1 Stand fast therefore in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled againe with the yoake of bondage God hath not given nor Saints received the spirit of bondage againe to feare but the pirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father This is the life of our lives to live in the spirit It is the great promise of the Gospel to give the Spirit This would I know when doth the soule feast but when God spreads tables of love and in the Spirit bids us eate my beloved eate abundantly and be satisfied Nature teaches the outward man to stand for liberty oh then what should grace doe how should this stirre us up to stand for that liberty which is our life loose this and loose all your spirituall life in a moment doe but once looke on the law out of Christ and it will be with us as those in 2 Cor. 3.15 But even to this day when Moses is read the vaile is upon their hearts This vaile will be a vaile of darknesse that the soule shall not see Christ in propriety in any of his offices benefits or merits If any or all these be deare oh then stand fast in this liberty wherewith Christ bath made us free This is that freedome the Sonne hath made which is freedome indeed But if the Sonne make us not free then are we bond men to eternity If thy heart be hard looke on him whom you have piereed and then shall it be evangelically melted If sinne sting thy conscience looke on him that is is lifted up which the brazen Serpent typified this is our freedome and Christs prerogative the governement is on his shoulders he is that King and his Spirit that Law which is only to reigne in the conscience of his people Why should not our soules count deare of that which is so deare to Christ and all his people This is that glory Christ will not give to another therefore this is that glory wee should only give to Christ Oh then admire and extoll for ever this glory of the riches of the free-grace of God in Christ that hath freely given this state of grace this glorious state to us that were by nature the children of wrath as well as others It doth not yet appear what we shall be so that more glory shall be then is yet revealed but our soules must confesse that
the law of God though with the flesh the law of sinne The Lord Christ he ruled and governed in the mind of Paul and he doth acknowledge it for he thankes God through Jesus Christ he served the law of God with his minde and so beares witnesse to this truth that where Christ commands and governes there Gods law is obeyed And the same Apostle in the next chapter Rom. 8.2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death As if he had said I was in bondage under the law of sin in the condemning and the reigning power of it till Christ came to command in my soule by his Spirit and then I found deliverance so that now I can say It is not I but Christ that lives in mee The olde man the law of sinne was in command till Christ came but now we that were sometimes darkenesse are made light in the Lord and that light is the light of life and the love of Christ shed abroad in our hearts is both roote strength to a new life So the same Apostle I can doe all things through Christ that strengthens me Though the new creature be a worke too hard for my flesh yet it is not too hard for Christ in the Spirit Nay it is the certaine and the constant worke of the Lord Jesus to make the new creature Hee is made to us of God Sanctification as truly as Redemption so this is an undeniable truth That if any man be in Christ he is a new creature In this meditation there is much to informe us exceeding usefull for a christians knowledge As first it informes all of the holinesse and purity of God that though his grace call pitty and pardon the worst of sinners yet his purity will imbosome no soule but in Christ and in Christ he makes them new creatures The Lord Christ himselfe tels us in one Text That no man commeth to the Father but by him And this Text tels us That if any man be in Christ he is a new creature So that such souls as come and lye downe in the bosome of God come through Christ in whom they are made new creatures as God in himselfe is that perfection to whom there can be no addition so he is that perfect purity which cannot have communion with any impure thing God is that light which discovers all darkenesse and that fire which burneth up all drosse so that if filth approach his presence his light discovers it it cannot be hid from him all thoughts and things are alwayes naked before his presence and his fire consumes it for God out of Christ is a consuming fire truly he knows not God which saith in his heart that God and Belial may live together Our God is a God of glory and the glorious God he is not a God which hath eyes and seeth not eares and heareth not hands and handleth not exclude sinne and then there is nothing he is not he is the all of all the first the fountaine and the fulnesse of all but sinne so that God is so infinitely pure that he is all but what is impure hee is pure in the fountaine and the fountaine of purity Purity flowes only from God and that only returnes to God nothing but purity can dwell in God for God is pure And if thus then secondly this informes us of the riches of Gods free-grace which hath not only given us a justifying but also a sanctifying Jesus That Christ should not only deliver his Elect from the condemning power but also from the reigning power of sin not only deliver from the justice of God in satisfying Justice for them but so carrying them in his owne righteousnesse into the bosom of God where he biddeth them all eate my beloved feed abundantly and be satisfied A Saints life is bound up in God his blessednesse is to have communion with God Now considering the purity of God and the impurity of fallen man if free-grace had not made Christ our way and our Sanctification as our Redemption we could never have been blessed in communion with God If the bosome of God be a place of rest If the love of God be the foode of eternall life If that glory at Gods right hand be more exceeding and eternall weight of glory Oh then what riches is that riches of free-grace which hath given all this freely and Jesus Christ in whom wee have these and all the fulnesse of glory not only freely but full and that to all eternity If this be the fruit of grace then surely it must be rich glorious grace the fountaine must needs be precious the streames are so full of glory If we be saved sanctified and glorified meerely by grace then it must be rich grace that gives forth so richly to all eternity Thirdly this informes us of the sad and miserable condition of prophane carnal wretches the fruit of such lives tels us plainly that Christ is none of their roote The fruits of darknesse are discovered by the light but cannot be the proceeding or issue of the light The flesh hath workes as proper to it and floweth as naturally from it as any the Spirit hath And the Apostle Paul in Rom. 8.5 6 7 8. Ephes 5.8 9. Gal. 5.17 to the end doth discover both the rootes and the fruits of flesh and Spirit which are as clearely to be distinguished between as light and darknesse and is in no nearer union then the seede of the Serpent and the seede of the woman If any man be in Christ he is a new creature olde things are passed away behold all things are become new Truly this is but sad tidings for such poore soules that are yet old creatures not yet renewed in the spirit of their minds It speaks very loud and plainly to them that they are not yet united to Christ for were they in him he would soon make them new creatures The Apostle Paul in Ephes 4.17 18 19. speaking of the Gentiles Walking in the vanity of their minds having their understandings darkned being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance and blindnesse of their hearts who being past feeling had given themselves over unto all lasciviousnesse to worke all uncleannesse with greedinesse In vers 20. But ye have not so learned Christ As if hee had said such a life as that is the proper fruit of a naturall condition a man out of Christ for Christ he teacheth no such things but on the contrary as in verse 22 23 24. of that Chapter Christ he teacheth To put off concerning the former conversation the olde man which is corrupt according to the deceitfull lusts and to be renewed in the spirit of our minds and to put on the new man which after God is created in righteousnesse and true holinesse It is sad indeed for poor soules to gather that which sinne and Sathan is the roote and to please it selfe
is eternall power and his wisdome eternall wisdome Now tell me if the first Scripture be not a weighty exhortation He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. Take this as a foundation and carry it all along in your eye That purely what God is in himselfe is the onely matter and subject of his peoples glory For that is the exhortation Hee that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. And I desire to carry soules home to God himself that our soules may drinke the water of life at the fountain of life there it is eternally the same A soule that doth truly and purely glory in God himselfe will tell you that it findes God to be a God of originall eternall love and free grace And therefore sayes this soule Blessed be this God I beleeve all my iniquities are pardoned and my sinnes blotted out by the blood of Christ so they shall never more be remembred or charged against me for the originall love and free grace of God hath laid them all on Christ and he hath given exact satisfaction to the Divine Justice of God so that through eternall love and free grace I am acquitted and just fied in the fight of the eternall holy righteous and pure God and in this eternall love and free grace of God I am united to Christ so that Christ the Wisdome Sanctification and Redemption of God is mine and I am his Christ made sinne for me and I made the righteousnesse of God in him so that when I glory in my redemption I glory in God in his originall love and free grace When I say the Law of God cannot condemne me I doe not affirme that I have kept the Law in my selfe and so glory in the righteousnesse of the Law which is of workes but I glory in the original eternal love of God his free grace that hath made Christ my righteousnesse who hath fulfilled the Law for me and is daily doing it in me by the power of his grace Rom. 6.14 And give me leave to glory then sayes this soule though it bee great things that I glory of so long as God himselfe is the subject of my glory no Legalist can hinder God of the Soveraignty of his original love and free grace so that when God assures any soul of this his salvation and the soule glories in it this soule glories in the Lord. Come and see sayes this soule the glory of the Lord I am saved meerly by the free grace of God his original and eternal love hath plucked me out of sinne self eternal death hell law grav the power of Satan and eternal condemnation and made me one with Christ and heire of himselfe a joynt heire with Christ in eternall glory This is my God sayes the soule all this is the fruits of his love and free grace riches of mercy and faithfulnesse in his covenant and promises the exactnesse of his justice upon Christ is perfection of justification to my soule in union with Christ the perfection of his holinesse righteousnesse and purity is the glory of my soule whose life is hid with Christ in God the baptizing of his holy Spirit in which the elect in Christ are buried with him to sinne makes the resurrection of Christ and the new creature in me sayes this soule And all this is God meerly what God is in himselfe saving justifying and sanctifying glorifying grace all is Gods grace all this is free grace and all this free grace is my God sayes the beleeving soule therefore sayes this soule come O man and taste how good the Lord is Here is Milk and hony freely without price and without money Isai Chap. 55.1 If this soule meets with a beleeving heart it presently holds forth a bleeding Christ and if a soule that argues against its own salvation why sayes this soule consider grace is free your salvation hath no other foundation but the original love and free grace of God God concluded all under sinne that salvation might he of grace No soule since the fall of Adam could ever plead it selfe before God the whole frame of salvation stands upon the free grace of God now you have nothing to argue against but free grace your not being worthy can neuer make God not to be gracious you see nothing lovely in your selves that cannot hinder for God is the original of love you can in no measure keep the Law the Law it was to convince of sinne not to justifie any soule but Christ the gift of free grace he hath satisfied and fulfilled the Law for all his elect say what you can I will answer you sayes this soule with God that is with eternal love and free grace If God should suffer Selfe sayes this soule to have share in salvation I were as miserable as any soule alive for I am as much under sinne in my selfe as any other soule but the glory of my salvation is my God this I beleeve by his Spirit that himselfe is my salvation his own eternal Being is my eternal life his original love and his free grace which is of himselfe is the everlasting salvation of my eternall soule And sayes this soule upon this assurance I am able to goe to God himselfe through Christ by his Spirit to plead my interest in him to plead my salvation to be eternal because it is the salvation of his own originall love and free grace so that it can never faile and come to nothing because in the eternall God and when Satan would shake me out of my assurance I carry him to my God and let Satan know that my salvation standeth not upon my own legges but is the worke of the eternal original love and free grace of my God which is above the reach of Satan because in the very Being of God for God is love and free grace Thus a beleeving soule makes God the onely subject of his glory and from this foundation such a soule can never want a proper subject to glory in Saints would be glad to finde loving kindnesse mercy faithfulnesse justice holinesse righteousnesse and purity amongst men and truly these beames of God in his people makes them very glorious and the want of these is not onely a shame but the misery of this our present age These sparks of God make men truly Noble and the going out of these is the innobility of the times we live in but neverthelesse Gods people are not at a losse for a subject of glory For God is this all this and eternally this in the infinite fulnesse and glory of it Therefore what remaines but to presse home and to take up the Apostles exhortation He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord in the God of Grace and that our names are written in the book of life with the blood of Christ the gift of his grace that we have our inheritance in the New Jerusalem so that if these earthly tabernacles were dissolved we have a building with God an house
reason is this To give the World a true discovery of my spirit and light in those things which I count weighty and every truth of them to be of more concernment then a thousand Worlds I cannot tell the thoughts of men concerning my selfe nor will presume to take the place of God to judge the thoughts of any but this I can truly tell that in the following truths I have clearely opened my heart to the view of every Reader and have faithfully given to the World what light God hath given to me in those maine truths and fundamentalls of salvation in which my soule lives and what I can cheerefully dye in the next moment This is all I shall say I blesse the Lord I am single hearted in this worke let men judge of me and it according to to their light I have no other end then this That the eternall loving kindnesse and free grace of God may be lifted up in the World and that all his people may know how good a God hee is I confesse these truths of God were in my soule like new Wine in old Bottles my flesh could imprison them no longer and now they are abroad give me leave Reader with them to give thee a word of caution If thou beest spirituall and understandest these truths of God in the spirit and findest them sweet then blesse the Lord let thy heart praise him and thy eye be singly set on him overlooke the creature wholy unlesse it be to glory in the Lord that hath magnified his free grace to so weake a one as my selfe is I acknowledge the truths to be Gods and revealed by his spirit of truth so that the beauty of them must center no where but in him but all the failings and weaknesses from first to last are mine the fruits of my flesh and darknesse I beseech you let God have his due glory though you blame me for my failings let not my weaknesses prejudice any soule against the precious truths of God I trust there is nothing but what are truths of God though weakly managed and if any one amongst those many thousands more descerning eyes then mine shall finde out any thing that is not so I trust if in a spirit of love and meeknesse it be made knowne to me I shall blesse God for that soule and honour his truth by acknowledging my owne errours And to the scorner I shall onely say this I wish you could singly scorne me in it and not God then would your sinne be the lesse and so would my sorrow too for God hath carried me above your scornes and were not your sinnes increased by it the care of either side would be but very small Let me deale plainely with you you wrong your selves not me for I can both live and dye full of joy and rest in the love of God though you shall please your selves in scorning and deriding me and all the returne I shall make to this will be to pity your darknesse and to pray the Lord to give you the light of his spirit by which you may truly know him and Jesus Christ which he hath sent and then I know you will be new creatures I shall hold you no longer in the porch but open every doore of the house that you may both read and see the truths of God made knowne by his spirit to the weakest and one as unworthy as any of his Servants Rob Tichbourne The Contents of the severall Chapters contained in this Booke LOVE to all SAINTS shews union with Christ By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if yee love one another John 13.35 What Christ hath borne for Saints they shall never beare themselves For as many as are of the workes of the law are under the curse for it is written cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the booke of the law to doe them But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God it is evident for the just shall live by faith And the law is not of faith but the man that doth them shall live in them Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us for it is written cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree There is neither Jew nor Greeke there is neither bond nor free there is neither male nor female for yee are all one in Christ Jesus And if ye be Christs then are yee Abrahams seed and heirs according to promise Gal. 3.10 11 12 13.28 29. Gods Children have his Spirit to walk and work in For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sonnes of God For yee have not received the spirit of bondage again to feare but yee have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba-Father The Spirit it selfe bearing witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God Rom. 8.14 15 16. Gods love giveth Saints to know they shall appeare like Christ Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sonnes of God Therefore the world knows us not because it knew not him Beloved now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appeare what we shall be but we know that when hee shall appeare we shall be like him for wee shall see him as he is 1 John 3.1 2. Christ is the foode of living soules I am that bread of life John 6.48 Christs reigne by his Spirit is the Saints liberty from bondage To redeeme them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons And because ye are sons God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba-Father Gal. 4.5 6. Saints are compleate before God in their union with Christ For in him dwels all the fulnesse of the God-head bodily and yee are compleat in him Coloss 2.9 Free-grace in God justifieth redeemeth through Christ Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus Rom. 3.24 Christ and the new creature are unseparable Therefore if any man be in Christ hee is a new creature 2 Cor. 5.17 Vanity and vexation of spirit compasseth all things under the sunne I have seene all the workes that are done under the Sun and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit Eccles 1.14 A Saints excellency is to have no will in himselfe but the will of God Saying Father if thou be willing remove this cup from me neverthelesse not my will but thine be done Luke 22.42 No man exceedes another in excellency but by received mercies For who maketh thee to differ from another and what hast thou that thou didst not receive 1 Cor. 4.7 None but God can be a proper subject for a Saint to glory in He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord 1 Cor. 1. part of the 30. vers Saints have victory through Christ over Death and by faith glory
answer to those Jewes which thought themselves not to be under bondage because they were Abrahams seede in the flesh our Saviour tels them this externall interest did not make them free-men For sayes hee notwithstanding this you are under sinne Vers 34. Who ever commits sinne is the servant of sinne and your fleshly interest in Abraham doth not acquit you from the bonds and servitude of sinne but if the Sonne have made you free then are you free indeed As if Christ had said Abraham could not beare your sins and the wrath of God due to them for you and therefore you are in bondage still but what the Son bears he makes them perfectly free from for whom he beares it Christ came to save those that were lost And he tels us when he gave up the ghost upon the Crosse that the worke was finished And in John 17.4 I have glorified thee on earth Joh. 17.4 I have finished the worke thou gavest mee to doe Christ tels his Father that he had lost no glory in sending him upon the worke of Redemption for says he I have finished that worke thou gavest me to doe which was to worke out a perfect Redemption for his people Isa 61.1 To give liberty to the captive and to open the prison doores Isa 61.1 If this bee a truth as doubtlesse it is that what-ever Christ hath borne for a believer that a believer is fully redeemed from then it will be worthy a Saints best serious consideration in searching the Scriptures and in the Spirit giving eare to heare and heart to consider what they say Christ hath borne for us First I finde by that 2 Cor. 5.21 that Christ hath born sinne for us For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sinne that we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him The text speaks in the abstract He was made sinne for us There cannot be a fuller expression there is the act God making Christ to be sinne for us or taking all sinne off from us and laying it upon him as was typified under the law in the Scape-goate which went into the Land of Forgetfulnesse Now the issue and effect of this act followeth in the Text That we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him This expression is as full as the former the holy Ghost expresseth the sinner for whom Christ was made sinne to be as fully acquitted from sinne as Christ is made sinne Marke the words made the righteousnesse of God in him so perfectly righteous that God ownes the soule as one with himselfe righteous as being one with Christ who is the righteousnesse of God Now the soule that is thus righteous must needs be acquitted from all finne the righteousnesse of God and the condemnation for sinne is as light and darknesse which cannot be together in one soule If Christ once come into a soule and tels that soul by his Spirit that he hath borne all its sins and so makes the soule to believe in the free grace of God and to rest upon Christ as his righteousnesse that soule is as fully in the fight of God acquitted from sin as Christ was by God made sinne for it This soule stands before God compleate in Christ not having spot nor wrinckle in it All that can be said is said in this That soule for whom Christ was made sin is thereby made the righteousnesse of God in him So that Christ having borne the sinne the soule never more beares that in his owne person before God but doth alwayes stand both before the throne of justice the throne of grace as fully cloath'd with Christ his righteousnesse as Christ upon the Crosse was with his sinne Isa 53.6 The Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all Iniquity is one with sin here now then read this truth with an eye and heart of faith that what Christ hath borne for us we are fully delivered from and then will the glory of free grace be lifted up and our soules made to rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory in believing Secondly Christ hath fulfilled the Law and borne the curse of it for his people Gal. 4.4 5. Christ was made under the law to redeeme his people from all that in the law which was weight and burthen from the curse of the law Gal. 3.13 From the reigning and condemning power of it he hath satisfied and keeps the law fully for us In Gal. 4.5 6. there Christ hath redeemed us to the liberty of sons the spirit of adoption reigning in our consciences and conversations above the letter of the law so that in Rom. 8.2 3 4. There the Apostle tells us That by vertue of the law of the spirit of life in his union with Christ Jesus hee had freedome from the law of sin and death That law of commandement by which sinne revived and the soule dyed he was delivered from by the spirit of life in Christ Jesus For sayes he what the law could not enable the soule to doe because of the weakenesse of the flesh that did God by sending his Sonne in the flesh and for sinne condemned sinne in the flesh that is condemned our sinnes and satisfied his law and justice for them all in the death of Christ So that now the righteousnesse of the law is fulfilled by Christ for us who walke not after the flesh but after the spirit The law was fulfilled and had its accomplishment in Christ that is the law in the letter and the soule now through union with Christ is taken up to live in the law of the spirit of life that is the spirit of God lives in the soule and is a law and a life to it not only teaching but leading the soule into all truth it is the law of the spirit and so the law of life it is the law of love and so the law of life Nay it is God himselfe displaying his love and reigning by his Spirit in the souls and consciences of his people and so it is the law of the spirit of life and all this to the soules of his people in Christ Jesus Gal. 5.18 But if yee be led by the Spirit yee are not under the law A soul which lives not and acts not upon Christ in the Spirit so farre as as he doth not he is under the law of sinne and death in all hee doth but it is a certaine deliverance from the law of the flesh in our conversations and the law of the letter in our consciences is to be ledde by the spirit of Christ and to walke in that spirit Ephes 5.8 9. For yee were sometimes darknesse Ephes 5.8 9. but now are yee light in the Lord walke as children of the light For the fruits of the Spirit is in all goodnesse c. They were never without the letter yet sometimes darke saith the Text but the light of the Lord in which the redeemed of Christ should walke
in Christ so as to be ever well pleased with it and to delight in it 2 Cor. 5.21 For he hath made him to be sinne for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him God hath made Christ the foundation of his eternall love when hee beholds the travell of his soule he is well pleased which he doth in every soule he hath united to him The third Gospel-truth is this That a Saint doth then only truly and properly enjoy his life when be lives by faith upon God and Christ in the Spirit It is not enough to know the rule of the law in the letter and some of the worke of the law in our lives to know all the formes of Gods worship under the law and Gospel To know and to be under all these is nothing when ignorant of the knowledge of God through Christ in the Spirit Knowledge in all the former substracted from the latter is but to know that we are under the chaines and the power of darkness Our life consists neither in circumcision or uncircumcision but in the new creature Christ living in us and we in Christ The life that we now live 't is by the faith of the Sonne of God by faith feasting and satisfying our soules upon the love of God in Christ the Spirit that teacheth and leadeth the soule into all truth even the God of truth and there the Spirit teacheth the soule to read God to be a God of love and so to enjoy him and live in him through Christ as a God of grace and a faithfull God that will keepe Covenant with his people and not impute sinne to that soule for whom Christ hath dyed Our life shall be for ever with God and in God enjoying nothing but God and all of God in heaven this is truly our life now as we are one with Christ only the clouds of mortality darkens it and so farre as we live upon God through Christ in the Spirit so farre and no farther doe we truly enjoy life in any condition and what we strive for here below is not our life nor truly worth our contending for all the weary pursutes of the heart of man which center not in Christ must wither before they come to their journeyes end for they have no life to carry them through A childe of God can finde no rest but the bosome of his Father and no way to that rest but Christ the great gift of his Fathers love so that God and Christ is both the way and the end of a Saints rest that is enjoying fulnesse of blisse in God who is all in all to all his people Gospel truths should be teaching to Gospel-Saints and these truths accompanied with the spirit of truth may first teach and informe all Saints where our life and interest lies namely in God and Christ God opening the bosome of his love and giving us Jesus Christ Jesus Christ giving out his blood his life and all that God requires to satisfie justice and to make a compleat redemption Christ putting on our flesh and taking upon him the curse due to us and all to this end to be Mediatour to stand betweene a displeased God and a poore soule to become sinne for us that wee might become righteousnesse in him Our life lyes neither in the workes of the Law nor the formes of the Gospel but in that love which gave Christ to be made under the Law to fulfill the Law for us and in that Jesus which is the Lord and the life of the Gospel the Gospel is glad tidings which is Christ crucified The highest forme is but a darke representation a cloud without light if Christ which is the light of life be not in it 'T is God in Christ that is our life Let us not turn againe to the beggerly rudiments under which we shall be in bondage but in the Lord of glory to live only upon God in Christ who is the true light and life of Saints to seeke life in any thing else is to seeke the living amongst the dead Again These Gospel-truths should teach and exhort Gospel-Saints to beleeve in God he is a God of grace and he is a faithfull God he makes good his covenant of grace that our sinnes and iniquities hee will remember no more to charge them upon the believer for hee hath fully charged them upon Christ and hath satisfied his justice to the full in Christ And hence it is that by way of comfort our Saviour in John 14.1 bids us to beleeve in God through him Yee believe in God believe also in me that is looke upon the covenant of God and all the promises of God made good in me believe that what my Father hath given me to doe I have finished it all the worke of your redemption and what ever God hath laid upon me shall never more be laid upon you though it made me sweat drops of blood and at last give up the Ghost yet I have finished the worke I conquered by yeelding and overcame by dying and I am risen again to beare witnesse of my victory over sinne death hell law and grave for you and thus I would have you to believe in mee and in God who gave me out of his bosome of love to be all this to you Distrust of these trutths is to put a question upon the faithfulnesse of God and the fulnesse of Christ God promises to pardon freely Christ undertakes to satisfie fully now a doubt of either is unworthy in him that is an heir of both In the next place me-thinkes this cals for much love from Saints to God and Christ Oh how should we love God that hath freely given us Christ and with him all things The great God of heaven and earth had no greater gift then Christ to give and him he hath freely given us and in Christ himselfe his Spirit his Kingdome and his glory too Who would not love a heart so full of love as Gods heart is How can wee chuse but love a hand so full of love as Gods hand is What ever may justly command or invite love it is in the heart and hand of God there are mercies free and full in God at his right hand is fulnesse of joy for evermore Love had its first conception in the heart of God we love him because he loved us first The glory of his love is the rise of our love the piece-meales of beauty and glory which we earnestly seeke and pursue after in the creature they all center in God what ever it is that might be taking to oul affections that is in its primitive glory as it is in God and truly did we see God by an eye of faith as we do things below with an eye of sense the brightnesse of his glory would darken all lower glories and all the streames of our affections would runne into God who is the fountaine and originall of all love and lovelinesse
me and so hath taken all my sinnes and the punishment due to sinne from mee And as he was made sinne for me so am I made righteousnesse before God to all eternity in him hee is the full satisfier of divine justice for mee so that I am compleatly righteous in the righteousnesse of God in him thus doth the Spirit seale and roote and ground and establish a soule by faith in Christ And in this assurance it is that the Saints have accesse by one Spirit unto the Father Ephes 2.18 as in Ephes 2.18 In this assurance the soule runnes with holy boldnesse and throwes it selfe into the bosome of his Father In this spirituall light the soule sees that there is nothing but Christ betweene him and his Fathers bosome and this Christ to be him that hath taken all sinne punishment due to the sins of his people on himselfe so that there is not the least tittle of them to stand between God and the soule nothing but Christ betweene and this Christ stands only as the way to the Fathers bosome not to keepe out as the Angel with his sword at the entrance of the garden but to carry home and to present spotless to his Father so that God may truly say of us we have his righteousnesse in Christ Ephes 1.13 14. For further proofe looke into that Ephes 1.13 14. There the Apostle having spoken of the secrets of God his election and predestination according to his purpose in Christ in whom after yee believed yee were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise which sayes he is the earnest of our inheritance plainly making the Spirit to be the seal and the earnest of a Saints inheritance It was from this seale that Job could say I know that my Redeemer liveth and that I shall behold him with these eyes And so the Apostle I know sayes he if this earthly tabernacle were dissolved I should have a building not made with hands eternall in the Heavens And thus the soule is carryed above all feares under the spirit of bondage by living upon God and Christ in the spirit of Adoption bearing witnesse to the soule that it is the childe of God and so filling the soule with God that it is quiet add established and lives boasting in God as the Apostle Paul in Rom. 8. the latter end Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect who shall condemne or separate from the love of God in Christ nothing not life nor death nor any thing shall be able to dee this How knew he this why he tels you in vers 16. The Spirit of God did bear witnesse of this to his spirit And thus the soul through the seale of the Spirit quitely waites for his period in a state of grace till he be swallowed up into the fulnesse of that glory which is by the same Spirit sealed up for it as in Gal. 5.5 We through the Spirit waite saith the Apostle yea and not only wait but waite satisfied under possession the soule is satisfied with a fulnesse of eternall life as in John 4.14 There is the Spirit powred forth into a satisfying of the soul that it thirsts no more after any thing but God and is satisfied with God for it is a well of water springing up to eternall life I shall satisfie my selfe with thus much in the proofe of the first head namely the sealing worke of the Spirit of God in a Saint or a Saint sealed up to the eternall love of God by his Spirit By this we should examine our assurance of Gods love Vse whence we fetch it whether from within or from without whether from externall duties and priviledges or from an internall seale we seee it is Gods end in giving his Spirit that by it Saints may be sealed up to the day of Redemption and that we may thereby know we are his children And this wee finde to be in the experience of the Apostle Paul and other Saints Now let us aske our soules doth our assurance rise from the witnesse of the Spirit of God to our spirit Truly we shall never be established in our spirite till we come to this pitch If we live only upon those graces that flowe from the Spirit it will be a very uncertaine life for our own hearts can best witnesse how many ebbings and flowings of the fruits of the Spirit is within us Now if Gods love ebbe and flow to us as our love doth to him how changeable shall wee make God to be and how unsetled must our spirits needes be sayes God my love is unchangeable and to assure you of it I give you my Spirit to beare witnesse with your spirit that yee are the children of my love God gives his Spirit that we may looke on himselfe which is unchangeable he loves because he will love and as we can give no reason of his love so God gives no period to his love And when once the soule of a Believer comes thus to live on God himself by his spirit then he is an established soul But I hasten to the second head namely a Saints walking and working in the Spirit or the Spirit ruling and reigning in a Saint and this I gather from the 14. and 15. verses of John 14.17 There is the spirit of Truth dwelling and being in a Saint John 14.17 and the Saint knowing of this possession Here is a being and abiding a possession that leads to a ruling and a reigning The Spirit in a Saint is Christ in a Saint now Christ is a Saints head to rule in him and reigne over him And in verse 26. the Spirit puts forth an act of its Soveraignty teaching all things a Saint acting knowingly acts from the Spirit that teaches And in John 16.13 14. There is a further discovery what the Spirit shall doe when it hath possessed a soule why it makes discoveries of Christ to the soule for he shall receive of mine and shew it unto you and thereby you shall be guided into all truth And as a Saint is elected into God and Christ so the holy Spirit dwelling in him he lives in and to God and Christ possessing all fulnesse in God and Christ and making all his performances from God and Christ And thus he walkes and workes in the Spirit Rom. 8.1 2 3 4 5 6.9 10 11. and the Spirit rules and reignes in him This Rom. 8.1 2 3 4 5 6 9 10 11. speaks very exactly of a Saints walking in the Spirit and the Spirit reigning in a Saint They that are in Christ Jesus saith he walke not after the flesh but after the spirit And in verse 2. he tells us he acts only in Christ and lives by the law of the Spirit in Christ Jesus which hath freed him from the law of sinne and death As if hee should say all my duties and performances it is Christ living and acting by his Spirit in mee For saith he in the 3d verse
one dyed for all then were all dead I dyed to sinne in Christ and if now I live it should not be to my selfe but to Christ 2 Cor. 5.14 15. And to this the love of Christ constraines me For sayes he This I know who ever is in Christ is a new creature Olde things are passed away and behold all things are become new vers 17. And therefore saith he what ever is sinne is the old man and of this he cries out as the Apostle in Rom. 7. O wretched man that I am the law of my flesh rebels against the law of my minde Sin hath lesse entertainment no where then where the love of God by his Spirit dwels perfect love shuts out feare saith the Text and perfect love kils corruption Love to Christ kils and buries sin when legal fear only layes it in a swound it lives againe and possibly kils the legall soule at last but this spirituall man he keepes nothing to himselfe but carries all to God and Christ he lives only in God and Christ and when he finds corruption in himselfe he presently by the spirit layes it downe at the feete of Christ and tels him my glory saith he is to live in thee and what ever is thine and thy glory is to live in mee and in the death of my corruptions Oh then be zealous of thy glory thou hast taken the guilt and punishment of all my corruptions from me Is it not also for thy glory to take the reigne and the power of them from me too Yes saith Christ and I will make my promise good Sinne shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace True Lord sayes the soule and I believe it that to live under grace is the only way to keepe sin under me Thus a spirituall soule having a sight of his sinnes of all men hath least feare in point of condemnation because this soule is filled with the perfect love of God which casts out feare but the in-being of this love of God in a soule makes as little love to all the profers of sin as it hath feare of the condemnation of it Sin in all its temptations hath the soonest denyall from such a soule of any for he answers sin thus Sin sayes he The love of Christ constrains me to hate thee This soule tels sin he will but lose his labour in tempting him for sayes he I am not at my owne disposing I have given my selfe up to Christ already and Christ hath taken possession of me and lives in me by his Spirit and for thy temptations I shall carry them to Christ and sure I am thou canst not live in his presence he hath overcome thee for me and he will destroy thee in me Thus the spirit changes a soule from darknesse to light and from the power of Sathan unto God and is made to live in this light which is the light of Gods reconciled countenance in the face of Christ And in this vision of God and Christ the soule is changed into the image of Christ from glory to glory even as by the Spirit 2 Cor. 3d. last This spiritual man as he lives upon God in the spirit so he worships God in the Spirit he knowes neither the Mount nor Hierusalem as his place to worship in he only knows Christ as the proper medium to worship God in and he knowes not Christ after the flesh neither but after the spirit his feasting is with God and upon God he knowes no formes or figure nor externals to make him a rest of he can only rest in the bosome of God and Christ he knowes no fellowship but with the Father and the Son as hee enjoyes God and Christ in Saints so hee hath sweete fellowship with them God is both the light and the life of his worship he makes God his way and his end in his worship This is a Dove that can rest no where but in the Arke Church-fellowship to him without Christ is no more then a selected piece of the darke world the Ordinances if Christ be not in them is to him but as the grave When Christ was risen all his enquiries are where is he whom my soule loves Shew me Christ in a Saint Christ in a Church and Christ in an Ordinance and then you shew me my life and upon this ground I can live and dye with you saith hee This soule can measure all men and things by Christ but Christ by nothing but himselfe that Spirit of Christ which dwelleth in him and thus you have some weake discourses of a spirituall Saint This exhorts Saints to live in the spirit upon God and Christ and to act from the endowings of that spirit as the image of God and Christ It is very plaine it is the interest and priviledge of Gods children to live on himselfe in the Spirit and from that life spiritually to make all its motions Oh why will you live out of God! did you ever finde any beloved like this beloved Did you sinde any thing that is all but God Why God is willing you should live upon all his all and be filled with his fulnesse O come my beloved eate of my banquet of love Drinke O drinke abundantly and be satisfied saith Christ All our sadnesse and complainings arise from our living out of God be it what ever it can be that is the most like God yet if it be not naked and clearly God the soule will be complaining of wants 'T is not duties Church-fellowship Ordinances or any thing that we conceive or propose to our selves which can of themselves give the soule rest it is only a living in and upon God in the spirit Oh let us stand in that liberty with which Christ hath made us free we can stand in none but in Christ and that is the freenesse of grace that we should stand for ever spotlesse and blamelesse in the sight of God through him Again This should stirre up Saints to act in God we have no cause now to act doubtingly If Christ be our strength the Spirit will teach us to pray and to crye Abba-Father for hee is our Father Is corruption too strong for us it is not too strong for Christ we should lay it at his feete And now tell mee believing soule canst thou that livest in the love of Christ live in sin No sayes the soule sin is for the love of it slaine in me by what law even the law of love living by the Spirit in me It is impossible sayes such a soule that I that am dead to sinne should live unto it My life sayes he is hid with Christ in God And it is not I that live now but Christ he lives in me Christ lives and I dye sayes the soule I that is all I my righteousnesse as well as my unrighteousnesse If I mistake not this is the strongest argument against a Saints living in sin that can be why a Saint
vers 50. and 51. This is the bread which commeth downe from heaven that man may eate thereof and not dye I am the living bread which came downe from heaven if any man eate of this bread he shall live for ever And the bread that I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world Here I say Christ demonstrates what is the bread hee meant namely himselfe in the flesh and he becomes this bread of life by giving his life in the flesh for us In the 53 54 55 56. verses of this chapter out Saviour shewes us how that interest in him as a crucified Jesus is our life and that he may fully cleare this out to us he holds forth himselfe not only a crucified Saviour but a living God In verse 57. As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me Our Saviour's argument seemeth to be thus I live as one in God and you as one in mee And thus is Christ that bread of life or that bread which gives life to his owne in the world Thus much for proof to the two heads that were first laid down I shall now hold out such spiritual observations from what hath gone before as I have received from Christ And the first observation shall be this namely That Christ only is a Saints life By this I mean that every sparke of a Saints life lies in Christ and so in Christ that it is in nothing else in which Christ is not all Christ is so fully and solely a Saints life that take all duties ordinances priviledges and externall advantages whatsoever substracted from Jesus Christ and they are all dead things but like the grave cloaths in the Sepulchre when Christ was risen Our Saviour himselfe beares witnesse to this truth I am the way the truth and the life No man comes to the Father but by me It is a truth so deare to God and Christ that Christ speakes to it in this place as fully as termes can expresse it both in the affirmative and the negative I am the life sayes Christ that is in the affirmative And so the life that no man comes to my Father the fountaine of life but by me there in the negative and affirmative both in the negative exclusive from Christ and in the affirmative inclusive If wee consult that place in John 16.14 where our Saviour speaks of the office of the Spirit and the usefulnesse of it in the hearts of his people we shall find it speak to this thing we have in hand John 16.14 He shall glorifie me for hee shall receiverf mine and shall shew it unto you Marke it the work of the Spirit is to reveal Christ to us as he is our life and so glorifie Christ in shâ—wing him to be our life As if Christ had said the holy Ghost when he comes hee shall shew you your names written in the booke of Life with my blood all your sinnes laid on me and that I have buried them in my owne wounds so that they shall never rise up in judgment more against you my righteousnesse your robe of glory perfect glory in the sight of God my law of love written in your hearts to be the power that shall slay sinne in your lives Thus the Spirit shall glorifie me in shewing you that I am your life in whole and every part of it Christ as hee is one with God is our fountaine of life in all our addresses to God he is our way truth and life For further confirmation take the experience of the Apostle It is not I saith the Apostle but Christ that lives in me and the life that I live it is by the faith of the Sonne of God And in another place Our lives are bid with Christ in God Take this Text for all 1 Cor. 1.30 But of him are yee in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdome and righteousnesse and sanctification and redemption Marke it here Christ is made all by God to us for what can you call life that is not bound up in some or all of these The 29. verse of that Chapter gives a good and â—ull reason why God made Christ all to his people namely this that no flesh should glory in his presence This reason is so full that the truth stands strong upon it against all gain-sayers grace were nor grace if flesh had any thing in it selfe to glory of in the presence of God our life to be only in Christ preserves as entirely the glory of Gods free-grace as it doth the safety of our soules for that soul that glories in Christ as his life glorifies the free grace of God which gave that life When the Apostle speakes of the acts of life in his soule he makes Christ all for sayes hee I can doe all things through Christ that streng thneth me And the same Apostle in another place sayes he it is meerely of grace that I am what I am so that you see where Christ is made all there free-grace hath the glory of all and this is the great designe of God to all eternity to glorifie his free grace Thus much shall suffice for the first observation That Christ only is a Saints life A second observation is this If it be thus Saints should value and esteeme of Christ as their lives Saints what meane these carnall feares doth not Christ live If the world be nothing is not Christ enough Why feare you so much to loose the meate that perisbes when Christ this bread of life lives for ever cannot you be content the world should bring forth wants why there is no other place of want but that there is bread enough in your Fathers house Heaven only is the proper place of fulnesse doth it not speake an undervaluing of Christ that carnall feare shall possesse our spirits of want when Christ the fulnesse of the God-head bodily is our life portion Nay what mean these stoopings and bendings of our judgements affections services to the world and worldly ends Is not this the end of it to live in their love and esteeme so as to make a portion of perishing things friends of the unrighteous Mammon Saints will this stand with an esteeme of Christ as our life A soule that truly values Christ it pants thus in spirit Let me know truths as they are in Jesus and obey them in the spirit of Jesus God hath made the world my foote-stoole as it is his and I am one with him Christ is only my life and glory I would trample upon my foot-stoole and lie downe in the bosome of Christ who is my life and glory this is a soule that truly values Christ But tell me Saints if we value Christ as our life or portion and our crowne of glory our best and truest friend our faithfull brother and our loving husband one that hath borne all Gods wrath
for the good of others and therefore lookes on it as his duty and that he is obliged by the law of Christ shed abroad in his heart to become all things lawfull to all men that hee may gaine some Againing and not a destroying worke is in his eye and this makes him indeed and in truth to lye low at the feete of the weakest Saint and this he doth from a spirituall consideration how that he stands justified to all eternity by the free-grace of God through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ for wee are justified freely by the grace of God through Jesus Christ CHAP. IX Christ and the new Creature are unseparable 2 Cor. 5. former part of vers 17. Therefore if any man be in Christ hee is a new creature THE Apostle doth in this Scripture as in all other like a good and faithfull servant make it his whole businesse and design to advance his Masters glory the Lord Jesus Christ A new creature is the most glorious object that the world affords and the Apostles care is to hold that forth in all its glory namely in Christ A creature in Christ is a new creature indeed and a new creature is in Christ indeed As if the Apostle had said there is not any man who is in Christ what ever he was before but by vertue of that union he is made a new creature though before a wilde Olive yet so soone as ingrafted into Christ the tree of life hee brings forth good fruit As you cannot gather grapes from thornes nor figs of thistles no more can the members of Christ be barren or bring forth briers or thistles in stead of the fruits of the Spirit which is love joy c. Christ is the Saints fountaine that is united to him out of whom can flow no bitter water Hee that is borne of God sins not so far as the new birth is in him though there be a law in the members in the flesh of Saints which serves the law of sin yet with the law of their mindes they serve the will of God so that you shall finde Saints in this frame complaining of selfe and admiring of God condemning of self and justifying of God the remainder of the old man in me that is my selfe my flesh saith a Saint but the new creature that is Christ in me the hope of glory that is the King of glory come into my soule and displaying the glory of his presence there that is Christ in me and I in Christ in whome I am made a new creature therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature and if any man be a new creature it is Christ in him That there may appeare Method in what followeth take this one generall Observation Namely That being in Christ and the new creature are inseperable they alway gee together If in Christ then a new creature and if a new creature then in Christ as it is impossible to be a new creature before united to Christ so it is as impossible to be truly in Christ and not to be a new creature as those dead bones could not live before God had united them covered them with skin and breathed life into them For testimony to this truth take in the Apostle Paul in Rom. 8.10 And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousnesse He gives us this truth as it were upon his experience as if he had said I have found this that ever since I have bin in union with Christ the body of sin hath bin a dying the spirit of life hath carried me forth to the fruits of righteousnesse I am dead now to the commands of sin and flesh by which I have formerly binned captive and am made alive in my spirit to the workes of righteousnesse and if you aske me a reason of this it is Christ in me And iâ— Christ be in you it will be so with you too your bodies will be dead to the commands of sin and your spirits alive in the fruits of righteousnesse you will finde Christ a living Christ the second man from heaven heavenly and as a living Christ so hee makes life where ever he comes and the life he brings is heavenly Christ makes the new creature therefore can never be without the new creature What hath its being from Christ cannot be without Christ Now the new creature hath its being from Christ it could not be but in Christ and by Christ so that it must needs follow it is alwayes with Christ where Christ is there is the new creature indeed the new creature is nothing else but Christ possessing himselfe of a soule living in it and reigning over it by his spirit as Satan doth in the meere naturall man A Saint he dies with Christ and he lives with Christ Christ dies for him and lives in him and wee shall finde the Apostle Paul in Gal. 2.20 making this confession and acknowledgment I am crucified with Christ neverthelesse I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me He doth acknowledge himselfe to be dead crucified to himselfe in the death of Christ and then laies hold of another life but it is out of selfe by faith in Christ this is my very life now whilst I am in the flesh saith he and truly this my life is Christ in me it is not I but Christ that lives in me that faith which is in me is not selfe but Christ as if he had said my life is a new life and that life is the new creature and that new creature is Christ in me I am that Temple which you see Christ lives in but Christ is the life of that Temple Without me saith Christ you can doe nothing True Lord saith Paul but through thy strength I can doe all things as if Christ had said you cannot be new creatures till you be in me and I in you I finde that true saith Paul for in me that is in my flesh there is no good But I have also experimented this truth if once in thee I can be no longer an old creature as he tells us in Gal. 1.15 16. So soone as ever God had called me by his grace to reveale his sonne in me that I might preach him among the heathens immediately I obeyed and did not stand to confer with flesh and blood Not to see by his old eyes nor to act upon his old principles flesh and blood must no longer teach and lead Paul when God had called him by his grace and revealed Christ to him as if Paul should say I am now united to the Lord Jesus and I cannot but be a new creature the Kingdome of God is within me and it will burst out it is like new wine in old bottles as my flesh was
of that power beyond and contrary to that end hee received it for Otherwise the impositions upon the people of God in the matters of their God and the persecution of them for not obeying men rather then God would finde no footing in the World If pride in men doe not make them act further then they have received Rule and Commission from God his people would not complaine as they doe at the Throne of Grace for being persecuted because the Rule of God is That every man be fully perswaded in his own bosome for whatsoever is not of faith is sin Rom. 14.5.23 But the proud man puts forth his power beyond the bounds which God hath set him and is so cruell that he cannot heare the cryes of the poore people of God which onely plead for Christian forbearance and doe professe in singlenesse of heart as in the presence of God they are ready to obey their commands to the utmost so farre as God shall fully enlighten and perswade them it is his will so that in what they doe they may not sinne through unbeliefe And sure I am nothing but pride and cruelty can stop an eare to these cryes How ugly now must pride needs look to the eye of a godly soul And how doth such a soule observe the folly and cruelty of pride This should make every soule exceeding earnest at the Throne of Grace that the Lord would by the fire of his own holy Spirit destroy the lust of pride in them It is the throne of the Devill O beseech the Lord to destroy that throne it is the very flames of hell in the soule O begge of the Lord to quench them and wholly to extinguish them by his Spirit Pride in the Soule is the Devils Banner of defiance against God O be earnest with the Lord of Hosts to make himselfe in thee a Conquerour over this lust Where pride reignes God abhorres where that is King Christ is an enemy O therefore implore the power of Heaven to keep this under to destroy it and root it out of all its strong holds in the soule All the Devils in Hell without the soule are more easie enemies then pride within the soule that man is a perfect slave which hath pride for his Master and untill the Sonne and Spirit make a soule free it will never bee free indeed We should be therefore often with God beseeching him that Christ may live in us by his Spirit to make us free from the sinne and slavery of pride That soule which begges of God the death of pride in it selfe hath a promise attending its petition for it is according to the will of God God having declared himselfe an enemy to pride O that all Saints were like God in this open declared enemies to pride in themselves and others improving all their interest at the throne of Grace that God would destroy this peece of Selfe and Satan root and branch out of the Soule that neither Fruit nor Branch may ever grow upon it more Againe From this discovery of a proud man in his principles and practises I have learned thus much That if ever I should be called to put power into the hands of any man or men and to entrust all those liberties which I could commit to trust into such hands I would make this a generall rule of all men to avoid a proud man for I would never trust a foole with power nor a cruel man with my liberties and I am sure a proud man is both these so that surely that person or Nation shal never but be miserable that committeth power and trust into such hands such men as single persons are the burthen of a Land but put power in their hands and they will be so farre as their power will reach the ruine of that Land Though men as Gods instruments give a proud man his power yet he soone forgets that he hath received the power by which he differs and so Tyrant like makes use of his power to plucke downe them that set up him and to sacrifice those rights and liberties which he is intrusted to preserve to his own pride this I am sure he can never be true to me that is faulty to God but a proud man is so because in substance he denyes God to be the originall of his power for did he acknowledge himself to receive that by which he differs he would never be proud of his debt and his duty nor use his power contrary to or beyond the rule of God who gives both rule and power It is the humble heart which only hath a hand fit to put power into and to intrust any thing that is deare and precious withal because there is acknowledgements in receiving that wherein it differs this man is most like to be a faithfull Steward to give an account of his trust for he acknowledgeth himselfe to be a Steward a Trustee or indeed a trusted servant for the good and happinesse of them that have trusted him the weight of his work sanctified by the Spirit of God keeps this man humble It is this humble man which will be a blessing to them that trust him Hee that God makes humble is a sit man to make honourable and by putting trust in such hands will Nations and Kingdoms be made happy And now I must crave leave to be plain and single hearted with men in power only in asking them the Apostles questions Who maketh thee to differ from another and what hast thou that thou hast not received Have you more power then others yet remember you have received that power from God as the fountaine from men as the streames and it is onely in what you have received by which you differ from other men and pray remember this your account will be as great as your power because your power is received Let me begge you to consider what is Gods end and mans end in trusting you and putting power into your hands Gods end is his owne glory that you should lift up his Name in all you doe defend his people with all your power to be a defence to all that is praise-worthy and a terrour only to evil doers to make his will your worke not your owne wills a law his Word and Spirit your rule his single glory your end the people of the Covenant of his free-grace your beloved ones that you should establish righteousnesse justice and judgement in the Land which will be the firme end and lasting pillars of peace this is Gods end in giving you power and according to these ends will God have from you an account of your using that power hee hath committed to you and that you have received from him Mans end in putting power into your hands is their owne good that you should by that power defend them in all just and righteous wayes maintaine to them their proprieties and not to diminish but encrease their just liberties such in which all just men may be
that glories glory in this That he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindnesse judgement and righteousnesse in the earth This Scripture is a full proofe to the thing in hand both in the Negative and in the Affirmative First in the Negative not to glory in any thing out of God or besides God not in Wisdome Power Riches or any other thing of that nature any thing below God himself is too low for the people of God to glory in if you will glory here is a subject fit for your glory namely God to understand and know him to bee the Lord which exercises loving kindnesse judgement and righteousnesse in the earth he that truly knowes God may glory in God who is the onely fit object of glory God is so glorious that hee makes the foolish things of the world to confound the wise weak things the mighty and despised things to bring to naught things that are Therefore wisdome power riches nobility in the world are not proper subjects for a Saint to glory in no God is the onely and single vubject of his peoples glory and when you finde them glorying it is in the Lord as in the 30. verse of this chapter the Apostle glories in this that through the freegrace of God Christ is made to his people wisdome righteousnesse sanctification and redemption his glory is in God and Christ Christ as the gift and God as the giver Christ made of God and so forth This is my glory Gods wisdome righteousnesse sanctification and redemption Christ is all this to Saints of the free grace of God Therefore be that glories let him glory in the Lord. His selfe is nothing but Christ as the gift of God his All and his Glory So the same Apostle in Galat. 6.15 God forhid that I should glory save in the crosse of our Lord Jesus Christ Hee tels them there be such which make a fair shew in the flesh that would have them to be circumcised that they might not suffer persecution But sayes the Apostle tell not me of these poore low shifts or glory for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision not uncircumcision availeth any thing but a new creature And in another place Christ in us the hope of glory I can glory in none of these empty outsides and shadowes of things it is the new Creature Christ in me the crosse of Christ the redemption of free grace the eternall love of God that I can glory in or make the subject of my glory as in that most remarkable place Eph. 2.8 9. For by grace are yee saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast Mark it and we shall find here is a sure provision to keep all the glory upon Gods head so that who ever glories must glory in God Why because the whole matter of salvation comes of by and from the free grace of God yea even faith the hand that layes hold of the free grace of God is also the gift of Gods free grace worke selfe is wholly excluded because God will have no flesh to boast or glory in his sight or in any thing but himselfe Therefore God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he hath loved us even when we were dead in sinnes hath quickned us together with Christ therefore it is by grace that we are saved He loved us when we lay in our blood when no eye pitied us his love is first to us and from hence he makes a covenant of free grace to be our God and that we shall be his people that he will put his law in our hearts and teach his people by his own Spirit What doth all this prove but thus much That God alone is and ought to be the onely subject of his peoples glory and we shall find the Apostle Paul in this first of the Ephesians not onely in the precept but in the practice of this thing blessing of God and glorying in God in the third verse Blessed be the Lord God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spirituall blessings in heavenly places in Christ Observe it he blesses and glories in God he mentions nothing to glory in but God in Christ God in himselfe when he speaketh of chusing electing love and glory he doth it in Christ verse 4. Chosen us in him before the foundation of the world and so forward in the fifth verse Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himselfe according to the good pleasure of his will verse 6. to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us acceptable in the beloved And in the seventh verse according to the riches of his grace verse 8. wherein he hath abounded towards us in all wisdome and prudence Thus the Apostle spends the whole chapter in declaring the glory of the full love and free grace of God to his in Christ he is in a very glorious frame of spirit full of glory and blessing but God is the subject of all his glory and blessing So we may find him in his triumphing Chariot That Rom. 8. verse 1. No condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus and walk after the Spirit in which there is freedome from the law of sinne and death 33. Nothing to be laid to the charge of Gods elect which God justifies and that nothing can separate from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Gods love is the subject the Apostle glories in it was the love of God and so everlasting unchangeable love it was justification by the free grace of God therefore above condemnation Mark it God is the subject of his glory God justifies and God loves So in Rom. 11. latter end O the depth of the riches both of the wisdome and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgements and his wayes past finding out For of him and to hins and through him are all things to whom be glory for ever Amen The Apostle finds all to be in God and God the onely subject for him to glory in and give glory to What ever God doth himselfe is the glory of all his workes and God is a depth of riches wisdome and knowledge he is unsearchable in his judgements and his wayes are so full of glory that man cannot trace them he is so pure a glory that he can bee discerned by no light but his own 2 Cor. 2.14 But the naturall man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishnesse unto him neither can hee know them because they are spiritually discerned God is so greaâ— a glory that he darkens all glory besides himselfe so that nothing but himselfe can be a discovery of himselfe and this the Apostle declares as the glory of God he is an unsearchable and more exceeding and eternall weight of glory Therefore sayes hee
God which to a spirituall eye carry their owne beauty but you will finde them without art not adorned with humane learning and so without beautie to a fleshly eye I know you will wonder what I meane to appeare in Print especially in these times when plaine truths from the most of men will finde nothing else but plaine scorne most men having sight but on one side and their stomacks so full of crudities that they cannot beare but vomit up with scorne in the face of him that brings them even saving truths besides you will thinke I cannot bee ignorant but to know that my name will prejudice these truths unto many that live by fancie more then Faith such as will cavill with all truth that comes by a hand they like not and have little other groūds for the truth they take up but that they come by such hands that they at present fancie I confesse I cannot make my selfe so ignorant as not to understand these things nor is it my designe by appearing in Print to make my felfe publike for I expect by it to be the derision of most men nor doe I Print because I thinke the Presse wants worke for I am throughly convinced that much evill hath over spread this Land by those many unsauory Pamphlets and those rending dividing principles which have this way been spread abroad by which the members of Christ have beene scandalized rent and divided and have almost made themselves a pray to the Wilde Boares and the subtle Foxes which have no higher ends but to destroy the tender Vines The reasons why I chuse to render my selfe to the Worlds scorne in this matter and manner are these First In satisfying my conscience in obedience to God in some Scripeures set upon my spirit by himselfe I trust when as my flesh and spirit did contend about this matter And the first is this Freely yee have received freely give Though this was spoken first to the Apostles yet I thinke it doth not exclude any but include every Saint and Disciple of Christ to be free in the giving forth of their knowledge experience and injoyment of God in Christ by his spirit to the World And this is my case What I give I have freely received from the Lord in secret when no eye but his did see me I doe acknowledge it is the free grace of God that makes knowne any title of truth to me and if my heart deceive me not it is the manifesting of his free grace that is my designe in giving forth freely as I receive I shall I trust with much more ease beare the reproaches of the World then I could a concealement of the love of God in Christ In another Scripture I finde that light is not to be put under a bushell but to be held forth that according to its nature it may lighten others and because what Saints have they have received and every talent is to bee improved to the Masters use and the standing rule to Gods people that all things be done to edification and that most which may edifie most therefore in obedience to these Scriptures God hath moulded me into his will and I doe freely cast my selfe upon his love and power to beare up my spirit to carry me through good and evill reports and I hope shall ever esteeme of the Worlds scornes as not worthy of thoughts in that day when God shall manifest his will and worke to me A second reason why I thus appeare is That I might be a Christian Servant to fellow Saints God is as free in giving as he is in saving he gives what hee pleaseth how he pleaseth when he pleaseth and by whom hee pleaseth this I have in some measure experimented of God and thinke it my duty to be a servant to God and to fellow Saints to bring unto them what I have received from him When Saints reveale their knowledge and experience of God they doe thereby confirme strengthen and build up one another in their most holy Faith I know no higher worke that Saints on earth have then this and were it more in practice I doe verily beleeve that the beauty of holinesse and the power of godlinesse would be more transparent but in stead of serving one another this way in the spirit of God we are devouring and destroying one another by an evill spirit of lying and slaundering fomenting unchristian and needlesse jealousies one of another this is either in the beginning or the end of most mens discourses of their printings and it hath beene where I am sure it ought not to be in mens Preachings these tares which the evill man hath sowne amongst the good seed have exceedingly scandalized the Gospell of Christ with the professours thereof and if God delight in this generation hee will exceedingly humile us under this very thing in stead of crucifying Christ in one another Saints should be servants to carry Christ to each other I meane their light in Christ and their experiences of the love faithfulnesse and holinesse of God this would increase love to God and his people in stead of devouring beget imbracings into the bosome and armes of love and faithfulnesse not to bely and scandalize but to honour and vindicate every childe of God A third reason that moves in me is this To stir up those many thousands which this Land affords that are abundantly more able to take up this necessary worke Truly it is sad to see how frothy and light things doe take up the spirits of able and godly men when as this onely thing necessary is as it were quite forgotten not onely dead but buried out of sight I doe beleeve these last seven yeares have brought forth as little of this fruit as any seven yeares before in which men did complaine they durst not send truths abroad least so doing should confine them to prisons had the seven yeares liberty the Presse hath had beene improved in this through the blessing of God it might have left such monuments of God in the World as after ages might have blessed him for I doe beleeve Satan hath hindred much of this worke from appearing by the scandall and reproach of the World which is usually cast upon it truly I found it a very hard thing to get over but when God gave me to understand that The good and comfort of one soule was of greater weight then the reproach of all the World I was immediatly carryed above that temptation and I here mention it to stirre up others to the same worke for doubtlesse God hath many thousand poore Saints in this Kingdome which will gladly gather up those pearles of Divine truths which the Swine of the World trample under their feet if but one soule blesse God in truth for the revealing of these truths though many thousand prophane ones should scorne me to my face yet I shall not lose my end nor repent for my reproaches if God be honoured by them My last
Ephes 2.8 Every saved soule is a child of free grace and its salvation the gift of God in the fifth verse of that Chapter Verre 5. Even we who were dead in sins hath he quickned us together with Christ there is all in one state of death and all in one state of life and the originall of this life he brings in a parenthesis by grace ye are saved love is in God the originall of it to all alike and it never degenerates from this first principle till it comes through the muddy hearts of fallen creatures and we so much degenerate from God and from love Joh. 17 23◠latter part as we live below this love in the Originall John 17.23 latter part our Saviour there prayes that the world may know that God loves Saints as he loves him And hast loved them sayes Christ as thou hast loved me thus is Christ and Saints in one originall love And if head and Member then surely Member and Member All true Saints lye in this one womb the originall love of God Ephes 4.4 5 6. And thus all Saints are of one Body one Calling have one Lord one God and Father of all the originall love of God makes this Onenesse in all the Saints and speakes very strongly this thing That there should be a uniting of affections amongst all Saints upon the interest of Saints Secondly Reason or Consi ∣ deration 2 consider as Saints our onenesse in union with Christ the rock from whence we are all hewen whom God hath chosen to manifest to us his eternall love and to make us capable of enjoying the fulnesse of that love this union our Saviour speakes to in John 17.23 I in them and they in me that they might be made perfect in one Consider Saints perfection lies in this union surely their affections should flow from this union A Saints compleatnesse is in Christ Coloss 2.10 Vnion with Christ hath all the Arguments of love in it For there is the beauty the fulnesse and the compleatnesse of Christ upon such a soule The excellency of Christ seemes to have but little beauty in such an eye or heart as cannot love upon the naked interest of a Saint Ephes 2.5 If Christ bee enough to gain thy love whole Christ is the interest of every Saint every beleever is quickned together with Christ who in all is for eternall interest alike to all that the Father hath given him His blood equall redemption and satisfaction his righteousnesse is as compleat a robe to all his members as to any where Christ is the Head every Member is compleat in him Christ is Head to the whole elect beleeving Body the Foot hath as good an interest as the Hand or Eye God is no respecter of persons he chuses meerly of his own grace and that grace fils every soule with the fulnesse of him that is the fulnesse of the Godhead bodily So that through that free full grace every soule is compleat in him if this union ingage not love it can be no spirituall object which will doe it for the fulnesse of the Godhead bodily is in Christ and Saints are one with Christ every beame of the love and glory of God shines through Christ Whence is it then that union with Christ takes not all the affections Surely Christ bath but little love from such a soule that findes not this Argument enough to perswade him to love his brother that is one with him in Christ and lives up to his union with Christ bearing his Image Faith workes not lower effects then flesh and blood doth refined affections make stronger and purer motions then the highest piece of simple Nature can doe Now flesh and blood will act thus high I must love he is my brother we had one womb to be conceived in I must love hee is my child he beares my Image surely faith workes higher then this spirituall affections make stronger and purer motions upon union and relations then carnall can doe motion from affection made in the soule by a light of this interest He is my brother one womb of love conceived us both we are both builded upon one Rock of Ages this love out-beats the pulse of carnall affections though it beats very strong love to God and Christ is in the bottome of this motion and carries it strongly on 1 John 4.20 If a man say I love God and hateth his brother he is a lyar if there bee love to God and Christ there will be love to every soul that is in communion with Christ Thirdly Reason or Consi ∣ deration 3 consider the onenesse of Saints in the ingagement of God to all namely his covenant of free grace in which all his people have equall interest it is free from God and so equally full to all God freely ingages to be our God and that we shall be his people and that he will freely forgive our iniquity and remember our sins no more God makes this new covenant to all the new creation to the whole body of his elect in Christ which as the holy Ghost tels us in Ephes 2.10 That we are his workmanship ereated in Christ Jesus unto good workes There is not any soule hath any thing to plead for his eternall life but meere grace and this is the free ingagement of God to every soule that he hath given to Christ this is the sure mercies of David this that better Covenant 't is made in God and cannot be broken And in all this glorious interest all the Saints are one there is not a beame of this glory from God that takes in one Saint and shuts out another The weakest beleeving soule may as truly say God is my God in his covenant of free grace as the strongest beleever Fourthly consider Reason or Consi ∣ deration 4 the onenesse of that way which God and Christ hath chosen to manifest their love and their will to all Saints namely the holy Spirt John 14.17.26 Hete is a generall promise to all Saints that they shall be taught all things and this shall be by the holy Ghost the Spirit of Truth whom the Father will send in Christs Name and he shall dwell with them and shall be in them What ever truth of God any Saint hath learned in truth he hath received it from this Spirit of truth Though God as a free agent gives to his children as it pleaseth him to one more light to another lesse but all receive of this one Spirit and this I take to be that one Baptisme spoken of in the 4. Eph. 4.5 Ephefians 5. Jesus Christ administring himselfe by this one Spirit to all his Children by which they come baptized into Christ into his death and have put on Christ Rom. 6.3 4 Rom. 8.14 Rom. 6.3 4. And are led by the Spirit Rom. 8.14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sous of God To be led by the Spirit
is the light of the Spirit Now we have all this freedome because the Son hath made us free by bearing those burthens for us and what Christ hath borne for a believer that a believer is fully redeemed from Thirdly Christ hath borne the punishment due to sinne for us See this in Isa Isa 35 4 5.8.10 11. 35.4 5.8.10 11. Observe the Text. Surely he borne our griefes and carried our sorrowes Hee was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed For the transgressions of my people was he smitten It pleased the Lord to bruise him and to put him to griefe to make his soule an offering for sinne and he shall see of the travell of his soule and be satisfied I know not how fuller expressions should be made to set out this thing That Christ hath borne the punishment due to sin for the believer as fully as he hath the sinnes themselves With his stripes we are healed that is the punishment of our sins which he did beare for us so that as the wrath of God due to sinne we shall never beare them again for what Christ hath borne for us he hath delivered us from the bearing of it in our owne persons otherwise Christ dyed in vaine and this Text is not made good if we be not healed by his stripes Now if the punishment be not taken from the believer as well as the sinne how is the wounds of that soule healed by the stripes that Christ bore for it And if any shall say God made Christ to beare the believers sinnes but the believer must beare the punishment due to those sins though Christ was wounded bruised and chastised for them Such an affirmation will beare very hard upon the justice of God and question that truth of our Saviour upon the crosse that he had finished the worke of redemption part of which is the punishment as well as the sinne I verily believe when Christ bore the curse of the law he did beare the punishment due to all the sinnes of all his people and though I doe believe that God chastiseth every child whom hee loveth yet those chastnings are the fruits of his love and not of his wrath Christ hath borne all that in being made a curse for us Lastly Christ hath borne death for us as it is the wages of sinne 1 Cor. 15.53 to the end By which meanes death is swallowed up of victory The sting of death which is sinne and the strength of sinne which is the law have lost themselves their strength when they entered into Christ so that now a believer can blesse God that through Christ he hath victory over death sin hell law and grave and why so Why because Christ hath gone through he hath borne and overcome all these for us and wee are more then conquerours through Christ that strengthens us We are more because none of these can conquer Christ but he hath to all eternity overcome them for us This sting of death is swallowed up of victory for it is buried in the wounds of Christ but Christ is risen and is at the right hand of God and because he lives we live also John 14.19 Joh. 14.19 The second observation is this Observ 2 What-ever the free grace of God hath taken off from his Elect and laid upon Jesus Christ that his divine justice neither can nor will at any time to all eternity lay upon the elect soule againe This is justice sutable to his covenant of grace in the 31. of Jer. 34. For I will forgive their iniquities Jer. 31.34 remember their sinnes no more The faithfull God engages himselfe to remember his peoples sins no more and to make it good he layes them upon Christ which satisfieth his justice and carryeth our sins into the land of Forgetfulnesse Doe but observe how Gods justice as well as his mercy is engaged to make good this his owne covenant of grace For the law of creation that was doe and live self could not doe therefore selfe must dye Now surely the law of grace is not stricter then the law of creation so that Christ having fulfilled the whole law and performed every tittle of his Fathers will for us the justice of God is engaged to acquit Christ who hath paid the utmost farthing in him to acquit us for whom he hath made this full satisfaction As it was free grace in God to make us one with Christ so it is compleate justice that wee live in Christ who hath dyed for us And what ever Christ as the gift of free grace hath borne for us God in justice will never lay upon his elect in Christ again Whoever will deny this must deny God to be just and his covenant of lesse value then the covenant of a faithfull man his grace neither free nor full grace Christ not a compleat Saviour and then his death of no effect Now looke backe upon this truth and you shall behold sin the curse of the law punishment due to sin from the law of creation and death with its sting in it all borne by Christ for his elect body so that they shall never beare any of them more in their owne persons then glory in the free grace of God and the full redemption of Jesus Christ Thirdly Observ 3 Observe here the exceeding love that Christ shewes to those poore soules which his Father hath given him That hee would take upon himselfe the curse of the law the punishment of sinne due to fallen man and all this to redeeme them which his Father had given him though they lay under sin law punishment and death It had been great love and condiscention in Christ being God only to have taken our nature though he had never taken any thing else But then what love is this to take our sins and all that followed sin upon him Hee hath borne that weight for us which would have pressed us to hell if we had lain under it in our owne strength Rom. 5.8 These are heighths and breadths and depths and lengths of love Rom. 5.8 This commends love indeed to choose to beare all evill to deliver the sinner from it and by the same act to involve the sinner into all good Fourthly Observ 4 Observe from hence the glorious condition of a soule in union with Christ hee is taken up into the glory of God the bosome of his love he lives because Christ lives and as Christ lives above sin above a condemning reigning law above the punishment of sin and above death as it is the wages of sin above all that is below God Our fellowship saith the Text is with the Father and the Sonne and these things we write unto you that your joy may be full It is a life in the spirit above the flesh a feasting upon the fat things in Gods house and a resting upon the full
three verses holds forth the ground and the reason of all these First he fs full of assurance from the testimony of the Spirit of God bearing witnesse with his Spirit as in vers 16. and from hence he is raised up into such full joy and holy boastings by receiving the spirit of Adoption which delivered him from the spirit of bondage and fear and enabled him to crie Abba-Father as in verse 15. Now being thus filled he breaks out into exhortation to holy walking out of the flesh in the Spirit and in verse 14. makes it the character of the sonnes of God to the world their being ledde by the Spirit I may fitly call this portion of Scripture the lively image of a Saint living in God and to God in the Spirit For methods sake I shall set downe two heads upon which I shall hold forth that which God shall give into me upon the meditation of this Scripture The first is the sealing worke of the Spirit of God in a Saint Head 1 or a Saint sealed up to the eternall love of God by his Spirit and that I gather out of the 16th verse and the latter part of the 15th verse The second head is this Head 2 A Saint walking and working in the Spirit or the Spirit reigning in a Saint and this I gather from verse 14. and verse 15. In this worke I shall endeavour to wave all fleshly reasons as a subject above it and keepe my selfe only to the testimony of the word of God And as a foundation to this building I judge it very necessary in two or three Scriptures to shew how wee live under the promise and the powrings forth of this Spirit in Luke 24.49 Lu. 24.49 There our Saviour promiseth to send the promise of the Father so that the certaine comming waas vnder a double promise Joh. 15.25 And in John 15.26 Our Saviour explains who hee meant by the promise of the Father Joh. 16.7 And in John 16.7 The Lord Christ doth fully promise at his going away from the world by his corporall presence that he would send the Comforter which in the last Scripture mentioned is discovered to be the Spirit Now that Christ hath made this promise good take only that one place in Acts 2.1 Acts 2.1 2 3 4. 2 3 4. I shall keep you no longer from the heads propounded but as they are laid downe so prosecute them I begin with the first of them Namely the sealing worke of the Spirit of God in a Saint or a Saint sealed up to the eternall love of God by his Spirit These Scriptures first mentioned are as full a proofe of this as any in the booke of God they tell us plainly in so many words that the spirit of Adoption being received beares witnesse to the spirit of a Saint that he is the child of God and in this assurance so satisfies the soule of a believer that he cries Abba Father that this is the office of the Spirit to seale up a Saints interest in the eternal love of God and his onnnesse with Christ Ephes 4.30 let us consult that place Ephes 4.30 where the Apostle makes it an argument a gainst corrupt or vain worldly discourse in the Saints That you may not grieve the holy Spirit of God saith he whereby you are sealed up to the day of redemption As if the Apostle had argued thus You know saith he the Spirit hath sealed you up to the love of God in Christ yea into all God and Christ all the love of God and all the blood and redemption of Jesus Christ all the righteousnesse of the Sonne the glory of the Father Now for you to be corrupt vâ—ine and worldly in your communication you seeme to deny this seale of the Spirit or your interest in God and so you grieve the Spirit whose proper worke it is to seale you up to God So in Ephes 3.16 17 18 19. Ephes 3.16 17 18 19. wee finde the Apostle praying for the Saints Now let us consider what he prayes for First that they may be strengthned with might by his Spirit in the inward man so as that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith and that they may be rooted and grounded in love that they might be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth heighth and to know the love of Christ which passeth all knowledge that they might be filled with all the fulnesse of God pray marke it Here is Christ dwelling in the heart by faith and the soule rooted and grounded in the love of God and Christ from whence it comes to know in some measure the height and breadth and depth and length of the love of Christ which passes knowledge and so comes to be filled with the fulnesse of God But whence arises all this why look into the 16th verse from being strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inward man This Spirit seales up and beares witnesse to the soule that it is in the eternall love of God in Christ and so in all that satisfaction which Christ hath made to his Fathers justice and hath an interest in all that righteousnesse which Christ hath as the head And thus Christ by his Spirit takes possession of the heart and dwels in it by faith so as he turnes all into Spirit The knowledge is made spirituall he comes to know heighths breadths depths and lengths of love Letter is now turned into Spirit and the soule now neither knows Christ nor any thing of Christ in the flesh but in the spirit Being thus strengthened with might by the sealing of the Spirit the soule is able to unfold the misteries of God Christ in the flesh and can sucke in and feed on the spirit of the word and when it reades the 53. of Isa 4 5 6 10 11. compared with 2 Co. 5. last It can draw out by the Spirit matter for the soule to live on to eternity I sayes a spirituall soule I now see that God hath set Christ in my roome and that Christ hath so really and â—â—lly all my sins imputed to him and all the punishments due to them laid on him that he is said to be made sinne for me and hee was so made sinne that God hath made him to bear all the punishments due to my sinnes Surely he hath borne our griefes and carried our sorrowes He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him he hath put him to griefe and his soule is made an offering for sinne And he shall see of the travell of his soule and shall be satisfied for he shall bear their iniquities I sayes the soule now I see in the Spirit and believe that Christ was made sinne for
the bare law of Commandement could not raise mee up to holy walking For flesh which was my owne strength that was weake but God having made up that in his Son Now sayes hee the righteousnesse of the law is fulfilled in us who walke not after the flesh but after the spirit And shewes in the 5th verse what it is to walke after the flesh and what after the spirit and in the 6. verse tells us flesh and spirit is the way of life and death but in the 9th verse he shewes who are in the Spirit namely those in whom the spirit of God dwels And sayes plainly that those which have not the Spirit are none of Christs And in the two next verses shewes if Christ lives in a soule by his Spirit then the body of sinne dyes There is a reigning power indeed the whole body of sin killed by the Spirits dwelling and reigning in a Saint and now all the action and motion of such a soule is from God The soule now in all its wants can have accesse to God through Christ in the spirit as in Ephes 2.18 and in Ephes 3.16 17 18. Ephes 2.18 Ephes 3.16 17 18. John 17.38 39. By the spirit in the inward man the soule is an established soule and a knowing soule and so is enabled to act for God in the Spirit John 7.38 39. There is a promise to believing soules of being so filled with the Spirit that there shall be flowings forth Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water And this saith the 39th verse is spoken of the spirit which they that believe in him should receive Now what is the end of this fulnesse of the Spirit but that it should rule and reigne in a Saint and that a Saint should walke and act in it In Rom 6.14 There is a promise sin shall not have dominion over the Saints and the reason is given because saith he you are not under the law but under grace Christ is your sanctification and his spirit of grace shall deliver you from the dominion of sin In 1 Cor. 2.14 15. There a Saints knowledge is spiritual and so dstinguished from the world and this spirituall knowledg living in action in a Saint We shall finde in 1 Cor. 12.11 in the former part of the Chapter the Apostle speaks of spiritual gifts acting diversly in severall Saints but all these workings are from one and the same Spirit so as it is the Spirit that doth all in the Saints In 2 Cor. 3.16 17 18. There is a soule made light by having the vaile taken from its eyes and in that light beholding God saith the Text is changed into his Image Now marke it all this is by the spirits living in a soule A soule living upon God in the spirit hath the vaile taken away and lives in a glorious vision of God by which the soul is changed into the Image of God and this is by the Spirit of the Lord saith the end of the 18. Verse And so in 2 Cor. 5.14 15 16 17. There is a new creature made by the love of Christ which constrained the soul from the powerfull operation of the Spirit wherefore henceforth saith he wee know no man no not Christ himselfe after the flesh No How then Why in the spirit that spirit that sheddes the love of Christ in our hearts and thereby constâ—aines us to live in him that died for us and in whom wee are dead to the flesh but alive in the spirit And thus the Spirit acts the new creature So in Gal. 5.16 17 18 22 25. Verses There is an exhortation to walke in the spirit by which a saint is delivered from obedience to the lusts of the flesh though the flesh lusteth against the spirit yet saith the 18. Verse If yee be led by the spirit yee are not under the Law and in the 22. Verse shewes the fruits of the Spirit and concludes in the 25. Verse If you live in the spirit then walke in the spirit making all a Saints life and action to be in the spirit I will only touch one particular of the life of a Saint out of this generall namely his worship and shew you how all that is in the Spirit for a Saint worshiping God in the Spirit take first John 4.23 24. Which is our Saviours Answer to the woman of Samarias Question in the 20 Verse she as one without the Spirit questions about the places of worship going as far as an eye of nature could carry her to externalls but the Lord Christ in the 21 Verse tells her Woman the houre cometh when neither in this mountaine nor in Jerusalem shall yee worship the father your light is onely in externalls and you worship you know not what and then preaches himselfe to her Salvation is of the Jewes as if he had said God will have his people onely worship him and that in the Spirit for the time comes and now is when the true worshipers shall worship God in the spirit and gives the reason of it for saith he God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth This truth is very fully confirmed in Phil 3.3 false teachers in the foregoing Chapter would have brought the Saints under the law of works a gaine and the yoake of circumcision but the Apostle in this 3. Verse tell us those are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit As if the Apostle had said these false teachers endeavour to bring you under a formall worship and to make you debtors to the law of worâ—s againe But we are above it and we are to live in the Spirit and to worship in the Spirit in the 1 Pet. 2.5 There the Apostle tells you who they be that are sit for communion with God they be living stones alive in the Spirâ—t and acting in the Spirit to offer up spirituall sacrificâ— to God by Jesus Christ I but when is a man a living stone fit to offer up the sacrifice sâ—e that in 1 Joh. 2.27 But the anâ—inting whâ—ch yee have received of him abides in you and the same anointing teacheth you all thinâ—s and is truth and is no lye and even as it hath taught you yee shall abide in him Then is a man a visible Saint a living stone fiâ— to worship God and to have communion with him when he hath received the Vnction of the Spirit by which he is taught of God to woâ—ship in the Spirit and in truth This truth is not taught of man but of God and therefore it abides in him thus you see he that worships God truly worships him in the Spirit What a Spirituall Saint is What a Saint is not First he is more than a Morall-man he that is lesse than a morall-man is a beast and he that is at the heigh of a morall-man is but meerly a man a fine civiliz'd peice of clay loving himselfe and therefore doth â—ot devoute another because
another man should not devoure him decked with his owne accomplishments and glorying in his owne Babel Sarely a spirituall Saint is more than this Yea Secondly he is more than a Form â—ll or Legall Profâ—ssâ—r What is a formall Proâ—essor He is one that lives by sâ—nsâ— and not by faith that is onâ—ly taught of man and not of God that hath all his light from without him from the practice of others and not from the precâ—pts or spirit of God within him One that can see and practise anything which may please all or the most of men he is alwayes learning and never learned because hee is alwayes studying man and never God hee is one which you shall ever finde in the croude where the most are there you shal be sure to finde him If you meet him and tell him of a Christ crucified I but saith he doth any of the Pharisees bâ—lieve in his name he is a man much in worship but the inscription is to the unknown God his eyes are in anothers head and therefore he is led by another to act as a blinde-man no forme comes amisse to him for he is nothing else but forme he is one so ignorant as that hee thinks it a crime for any man to see more than himselfe though he be blind and if the man that sees will not deny his light hee will doe the best he can to pluck out his eyes he is so proud of his chaines of darkenesse that none shall live where hee can rule that will not weare his setters this soule is mother and nurse both to that Brate of hell Persecution of the Saints this man of forme knows no heights bredths depths or lengths above himselfe and if he snatch a peice of the Word of God he only hath it in the letter and so never reaches God in it this is a formall Professor I but what is a legall Professor he is a man seemingly neerer Heaven but if he goe on farther no man farther from it he is a man full of the word in the letter but altogether emptie of it in the spirit he is a man exact in the language of Mount Sinai but cannot pronounce a plaine sillable of the language of Sion he can tell you that God is a just God and a severe Judge a revenger of himself upon sinners but is not able to pronounce God as a Father and a reconciled God in Christ hee is exact to tell you of present duty and transgression but is not able to unfold the mysterie of godlinesse Christ in the flesh if a word of Christ drop out of his mouth it is to tell you what quallifications must fit you for Christ as he thinkes when he hath found a leprous soule of sinne he cannot shew it Christ but sayes he goe wash in the teares of repentance and you shall bee cleane though he never shew him Christ which must wash his repentance if he findes a poore Saint under some affliction he cannot make up the wound by leading the soul to the love of God from whence that affliction came but saith he looke into your selfe inquire for that sin the punishment of which you now lie under God is a just God if you will sin you must beare the indignation of the Lord for it goe fall on your knees weep and fast and pray and vow make God some amends this is all the releife he can give and so he poures oyle into the flame of sorrows and vineger into the bleeding woundes of poore Saiuts This legall soule lives upon his duties and not upon the free grace of God and therefore he can give no other counsel than he hath experience he never tasted in the spirit how good God is and therefore can never speake good to his own soule or any other from God If he speak any good to a soule it is from duties doe and live the effect of all his language I only give this as a word of caution that we hearken not to the councels of such men least we become like those foolish Galatians which began in the Spirit but were like to end in the flesh Let this be enough in the negative what a spirituall Saint is not But then what is a spirituall Saint What a Saint is Why hee is one that lives by faith above sence one that is all in God and nothing in himselfe hee is taught of God to know him he is drawne by God to love him he is perswaded by God to trust in him he is silled with God and lives upon him heis satisefid with God and rejoyces in him he so lives in God that he makes his boast of him as the Apostle Rom. 8. the latter end Who shall condemne nay who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect He is one which in the Spirit is able to looke from eternity to eternity and therein behold that eternall love of God which gave out Christ to manifest his love to us in him and hath made him one with Christ in all his merits righteousnesse and benefits he is able to see into that love and eternall purpose of God that made Christ to be sinne for us that we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him He can see God his Father and in the spirit of Adoption call him Father Hee can read his salvation written in the Covenant of grace He can behold himselfe one in Christ as Christ is in God He assuredly knowes that Christ hath born his griefe and that God hath wounded Christ for his transgressions bruised him for his iniquities laid the chastisement of his peace on him and all this so fully and really as that by the stripes God laid on Christ his soule is healed that God hath made Christe soul an offering for the sinnes of his people and that hee hath beheld the travell of his soule and is well pleased so that now this spirituall man drawes up this conclusion What-ever of sinne and punishment was mine was taken from me and made Christs and he hath fully satisfied for the one born the other so that now from the justice of God I can conclude this that neither of them shall bee laid on mee againe Christs righteousnesse and his glory is so made mine that I stand spotlesse in the one and shall be perfect in the other to all eternity Thus is a spirituall soul-led up to God and made to know his great designe from eternity namely to make Christ his wisdome righteousnesse sanctification and redemption and that in all these hee stands perfect before God in the perfection of Christ This soule lives in the region of Gods love and in Christs righteousnesse and sees himself above all condemnation and yet the least transgression in him discovered to him by the love and Spirit of God melts the poore heart into nothing I see sayes he I am alive in Christ through the eternall love of God and that makes me thus judge that if
cannot fin but it must be without excuse A carnall man may sin I could doe no better in my owne strength I but a Saint cannot plead so he hath Christ for his strength why then in the Spirit of God let Saints consider what a course of sin would be in them it is little less then proclaiming Christ a sinner for a Saint is looked upon to live act in Christ and that Christ doth all in him Oh then if the glory and honour of God and Christ be deare to us how can we that are delivered from sin live any longer to it It is impossible that we can love Christ and sin too therefore where Christ lives by his love he constrains the death of sinne The exhortation is to Saints to live in the Spirit and that is trampling upon all below God and Christ and behold our selves heirs of that glory and co-heirs with Christ in that glory that is God and Christ to all eternity CHAP. IIII. Gods love giveth Saints to know they shall appear like Christ 1 John 3.1.2 Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God Therefore the world knowes us not because it knew not him Beloved now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appeare what wee shall be but wee know that when hee shall appeare we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is GOds love in the manner of it in making of us his sonnes is here by the holy Ghost set forth with a behold and truly none but such as have received the holy Ghost can behold it It is too bright a glory for any but a spiritual eye to look on therefore the world knowes not Gods children the heires of glory because they know not him the Lord of glory Spirituall objects are only discerned by spirituall eyes and such are here called to behold the originall love of God which hath made us one with Christ in him sonnes of his love and heires of his glory There lyes very much in these two verses I shall only for methods sake put them into two generall heads and make observations from them The first is this That at the glorious appearance of Christ will come the fulnesse of a Saints glory as hee is united to Christ The second generall head is this That this fulness will be the fulnesse of Christ for we shall be like him see him as he is To the first head That at the glorious appearance of Christ will come the fulnesse of a Saints glory as he is united to Christ By this glorious appearance of Christ I understand that appearance when he shall come to judge the world when he shall give the damned their full portion and his children theirs for then sayes the Text wee shall be made like him and see him as he is which is a state of perfection I shall now endeavour to prove this first generall head First take this paralell Scripture as a proofe Colos 3 3 4. For yee are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is our life shall appeare then shall yee also appeare with him in glory Here Christ is said to be a Saints life there is our union with him and at his appearance then we appeare in fulnesse of glory That soule which is one with Christ is united to him in his death and in his life We are dead with Christ sayes one Text and this Text sayes wee are alive in Christ Nay Christ is our life so that when Christ manifests his owne glory he manifests our glory as we are united to him Wee may reade the will of Christ in this point of our glory with him in John 17.24 Father I wil that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me To behold the glory of Christ is to be swallowed up into the glory of Christ yea into Christ himselfe for his glory is not to be beheld out of himselfe and then doth the fulnesse of a Saints glory appeare when he doth come to behold Christ aâ— he is united to him in his fulnesse of glory So likewise Rom 8 17. And if children then heirs heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ If so be that we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together The Apostles scope is to shew that in our union with Christ we are heires of glory joynt-heirs with Christ and so have joynt-interest in his glory so that when the fulnesse of Christs glory appeares then the fulnesse of our glory appeares The holy Ghost doth fully cleâ—â—e this point and shews wherein this glory lies in that 1 Thes 4.16 17. For the Lord himselfe shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voyce of the Arch-Angel and with the trumpe of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meete the Lord in the aire and so shall we ever be with the Lord. This place speakes of that comming and appearing of Christ which I mentioned in the beginning and it clears this point fully that we shall appear with Christ in glory sayes the Text and so shall wee ever be with the Lord not only appeare with him in glory but also abide for ever with him and so be filled with the fulnesse of his glory These Scriptures instead of many more which might be produced will fully serve to make proofe of the first generall head The second generall head proves it selfe it hath in it a double proofe that our fulnesse is the fulnesse of Christ For first sayes the Text wee shall be like him Now nothing but ouâ—uâ—ion with Christ can make us like Christ to be filled with his fulnesse And another Text sayes Of his fulnesse meaning Christs we received and grace for grace The second proofe in the Text is We shall see him as he is Now Christ is so beight a glory that he can be seene in no light but his owne he is the expresse Image of his Father and the brightness of the glory of God so that his brightnesse darkens all other glories and is discerned in nothing but himselfe I shall now make some observations of this Scripture and these generâ—ll heads And the first observation shall be this namely That a Saints â—oorst condition is in this world When the world shall end then shall all the clouds of the people of God be blown over and the brightnesse of Christs appear and we like him sayes the Text. I when the little world that we carry about us in this body of sinne and death shall give up the ghost then shall a harvest of gaine come in as the holy Ghost tels us in that first Chapter of Paul to the Philippians vers 21. Though to live be Christ yet to dye is gaine Though
the beames of Christ shines through clouds in this world and so maintains life in his members yet here lyes the gaine to be carried above the clouds and to be lodged in the bosome of the Lord of glory As the fore-named Text To be ever with the Lord there lies the gain Gods word tels us of a time when all teares shall be wiped from our eyes but it is not in this world for our Saviour tels us the world will hate us it shall be a place of tribulation It must not seeme hard or strange to those that shall reigne with Christ to suffer with him all our sufferings are in and from the world but the fulnesse of our reigne is with Christ in Heaven Thus are we made conformable to the image of Christ in this world we enjoy least of Christ and therefore must needs be a Saints worst condition That is the darkest day to a Saint in which the least of Christs presence and glory appeares therefore is the world a Saints worst state because it is not able to beare the fulnesse of the glory of Christ which shall be revealed in Heaven There will be no need to enquire for him whom our soule loves for we shall alwayes be in his presence When mortality hath put on immortality then comes in the crown of glory we may have glimpses of glory in this life but the more exceeding and eternall weight of glory is in the life to come The top of our life here is of faith we eive by the faith of the Sonne of God saith the Text. And another Scripture opening the nature of faith sayes It is the evidence of things not seen but in Heaven we know as we are known of God the eye wil then be made sutable to the object and there wil be defect no more on our part to diminish the glory So that you see if wee set aside all the sowr of the world and take a Saints sweetest morsels he hath below yet it is short of the glory shal be revealed Wherefore the observation stands very cleare That a Saints worst condition is in this world The 2d observation is this namely That a Saint hath reliefe from the worst of the world by faith waiting for the appearance of Christ as in the Text. A Saint by faith lookes upon his union with Christ as a Sonne and so satisfies it selfe with the appearance of God So the Apostle Paul in Rom. 8. the latter end he eyes there his union with Christ and so is carried above tribulation or distresse or the worst of the world Hee concludes there was nothing could separate him from Christ and therefore he is at rest as if he should say notwithstanding all these which he named before as tribulation and the rest yet Christ and I shall be one in glory and when his fulnesse of glory appeares then shall mine A Saint by faith can argue thus what-ever may seeme best at present to a carnall eye yet I know when Christ shall appeare that is the righteous Judge of quicke and dead then shall my head be lifted up for my full redemption drawes nigh When a state of good and evill for eternity comes then shall my state and condition appeare good I know whom I have trusted Christ will preserve his owne glory and mine with his my state of glory shall be that which shall accompany the appearance of Christ the best and worst of the world hath but a moment a little time to attend it but the glory of Christ hath eternity with it and this is my portion Thus hath a Saint by faith reliefe from the worst of the world waiting for the appearance of Christ A third observation Love makes the soule quicke-sighted The soule that loves Christ sees by faith his appearance though afarre off and rejoyces in it though no affliction but is grievous for the present yet by faith the soule sees the appearance of Christ though at some distance and in the joy of it is carried above the present affliction Hence it is that Saints can overcome the world even their faith sayes the Text that eyes the appearance of Christ for if they saw nothing but the world the world would overcome them but it is a higher glory that carries them above the world The believing soule sayes he that shall come will come and will not tary and so quickens Christs appearance to the reliefe of his owne soule A fourth observation A Saint values himselfe according to his interest in God and what reliefe comes in by that interest hee eyes it though afarre off and satisfies himselfe with it Let the world value me at as low a rate as they will sayes a Saint yet I will value my selfe according to my interest in God If they say my wisdome is folly yet I will say Christ is my wisdome and so I have true wisdome If they say I shall want bread to eate I can say by experience I have food to feed on which they know not of and when they shall want their huskes I shall finde bread enough in my Fatâ—ers house and love enough in my Fathers heart to satisfie and till my eternall soule I blesse the Lord sayes such a soule I value this above tenne thousand worlds my union with Christ and know there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus and that nothing shall be able to separate mee from this glorious interest Rom. 8. I can value this I am thâ—ough free grâ—ce a childe of God an heire of glory and that which the worâ—d adores I in the Spirit of Christ can trample upon I know God hath freely given me Christ and with him all things the world is an addition and over plus Christ and glory is my portion and when the worldling gluts himselfe with this present dying world I can rejoyce in my interest in the living God and eye my gâ—ory as a sonne of God and an heire wiâ—h Christ as â—t shall be revealed at the great and glorious appearance of the Lord Jesus My soule shall be satisfied with its interest in God when the world and worldlings shall be confounded in their own glory My life is hid with Christ in God and when Christ who is my life shall appeare then I know I shall appeare with him in glory Through as it is hâ—d in God the world cannot see it yet through the Spirit of God I can see it and rejoyce in it and thus a gracious soule filled with the Spirit values it self according to â—ts interest in God and Christ The fifth observation is this namely That a gracious soule relieves it selfe in bâ—holding Gods love in the originall and the glory of it Hee lookes upon Gods love as it elected and chose him to be a sonne and he lookes on the glory of that love as it shall be manifested at the glorious appearance of Christ In a cloudy day such a soule goes to the Sonne of Righteousnesse for
refreshes the City of God namely to eye God in all his dispensations to us as a Father of love to his children doth God lay us upon beds of sicknesse and leade us through a wildernesse of afflictions in this life yet behold now are we the sonnes of God and in all this God is a loving Father and all his dispensations are filled and managed to us by and with his love Now I even now from all eternity and to all eternity are we the children of God There may be many times when it may be truly said we doe not act as the children of God but there is no time when it can be truly said that an elect soule is not the childe of God for now even before all time were we sonnes though yet we enjoy not the fulnesse of our interest as sons If you object and say must I apply this time now when I sinne must I then looke on my selfe as a childe of God I answer yes we must and no time more needfull then that I shall demonstrate this truth under these considerations First that according to the law of the Gospel and the Covenant of free-grace there is no other way left to restore a soule fallen in sinne but beholding our interest in the free love of God and so in Christ the great gift of his love that dyed for us is risen againe and now lives for us and makes continuall intercession for us at Gods right hand in glory If sin be the wound what shall be the cure but free-grace If self slay selfe who shall make us alive but Christ as wee are united to him in the love of God Whether shal we goe from the rock of ages to find relief in so sad a state and how shall we justifie it at the throne of grace if we flye to duty and possibly under such a notion as this to fit us for Christ and for mercy will free grace approve of this Is not the law of boasting excluded by the law of faith And what advantage poore soule will it be to thee when thou art stung with sin that fiery Serpent to looke on thy duties will one sin cure another No Christ is the balme of Gilead It is only looking upon thy interest in God and Christ that will restore thy soule It is nothing but looking upon Christ who was typified by that brazen Serpent in the wildernesse which can fetch out the sting of the fiery Serpent of sinne If we looke to the cause in our hearts that keepes us below ous interest poring upon a duty to relieve us under a sinning condition Wee shal finde the cause to be unbeliefe and now poore soule tell me is not this the top of all sinne Unbeliefe makes a soule deny the Lord that bought it it undervalues the Covenant of free-grace the soule must have no life till it have something of it selfe to live upon if unbeliefe may rule and truly this is the workings of our hearts when in a sinning state we doe not eye and improve our interest as we are the children of God by improving our interest in God as our Father by the Spirit The poore soule that sinnes and is within the Covenant of grace can looke upon that love of God which made Christ to be made sinne for us and wee the righteousnesse of God in him 2 Cor. 5 last That soule which eyes its interestin God and Christ hath by vertue of it in the Spirit power over sinne in all points Sin shall not condemn Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus So in the reigning power of sin Sinne shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace Rom. 6.14 But if a soul decline Christ and its interest in the love of God for its object under a sinning state goe whither it will sinne will revive and the soule shall dye This is the first demonstration of the truth That no other object but our interest in God and Christ is able to restore a sinning soule to life againe all other objects besides this encreaseth sinne in the soule and there is no object but this can carry the soule above sin A second demonstration why an elect soule should under a sinning state looke on its interest in God and Christ is this Because no other object but this can destroy the sin Sin will reigne till Christ reigne and one Text sayes Christ is made to us of God wisdome righteousnesse sanctification and redemption It is in the great defigne of God to glorifie his free-grace that Christ should sanctifie us not our selves So the Apostle Rom. 8.10 And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sinne The power of sin dyes only where Christ lives So the same Apostle 2 Cor. 5.17 Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature Olde things are passed away all things are become new It is only the presence of Christ that overcomes the old nature in man and slayes the old corruptions goe to what poole you will to be cleansed of your corruptions they will be all helpelesse in themselves If we goe to Duties and to Ordinances wee may lye there all our dayes and never have a cure of this evill of sin till Christ the Angel of the Covenant come and trouble the waters I and hee must put them in too with his owne hand of love all the cure must lye upon his hand This is the top of our glory that we are meerely passive Christ and free-grace is only active in all that concernes the good and welfare of our soules what cause then hath a sinning soule to looke of his interest in God Christ since there lies all his reliefe it is Sathans counsell wee take in so doing the mind and will of God is that wee should looke upon him whom we have pierced when we mourne I deny not any soule to melt into evangelicall teares over the least sin that lives and moves in it only be sure of this that when thou lookest on a living sin that thou lookest on it through Christ that dyed for it and lives for thee This will make kindly child-like mourning over sin and sweete stedfast resting on the free grace of God This is the meaning of the holy Ghost in 1 John 1 2. And if any man sinne we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous And he is the propitiation for our sinnes As if the holy Ghost had said a sinning soule hath no whither to flye for reliefe but to his interest in Christ and to look up to God through him for says the holy Ghost he is our only Advocate with the Father to plead for us in such desperate cases he can plead his righteousness to be curs and the propitation that he hath made for us and there is no other pleader either at the barre of Justice or the throne of grace but Jesus Christ There
for us who hath dyed that we might live and whose love is so great that hee cannot live in heaven without us Father I will that those which thou hast given me be with me where I am saith Christ in Iohn 17. If we thus looke on Christ and value him whence is it that we so easily grieve him Ingenuous nature teaches this to be tender of offending them we value and put a price upon their love Doth not grace exceede nature in this Surely it doth Oh then let our lives speak our loves to Christ and our value of him this is the language of the Spouse I charge you O yee daughters of Jerusalem that yee stirre not up nor awake my love till he please Cant. 2.7 Love and value of Christ wrought this frame of spirit in the Spouse she was tender of the pleasure of Christ and improves all her interest among the daughters that Christ might rest his pleasure Is not the Spouse here a type of a godly soule that hath interest in Christ If so then sure her spirit should be ours if we value Christ it will make us tender that he rest his pleasure it is but equall Christ should have rest in us for hee hath travailed for us and trod the wine-presse of his Fathers fury alone Now tell mee Saints doe you thinke Christ can rest and take pleasure in our bosomes when they are so full of worldly love and carnall aimes and ends with pursuites answerable doe we esteeme of Christ when we make him such a bed to lye in can we say we love and value him when we entertaine those in our hearts with him that crucified him namely our lusts Is this entertainment and company for the Prince of glory Oh if wee prize and value Christ that will be only deare to us which is deare to him his rest and his pleasure will be our rest and our joy and what ever wounds Christ will wound us That soule which sees its interest in Christ and values that beholds Christ upon the crosse wounded and bleeding for his sinnes and is so affected with that kindnesse of Christ that when ever hee sees Christ bleed afresh with any fins committed by him the soule is as it were in Christs roome hee is then crucified not to satisfie for his sin for that he sees is fully done by Christ for him and could never have been done but by Christ but the reflection of love and the value of Christ wounds this soule cleane through Christ sayes such a soule travelled as low as Hell to redeeme me for there I was by nature The first Adam left me there and the second Adam only plucked me out and in this travell he sweate drops of water and blood hee tore his way through his owne bowels to redeeme my soule he puts his owne robe of righteousnesse on me and never leaves this pursu it of love till he bring mee into his Fathers and his owne glory and I can never sin against lesse love then this Oh this value of Christ it makes a gracious soule exceeding tender of any thing that may displease Christ whom his soule loveth An experienced soule in the wayes of Christ will tell you it is the hardest travel that ever it went to step a step in the ways of sin after it hath apprchended the love of Christ been taught by the spirit to value that love and I believe if Sathan could speak truth he would confesse it to be the hardest work he hath to draw a soule that beholds Christs love and values that love in any soule Therefore as the only remedy against sin eye Christ love value him But Saints if we thus value Christ as our life and our all whence is it that in time of distresse we seek reliefe of broken cisterns and forsake the fountain of life my meaning is this When under a weake or a wounded state by sin we flye to duties for relief and not to Christ to renew the graces of Christ in us and not to eye our interest in Christ as hee is the gift of free-grace this is an undervaluing of Christ who in Prov. 3.18 is said to be a tree of life those graces you would live on is the fruits of this tree and are only fruits of life as they flow from interest communion with this tree of life doe but consider the folly of our spirits when wee flie from Christ to duties and to the stirring up of gifts and graces in us for our reliefe in such a state for fallen man is a creature that can act no grace in himselfe and grace without the breathings of Christ is as dead as man no grace can act it selfe Take our Saviours testimony to this truth in John 15.4 5. Abide in me and I in you as the branches cannot be are fruit of it selfe except it abide in the Vine no more can yee except you abide in me I am the Vine yee are the branches hee that abides in me and I in him the same brings forth much fruit for without me you can doe nothing Our Saviour in this maine point thinkes it not enough in the comparison he made to shew fully how that all the acts of life in us flows from himself which is our life But he concludes in these plain words without me sayes he you can doe nothing The Spouse of Christ in Cant. 4. last she honors Christ in believing this truth for she cals for the Spirit of Christ to blow upon her garden of spices that they may flow forth The spices here are the graces of a Saint and it is the breathings of Christ in the Spirit that gives them all life no grace hath life in it selfe nor can it act it selfe but Christ he is the life and the motion of every grace as hee is the soule it lives in It is a mistaking Christ and an undervaluing of him when we goe to duties that they may carry us and commend uâ— to God Christ is the only way to God and it is hee only that carries us as living soules to duties and through duties in and by his owne Spirit The Apostle knew this well enough when he made that prayer Coloss 1.11 Be yee strengthened with all might according to his glorious power In verse 10. he makes this petition That ye might walke worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitfull in every good worke and encreasing in the knowledge of God Hiâ— desire was that the Colossians should live up to Jesus Christ and walke worthy of the Lord. Walking is an act of life and this hee knew was out of themselves and not in any of their externall priviledges or advantages whatsoever therefore he seconds it with this petition That ye might be strengthned with all might according to his glorious power The Apostle here speaks his experience for in another place he doth acknowledg that he did all things through Christ that strengthned him And he prayes here
for the same strength because hee well knew there was no other strength sufficient to this glorious worke The same Apostle in Heb. 12.2 sets a high value upon Christ and makes him all in this worke of grace and gives it us in direction to looke unto Jesus the author and finisher of faith did we thus eye Christ and value him as he is we should not so often look below him goe in our own strength to finish faith that it might be the author of Christ for so we doe when we will not close with Christ till wee have qualified our selves nor thinke free-grace enough in it selfe till we have such such qualification in us which we think to be sit for grace if not worthy of grace Truly I know no worthinesse of our own that free-grace cals a sit subject for it to work its owne glory out of I find God mentioning his grace under this confideration loving us when we lay in our blood no eye to pâ—tty uâ— grace lives when all help below is dead Now such thoughts as these are exceedingly below Christ that is our life Is this a true value of Christ who hath done suffered pardon'd purchased so much for us as he hath That when we are in streights to goe to duty for relâ—ef and not to the God of duties who is the life of soul duties Is not this matter of reproof to those foolish Galatians which began in the spirit would end in the flesh I thinke there is not any piece of the olde man in Saints that darkens more of the glory of Gods free-grace and damps more of the comforts of his people then this doth to goe any whether but to Christ in streights must needs put a dishonour upon him and be an undervaluing of him for doth it not imply thus much the thing we seeke after is not to be had in Christ or not so soone in Christ as in duties or at least that it is not only to be had in Christ but it is all one whether we goe to him or not now all these are conceptions of the olde man in us when through the Spirit we looke upon Christ as our life we shall see all fulnesse in him grace enough to pitty to pardon and to die for us Righteousnesse enough to cloath us and to present us spotlesse to the pure eyes of his Fathers glory Power enough to take us out of Sathans hands and to defend us from all enemies and all evill Wisdome enough to make us wise in him to guide and to governe us that our conversations may be like children of light and heires of glory Goodnesse enough to supply all wants in us and to give out fulnesse of his owne grace to us yea and happinesse enough to satisfie our soules to all eternity and the soule sayes Christ is enough yea he is all and whether should I goe but to him he hath the words of eternall life in him yea he is my eternall life this is the frame of such soules as doe truly prize Christ as their life A third observation is this Observ 3 That if Christ be a Saints life then a Saint only enjoyes his life as be lives upon Christ in the Spirit When I thus mention Christ I doe it as he doth it himselfe I and my Father am one saith Christ and as I am in the Father so are you in me We are one with Christ through the love of God and enjoy this life through the Spirit of God In John 6.63 Christ tels us it is the Spirit that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing As if hee had said what ever you enjoy of mee as your life it is through my Spirit 't is not the fruits of your own flesh 't is what comes from me that is spirit and life to you Our Saviour cleares up this truth in his discouse with that woman of Samaria in John 4.23.24 But the houre commeth and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeketh such to worship him God is a Spirit they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth And in another Text the naturall man discernes not the things of God nor cannot because they are spiritually discerned The Spirit only reveales the hidden things of God so the Apostle in Gal. 5.16.18 For we through the Spirit waite for the hope of righteousnesse by faith This I say then walke in the Spirit and yee shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh but if yee be led of the Spirit yee are not under the law In the beginning of this Chapter the Apostle exhorts them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free and in these verses he tels them what this liberty is namely to live upon Christ in the Spirit So likewise in Ephes 3.16 17 18 19. That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inward man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that yee being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth length and depth and heigth and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that yee may be filled with the fulnesse of God The sum of the Apostles prayer is in short this That they might live upon Christ as their life to know his love in all the demonstrations of it which is above humane knowledg but he begins thus in verse 16. That they might be strengthened with all might by his spirit in the inward man Hee layes downe this as the foundation As if the Apostle had said Who ever lives on Christ by faith knowing and enjoying his love in the breadths lengths depths and heights of it must doe it by his Spirit that only can make true discoveries of Christ and our interest in him This is the proper office of the Spirit as he is the comforter promised we may see this in Ephes 4.30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby yee are sealed unto the day of redemption Our interest in Christ as he is all to us is sealed up to us in the Spirit it is not a fleshly formall historicall knowledge of Christ in which wee can live on him as our life but it is to know him and enjoy him in the Spirit which is a lively knowledge of Christ and an enjoying of Christ as our life A Fourth Observation may be this If Christ be a Saints life Observ 4 then a Saint should take beed of doing any thing that is against Christ You cannot wounde Christ but you wounde your own lives Christ is your life and if hee looke backe on thee as he did on Peter when he denyed him thou wilt soone reele the wound in thy owne bosome if this truth tâ—ke place in any soule let it then consider how deare every soule is to Christ he
in the Margin things to gird about them and here they rest content they saw their nakednesse a great advantage truly but having girded themselves with fig-leaves they knew no want of God for in verse 8. when they heard the voyce of God and that in the coole of the day they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden and when God came so neere to them as they were falne to confesse the reason why they fled from his presence they acknowledged they were afraid verse 10. Compare these first appearances of nature in our first parents after their fall with the experiences of our owne naturall hearts and others and it will appeare in all that is miserable what exact Images we are by nature of these our first parents They were naked so are all by nature of any righteousnesse to stand in the sight of God they knew they were naked so doth many a desperate finner whose conscience fâ—ies in his face but the remedy they sought was only an apron or girdle of fig-leaves So doth our naturall hearts licke their woundes whole and cover their nakednesse by legall and formall duties and performances girding our loines strengthening our hearts in them and covering our nakednesse so as the eye of man cannot discerne it and in this posture as our first Parents hid themselves amongst the trees of the garden from the presence of the Lord so we shrowd our selves under publick externall Ordinances after the fashion of the world and resting in beggerly rudiments to defend us from the presence of an angry God and yet not withstanding all this when God comes close to the soule though it hath girt it selfe about with fig-leaves it s owne righteousness yet it is not established but doth confesse in all the actions under such a state it was afraid because of its nakednesse and this feare doth inflame the misery of it and causeth it to fly and hide it self from the presence of God here is the first buddings of nature and truly it is an exact miserable condition for it is wholely in selfe and wholely out of God the reliefe this soule findes is in flying from and being out of the presence of God now sure I am every Saint experienced of Gods love will call this state a state compleatly miserable knowing that all its life happinesse lies in a close communion with the bosom of God a continual beholding of his face in Christ yet this state thus compleatly miserable is not Adams alone but all his seede in him of which by nature is all the world as is fully expressed in verse 23. of this 3. Chap. of the Romans For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God The misery of this state of nature may be farther amplified in coÌ„fidering thar Antipathy that is in all to that holy just and good law of God and that impossibility which is in man to performe it one place saith speaking of the law it is that which neither we nor our fore-fathers could beare we could not stand under it to justifie our selves by it The Apostle in Rom. 3.9 to vers 19. speaks plainly this generall evill state by nature and the fruits of it in many particulats in oppolition to all the laws of a holy God And in vers 19. speaks plainly that the Law makes all the world guilty and so makes his inference in the 20th verse that none can be justified by the deeds of the law and then he gives his reason for it which is this For sayes hee by the law is knowledge of sinne Gods pure nature discovers the impure nature of fallen man so in the following verses speaks of a blessed and a justified state for a poor soul under another head But all this speakes the miserable irrecoverable lost state of a naturall man in himselfe the fruits of this tree of nature we may see in that 2d of Ephes the three first verses Though it be a dead tree yet at beates fruit but it is the fruit of death trespasses and sins walking in them according to the course of this world and the power of the Prince of the Aire that spirit which workes in the children of disobedience who are by nature the children of wrath Any of these particulars rightly understood and set home upon the spirit of a man will make it crye out as the Apostle O wretched man that I am and in me that is in my flesh is no good But certainly if ever we come to see that sinke and masse of sin and corruption that is in us by nature and that wages of sinne which is death wee shall then acknowledge if ever God discover his thoughts of eternall love to us that it is all free-grace The second demonstration of the point is To consider a Saint under a state of grace in Christ the second Adam To take this in the beginning as it stands in the word let us turne backe to that 3d of Gen. 15. where Christ is promised in the seed of the woman and what to doe to breake the head of the Serpent that is to kill and overcome him The Apostle in 1 Cor. 15.21 sayes be must reigne till he hath put all his enemies under his feete And in this conquest over his owne and his peoples enemies hee doth the will of his Father we have his owne word for it John 4.30 This doth exceedingly set forth the free grace of God that when he found all man-kinnde in a state of rebellion so soone as ever he had enquired into the fault hee makes a promise of the Lord Christ in whom the state of a poore soule is better then in innocency As if the Lord had said Adam though thou didst run from me was affraid because thou wert naked yet now establish thy heart in beholding my fulness which is thy cloathing cast from thee the workes of thy owne hands that fig-leave righteousness thou hast begirt thy selfe with and lay hold on the workings forth of my eternal love in this promise of Christ The Serpent hath been too hard for thee when he found thee in thy own strength but I will give out Christ that great gift of my love and he shall as he is one with me from eternity in my everlasting power and fulnesse make warre with the Serpent and in that warfare though the Serpent shall bruise his heele wound his flesh yet he shall breake the head of the Serpent and overcome him This must needs be free-grace to make such a promise to fallen Adam and his posterity that ranne from the presence of God and were content with fig leaves for a covering of their nakednesse You may see in nature there is as little desire of Christ and his righteousnesse as there can be of discerning for here is a flying from the presence of God and a satisfying it selfe with its owne righteousnesse and certainly this righteousnesse is nothing but menstruous rags that
Seeking those things which are above where Christ fitteth on the right hand of GOD. Having its affections on things above and not on things on the earth Col. 3.1 2. As Christ so Saints in the world have no other businesse but to doe the will of their Heavenly Father Now truly the consideration of this may well put all Saints upon that great work of selfe-examination We are apt enough to see a mote in our brothers eye when wee overlooke the beame that is in our owne But it is the onely businesse of every Saint to live up Christ then it is worth the looking into our lives how much of Christ wee can find there what singlenesse of soule is in us to all the wayes will and worke of Christ whether we follow Christ for love or for the loaves For what hee is or for what hee gives Whether it be his love that constraines us to deny ungodlinesse and worldly lusts or whether feare of Hell shame or punishment stops the eyes pursute and stops the prractise of sinne Or whether our profession of godlinesse under what forme soever be to lift up Christ or selfe Whether if Heaven and Sinne might goe together we would not rather have sin live in our souls then Christ Whether that the profession of godlinesse which we seem so much to delight in be not a burthen to us in the power and life of it Whether that day in which Christ is most and selfe least in our souls be best to the souls content Whether it be the souls desire petition at the throne of grace to be unselft in every thing and that Christ may be all in all whether the soul doth indeed count that a lost day hour or moment in which he doth not in some measure lift up Christ and declare the in-dwelling of Christ in his soule by the out-goings of Christ in his life It is worthy a soules examination how the olde man dyeth and the new man is renewed in him day by day how pride and passion is brought under the feete of Christ in our soules how through Christ that loves us we are more then conquerours over sin and selfe by the love of Christ that conquers them in us and enableth us by his love to live like conquerours rejoycing and glorying in the free grace of our God the new creature is Christ in truth and truths as they are in Jesus godlinesse in power and the power of godlinesse holinesse in its beauty and the beauty of holinesse God in the Spirit and the Spirit of God heavenly mindednesse and a mind in heaven it is living and walking in the Spirit it is a soule united to Christ Christ in it and it in Christ Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature CHAP. X. Vanity and vexation of spirit compasseth all things under the sun Eccles Chap. 1. vers 14. I have seene all the workes that are done under the Sunne and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit THIS Scripture is the testimony of the Wise man concerning all things under the Sunne and it is so upon seeing and trying all these things In the verse before this he tels us hee gave his heart to seeke and to search out by wisdome concerning the things that are done under heaven He hath attained the beholding of what he gave hie heart to seeke so that both seeking and seeing in wisdome he findes all to be vanity and vexation of spirit The vanity of the whole creation is the subject matter of all his booke He begins it thus in this first Chap. and 2d vers Vanity of vanities saith the Preacher Vanity of vanities all is vanity His heart is so full of the matter that hee doubles the sentence and as he begins with it in the generall so in his whole booke he followes the same subject in the particulars of it concludes his booke with the same generall in Chap. 13. vers 8. Vanity of vanities saith the Preacher all is vanity The Psalmist in Psalm 144. vers 4. Bears witnesse to this truth in the top-branch of all the creation Man saith he is like to vanity and he proves it for his dayes are as a shadow that passeth away And in Psalm 62.9 takes in men of high and low degree in the proofe of this generall truth Surely men of low degrees are vanity and men of high degrees are a lye to be laid in the ballance they are altogether lighter then vanity the vanity of the creature is a subject well worthy the study of a wise christian and truly none but Christ our wisdome can give us light into this vanity for method sake wee will draw out one generall truth which I thinke is visible in this Scripture That upon true discovery and knowledge of all things under the Sunne we shall finde them vanity and vexation of spirit For the proofe of this truth let us search the Scripture and our owne experience the wise man to prove this truth begins with man in his labour in his first Chap. vers 3 4. What profit hath a man of all his labour under the Sunne for he stayes not to keepe any fruit of his labour but passeth away one generation goeth and another commeth So in Chap. 2. vers 22 23. Man reapeth no content from all his labours under the sunne They fill him full of sorrow travell and griefe and at last he cannot lye downe and rest in them They are a bed of thornes unfit for rest yea when the poore creature comes to lye down indeed and sleep that sleep of death it find â—s no rest in all its labours under the Sun of what kinde soever So in Chap. 1.6 9.17 18 19. verses He tels us mans labour under these vanities is so great that he cannot utter it and that without any satisfaction though what is pursued be enjoyed For though the eye see yet it is not satisfied with seeing and though the eare doe he are yet it is not filled with hearing The creature can never give so long and so much till that which receives from it saith it hath enough though it give objects to the eye yet the eye wants more objects then it can give and though it offers to fill the eare yet the eare is not filled with all that it can give there is no new thing under the Sunne but that which hath been shall be and that which is done is that which shall be done So that though I give my heart to know all things wisdome madnesse and folly yet I find nothing new in them And in stead of content in all this variety of knowledge I found vexation of spirit for I will tell you the best and then judge you the rest In much wisdome is much griefe and he that encreaseth knowledge encreaseth sorrow And if this be the best of the best who can tell what is the worst of the worst he comes to particulars in Chap. 2. vers 1. he
sayes the weake man to the strong I thought if I could have stood upon your legges I might have stood strongly but now I find that strength is weaknesse and the worm of vanity is at the roote of that tree which knowes it till it dies Aske the rich man if a pillow stuffed with gold could make him sleep nay doth not his bags of gold keepe him awake Aske the great man whether all his greatnesse could satisfie his spirit nay is not the spirit of Haman there which is restlesse if Mordecay bow not his knee aske him that hath conquered all the World what hee wantt and he will tell you he wants more worlds to conquer After asking let us come to offering set dainty and delicious food in the abundance of it before a ficke and a lost stomack and bid it eate to satisfie he will tell you hee is best satisfied for in stead of loving he loaths it Then set it before a strong and healthy stomach and bid him eate and be satisfied he eates to satisfie till he destroyes both health and stomach so that he which eates not is not satisfied with emptinesse nor he which doth eate made glad by his fulnesse for both conditions are under the Sun and there is vanity in them man lives not by bread alone nor by any thing below God for all things under the Sun are vanity Offer a man that gaspeth for breath goodly buildings and glorious apparell no sayes he my coffin and my winding-sheet is of nearest relation to my conduion they must be my apparrel and my dwelling your offer is vanity I now finde the world to be such but vanity will not satisfie my living soule which is now bidding adieu to my dying bodie the worlds vanities may dazell and deceive a man that lives in pleasure but they can never please nor satisfie the eye heart that is going to sleep the sleep of death and lie downe in the bed of the grave the whele world is but a world of vanity and therefore to all that rest upon it must first or last prove vexation of spirit the proofs of this truth are a cloud of witnesses Every moment of our passing through this wildernesse of the World brings forth sinne Now because what is written for our instruction it will be wisdome in all to make use of this truth which the Wise man holds out to us upon his owne experience and which all Saints in their experience must and do beare witnesse to And first we may improve it thus It giveth us a discovery of the fruitlesse labours and contentions of all those that labour and cond contend meerely for the World in part or in whole For if this be truth that all things under the Sunne be vanity then it must needs be fruitlesse labour and contention which if it attain what it seekes yet findeth nothing but varity and in it vexation of spirit If this were truly set home upon our spirits by the Spirit of God Sathan would have fewer to worship him upon that temptation which he assaulted our Saviour with in shewing him the World in all its glory As wee come more to know God in the spirit so that we by that spirit know the world in its vanity and emptinesse then shall we labour and contend lesse for the vanities of the World and the World of vanities then shall we see the vanity of our laborious contending for that which is but vanity till then wee shall be laying out our money for that which is not bread and our spirits for that which profits not for till God gather up our spirits by his Spirit to himselfe the World will hold us and all that while wee are but wrapt up in the armes of vanity and dandled upon the knees of death for all things under the Sunne are vanity all that is below God is too low for a Saint to labour after or contend for This truth not only concernes those worldlings that are buried alive in the world but it may make Saints blush yea the best of Saints to consider how they have stretched forth their hands to graspe the wind and opened their hearts to let in vanity and upon this regard have been ready to conclude 't is good to be here let us build Tabernacles And so have labored to blow up this bladder of vanity with these pleasing imaginations to our flesh of honour profits pleasures of this world till God prick the bladder and let out this wind so that then wee see it vanity But truly so much of this old man as is in Saints makes a very uncomely sight that heirs of glory joynt-heirs with Christ in glory such as have a more exceeding and eternall weight of glory prepared for them waits to swallow them up to all eternity should be pursuing after vanity it best becomes Saints to be always upon the wing of faith for heaven above those vanities there is no footing in the World for a Saint the World is an ocean of uncertain waves that goeth one way the other way as the wind drives them so that the Dove can have no rest for the sole of her foote till she comes to the Arke from whence she went out a Saint shall find rest in nothing but in God his originall it is vanity in all to pursue vanity but especially in Saints for their lives are hid with Christ in God It is great folly for an empty stomacke to sucke in the winde for its satisfaction and this title wee may give to the wisedome of the wisest worldling which makes the Prodigals choise to feede on huskes if he could have had enough of them this winde may fill but it can never satisfie but sure this is exceeding folly in Saints who have bread enough in their Fathers house and their treasure in Heaven to have their hearts any where but in Heaven where their treasure is And it is much to the dishonour of God who is the glorious and satisfying interest of his people that they should be running to empty Cisterns when hee himselfe is an eternall fountaine of love life and exceeding glory to them and doubtless Saints in truth are very tender of the glory of God these children of love are much in love with their Fathers glory it grieves their spirits to see prophane wretches dishonour him but it doth exceedingly wound them if they be found actors in such a worke themselves and if so then wee should be very watchfull lest wee be under the fruitlesse labour and contentions of those that labour contend for the World in part or in whole If this truth were spiritually understood surely Saints would be more carelesse of the worlds frownes and lesse solicitous for their smiles and favours their best gifts and their sowrest lookes are all comprehended under this terme vanity and hee that hath their smiles hath no less of vanity then he that hath their frowns for they are vanity themselves and
discerne nor savour the things of God Thirdly when God brings in the wil of his people to his own will there he changes the objects and the affections of such soules so that the will chuseth God and his will as its centre to rest in That which the Apostle in the third to the Colossians begin exhorts to God by his Spirit works in and enables the soule to it is That such as are risen with Christ should seek those things that are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God that our affections should be there because Christ that is our life is there Now when Gods Spirit commeth and possesseth any soule it sets upon this work immediatly carries the soule upward above the world shewes it God and Christ the love of God in Christ shewes it its glorious union with God and Christ here and in glory to all eternity darkens all the world by revealing but one glimpse of this more exceeding and eternall weight of glory and in changing the object the affections soon alter This more exceeding glory carries away the soules love from the world of perishing glory When the Prodigall but considered the fulnesse of bread in his fathers house he soon resolved to leave his empty Trough of Huskes and his swinish company but surely when hee had been embraced in his Fathers Armes and tasted the love in his Fathers bosome when hee had possession of what hee longed for and was in the vision of his Fathers kindnesse and glory hee then quite forgot the Swine and the huskes his affections and wishes did not then runne to obtain enough of them no the object was changed and the affections with it and having been taken up into his Fathers glory he doth not chuse to goe backe and feed with swine any more now he chuseth to centre in God Thus doth God bring in all his prodigals when they have tasted the worlds perishing love then by his Spirit hee makes known his eternall love to them when they have tryed trusted and looked upon the world so long till they finde it empty then he by his Spirit shews them his own fulnesse when they have had the pleasure of sinne for a season and the bitternesse of sinne hath seased upon them with the visage of eternity then God by the same Spirit makes known himself to be a God of grace that pardons freely nothing to move him but his own love and how great that love it he makes manifest by a crucified JESUS and now sayes the soule I know where to centre where to sit downe where to give up my self even into the bosome of Gods love This is Gods way of conquering the soules and wils of his people He alters the object that alters the affections and centres the will in God the object is according to the eye if the eye bee flesh it discernes no object but in the flesh so if the eye be spirituall it spiritualizes every object the Spirit of God enquires for God in all it sees and where God is made the onely object there he is sure to gain the affections for he hath all love and lovelinesse in himselfe and the affections being taken the will goes where ever they go he that lives in love hath his wil in that he loves not in himselfe so the soule that hath his affections drawne into God by his love made known unto it in the Spirit hath no will in it selfe but in God in whom it lives by love Thus God doth sweetly gain and win into himselfe the will of his people by revealing the glory of his grace and love to them in the Spirit till by that Spirit they make choyce of God to give up their wills unto and say as Christ their head Not my will but thy will be done Fourthly God when he gathers in the will of his people to his owne will he gives in higher and fuller joyes and contentments into their soules then ever they had at any time or in all times and things before The Prophet David in Psalm 4. latter end given in light in these truths vers 6. There be many sayes he that say Who will shew us any good Now mark his answer in the same vers Lord list thou up the light of thy countenance upon us As if hee had said doe they enquire for any good Lord doe thou but smile upon us looke graciously on us and there is all good in that nay in vers 7. he tels us his experience of it Thou hast put gladnesse in my heart more then in the time that their corne and their wine encreased This speakes to the very thing here is a time of more fuller joy and gladnesse in the heart of Gods people then under the enjoyments of the World for I judge the termes of Corne and Wine comprehends the whole but observe when is that time why when the Lord lifts up the light of his countenance when God by his Spirit makes knowne himselfe to be their Father in Christ then is the soule filled with gladnesse but in the last verse observe the effects of this upon Davids soule I will lay me downe in peace for thou Lord only makest me dwell in safety As if he had said I will now resigne all up to thee and take my peace in thee and expect my safety from thee thou hast so filled my soule with thy joyes that I cannot leave thee but leave my selfe with thee continue but to lift up the light of thy countenance upon me and then leade me where thou wilt and doe with mee what thou wilt for I will lay all downe before thee my will and my wayes thou shalt be my peace and my safety Observe the working of the Spirit of God in the Apostle Paul's spirit when God had brought over Paul's will to his to goe upon hard and suffering work such a work as he was told he should meete with sufferings in Acts 21. When hee would needs goe to Jerusalem Agabus the Prophetesse prophesies to him that the Jewes should binde him and deliver him to the hands of the Gentiles And in vers 10 11 12. The people besought him not to goe up to Jerusalem but in vers 13. he answers them what meane you to weepe and to breake my heart for I am not only ready to be bound but also to dye at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus As if he had said you only with a fleshly eye looke at the difficulty of the worke you know not the inwaâ—d supply of joy in God that I have to doe this and the whole wâ—ll work of God doe you thinke God is a hard task-master to command bricke and give no straw Doe you thinke the work God gives is more then the strength he gives If so you are mistaken for I am supplyed with joyes and in comes of God not only to goe through binding worke but also dying worke for Christ I goe in Gods strength to doe his
way to be at peace and quiet is to be out of our selves and the world in our wills and in God This soule gaines its will by losing of it he hath what he desires that in all times and things Gods will must bee done on Earth as it is in heaven But if our hearts should ask this question If there be such great benefits that doe accrew to the soules of Gods people in having their wils moulded into the wil of the holy God then what hinders that this work is not wrought upon the wil of every man To this I answer There be three things especially which hinder 1. Ignorance of God 2. Unbeliefe 3. Love of the world First It is ignorance of God in his love and the working of his love that makes the soule long to give up it selfe and its will to God and this appeares clearly in what hath gone before The blind man cannot judge of colours he that knows not an excellency can never close with it it is all one to a swine whether he tramples upon pearles or peble-stones hee cannot distinguish There is not a greater evidence of ignorance then in such a question as was put to the Jewes What is there in thy beloved more then in other beloveds It is a signe they were ignorant of her beloved that should make question what was in him more then in other beloveds had they known him as she did they would have confessed he had been the fairest among ten thousand and admired his excellency not compared it by a question to poor low empty things Now from this ignorance it arises that men keep their wils to themselves and doe not surrender them up to God because they know not God nor what gainers they shall bee in so doing Secondly Vnbeliefe and this is the grand cause for though men may have a fleshly knowledge of God and Christ yet if they know not God and Christ in spirit there will be no trusting in them nor beleeving on them and there can never be a resigning the will over to God All the eminent examples which we have in Scripture of this giving up the wil to Gods wil we shal find it the fruits of faith Heb. 11.7 By faith Noab obeyed the will of God and builded an Arke 8 9 verses So by faith Abraham gave his wil up to God in leaving the place he was in to goe to a strange countrey which he did not know and sojourned in the Land of promise as a stranger And in the 17. verse when God tried Abraham in that superlative streight to the flesh whether he had given up his wil to Gods wil in commanding him to offer up his sonne Isaac the Text saith By faith he did it he had by faith resigned up his own wil to Gods did beleeve Gods wil better for him then his own so by faith he obeyed verse 23. It was by faith Moses parents hid him three moneths that their wil was Gods wil comes from faith So by faith Moses when hee came to yeares obeyed Gods wil and left Pharaohs Court And by faith the children of Israel gave up their wils to God and followed his wil through the red sea and the long wildernesse into Canaan Thus it is beliefe in God that centers the wil in God and so consequently unbeliefe that keepes off the will from centering in God Thirdly and lastly inordinate love to the world keeps off the wil of man from closing with Christ they are afraid to lose something of the world if they give up their wils to Christ This made the Gaderens to desire Christ to depart out of their Coast Mark 5.17 because in the fulfilling of his wil when as he cast the Legions of Devils out of the man and suffered them to goe into the swine so that the swine ran into the Sea and were drowned they desired no more of his will to be done if it took away their swine This worlds love is swinish love it loves not that Gods wil should be done if in the fulfilling of it there bee but a cropping of any creature bud This love puts a great value upon the things and esteem of the world and therefore refuseth to give up its wil to God because he seeth that the wil of God commands the offering up of an Isaac and he not being acquainted with the spiritual incoming of God to his soule nor beleeving the love and faithfulnesse of God refuseth to resigne up his wil to God but as the unjust Steward would make friends of the unrighteous Mammon gives up his will to the possessing and esteem of an empty world values them more then God loves them better then God and therefore give up their will to the world and not to God reading this lesson backeward and say to God not thy will but our will be done This truth is full of beauty in its information but in the application of it and the soules closing with it it makes an exceeding glorious Christian First It informes us whence all trouble and rest both within us without us do arise and that is clearly in this from our wils out of God our wils in God that will which is not in God is in opposition to God so is God to it now hence it is that all troubles arise both within without the soul because God is always fulfilling his owne will and this is a continual crossing such a wil as is out of God that wil that lives in it selfe is tortured every moment of selfe-disappointment which doth follow it all its dayes and in all its designes because it wils and designs contrary to God Disappointments are dreadfull things to such a man as wils for himselfe and lives in his will his will being disappointed in which his life was bound up the man must needs be a life-lesse miserable man this was the grond of Pharoah's troubles about the children of Israel his will was in opposition to Gods will in their going to worship God in the Wildernesse God in every act of his providence was fulfilling his will and this eate up the very bowels of Pharoah and this is the very cause that makes those tyrants over the consciences of Gods people in these dayes so restlesse because in opposition to them God is fulfilling his owne wil Hee wil have his people free from their wils to worship him in his Spirit and though they pursue with all their might to hinder this wil of God in his Saints yet they imagine but a vaine thing and shall compasse nothing in the conclusion but their owne ruine God may suffer them so far to have their owne wils as to drive Saints to the Red Sea but all that shal fulfil Gods wil not their wil for then wil God bring their greatest disappointment and certaine ruine This was also proud Hamans case his wil was to destroy the whole Nation of the Jewes as we may see in Esther 3. But
it thus It is that which earnestly desires every thing but likes and is pleased with nothing shapes out it s owne happinesse and presently mislikes its owne handy worke thinkes all things sweete which it cannot reach and therefore pines after them but nothing sweete which it doth enjoy and therefore is peevish and not content with what ever it possesseth This is a foule stomack that which will nourish another doth annoy and burthen it he is like a sick man that findes fault with every bed because his disease is in his body and he carries it with him from bed to bed hee repines that some others have more then himselfe but is not content though he have more then many others he suckes the sweete out of every thing before he comes at it by his earnest desire to it and his over-prizing of it so that when hee doth reach the thing it reaches not his ends therefore the heart is alwayes repining This eye multiplies things at a distance but diminishes when neare at hand this man forgets what he hath and only remembers what he would have this repining heart must needes be an unthankefull heart for such as blesse God doe acknowledge that they receive blessings from God so doth not the repining heart for he cannot count that a blessing which he repines at this is a sore evill among the sons of men and it ariseth from this two-fold ignorance of God and our selues First Ignorance of God that all fulnesse is in him and that hee is a free agent to dispense when where and how hee pleaseth Secondly Ignorance of our selves that in our selves we are meere empty nothings and that what ever wee have or enjoy it is received God makes us passive to receive what he gives and that is the top-glory of selfe Now to this heart the Apostles questions comes very close and home Tell me O peevish repining heart Who maketh thee to differ from another what hast thou that thou hast not received Canst thou give mee a reason why thou wert not created a worme to crawle upon the earth a fit subject for every foote to tread upon rather then a reasonable and defensable creature Wert thou clay in the Potters hands and dost thou quarrel at what thou art made Hast thou received a tongue and shall it speak against the giver Doth thy heart live by life received and yet murmure against the hand that gave thee life It ill becomes such as are beholding for every thing to pine at any thing It is nothing but meere mercy kindnesse bounty goodnesse and free-grace in God that makes thee to differ from the most wickedst wretch on Earth from the veriest foole alive from the miserablest man or woman in the World yea that makes thee any title beyond the lowest most despisablest piece of the whole Creation or not being left in thy first lump of confusion Now quarrell if thou canst justifie thy selfe in it with the dispensations of God to thee If thou hadst made thy selfe why didst thou not doe it to thy owne content but if God have made thee any thing out of nothing why dost thou quarrel with God if God be free in himselfe and have freely blessed thee thou shewest an ill heart and spirit to quarrel with and repine at the free workings and blessings of his owne grace Consider man The whole family in Heaven and Earth is Gods he gives thee day by day thy daily bread thou dost weare his cloaths and breath in his aire thou walkest in his strength and lyest downe to sleep on his bed thou hast received all from him and he gives nothing so as to put the propriety out of himselfe Hee that gives all can take all away when he pleaseth and then murmuring heart thou maist know the want of that which thou didst not prize the enjoyment of thou that repinest must repine at this that the will of God is done Now doe but consider the exceeding evill of that spirit which can be angry because God is pleased when at the same time this man lives moves hath his being and his wel-being from the good pleasure of this God God is pleased to doe good to him but he thinks it not good that God should be pleased for he is not pleased with the good will of God hee that repines at the workings of God doth by that imply he thinkes himself wiser then God and if he had power could mend the workings of God in the World Thou hast nothing but what thou hast received therefore thou canst not be displeased with what thou hast and art but thou must finde fault with the giver as well as the gift and art thou not in this an ignorant and unthankefull wretch This is not the Apostle Paul's frame of spirit for he makes this acknowledgement It is by the grace of God that I am what I am And upon this account wee finde the same Apostle content in all conditions he knew both how to want and abound and in all estates to be content for Christ had taught him That grace in God dispensed all conditions to him hee knew that hee received all from free-grace and that the free-grace of God was in all that he did receive and this made his soule to be satisfied and kept repining from his heart and lips Sure if God by his Spirit reveale and set home this truth upon the hearts of any though murmurers and repining proud ones before yet then they will lay their hands upon their lips and lye downe at Gods feete confessing that they are fooles and in this as ignorant as bruit beasts that they have not knowne all this while that they have lived upon free-grace and spent upon received mercies kindnesses from God and then the streame will be turned from repining to admiring as he did Lord what am I and my Fathers house What is man that thou thus regardest him Nay what was I before thou mad'st me what I am I have received all from thee even my first being Oh how wonderfull is the Lord and his wayes past finding out sayen this soule Nay I have had continued to me abused mercies I have wronged God with his owne mercies and yet he hath continued to be gracious he hath silled my bosome with those kindnesses that I have unkindely throwne in his face Oh now breake heart melt soule and fall flesh before the everliving God whose eternall love thou hast lived upon and abused thou hast resisted God with his owne strength turned his grace into wantonnesse the gifts and parts thou hast received from him to the opposing of his will the abusing of his members Blush then and be ashamed O proud heart be silent and complaine not O repining soule Finde no fault for thou art a debter thou hast beene all this while a receiving and hast no cause to make mention of the returnes thou hast made admire thou art not in Hell that God should not choose
in 2 Cor. 4.7 God dispenses his Gospel by earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us As if he had said Wee bring you the revelation of the free grace of God in the letter but that is the furthest that such earthly vessels as we can goe and God intends to use us no further that the glorious revelation of of this in the Spirit might appear to be the excellency of his power exceedingly beyond the power of the weak iustruments he uses if you observe it he is carefull in keeping the glory in the hands of God so as hee might make God the onely subject of his glory 2 Cor. 10.17 But be that glories let him glory in the Lord and to this end the Apostle makes his prayers for the Ephesians in the third Chapter verse 16. That he would grant them according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inward man He had preached Christ to them in the letter but he knowing that not to be enough he prayes the Lord to powre on them his rich and glorious Spirit that they might be filled with his glory and strengthened in the inward man according to the riches of his glory so that still God himselfe is the only subject of his peoples glory The practice of this is very eminently seen in the Apostle Paul Phil. 3.7.8 But what things were gain to me those I counted losse for Christ yea doubtlesse and I count all things but losse for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the losse of all things do count them but dung that I may win Christ In the foregoing verses he tels us what it was that he had counted gain gloried in his being circumcised the eighthday of the stock of Israel so on these were such things as were without God but when God had once made himself known to him in Christ then he had found God only to be a proper subject of glory and the Apostle doth acknowledge it For sayes he all that I had before it was but as dung compared with God and Christ for glory as dung to be abhorred in the presence of God though in the 4. verse he tels us If any other man thinketh he bath whereof hee might trust in the flesh I more And all this more is but losse and dung where God appeares to him in Christ the scales were then off his eyes and he could distinguish of glory in its proper subject namely God in Christ so that all along we finde the Apostle the same onely glorying in the Lord. To back this wee shall finde him of the same Spirit Coloss 2.9 10. For in him dwelleth all the fulnesse of the Godhead bodily and ye are compleat in him which is the head of all Principalities and Powers He sets up the glory of God in Christ before the Colossians for them to glory in As if hee had said your onely true glory lies in your union with Christ for the fulnesse of the God head is bodily in him and that is the onely true subject of glory for your glory is as you are compleat in him united to him then is God your glory and you have a proper subject to glory in he is the head of all principality and power and this is your glory to glory in this your head And in Col. 3.3 4. For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God when Christ who is your life shall appeare then shall yee also appeare with him in glory Mark it hee strips them wholly of any glory in themselves For ye are dead that is without any beauty glory or excellency in your selves no more then dead persons have but your life of glory is with Christ in God so that when Christ appeares in glory you as in union with him shall appeare with him in glory therefore you have nothing else to glory in or to glory of but that your life is hid with Christ in God so that God is the onely subject of your glory And upon this account the holy Ghost puts a Behold a marke of excellency glory upon the love of God in making us his sonner in that first Epistle of John chap. 3. v. 1. This love of God it is God himselfe the perfe ion of glory therefore worthy the beholding Thus we see al along that the Prophets Apostles and all the servants of God make God the only subject of their glory these Texts of Scripture I thinke make up ful proofe to the first general observation the general scope of all Scripture comes into this truth therefore I cannot expect it to be denyed by any that know and acknowledge God and his Word The second generall observation is this That in God there is fulnesse of glory for all his people Or thus That in God is bound up all the fulnesse of his peoples glory this wil be in word I thinke denyed by none but indeed it is denyed by all such as seeke something else to glory in beside the Lord Nay many times without and against the Lord therefore this truth as the other I shall endeavor to prove from the nature of God and the declared experiences of his people First from the nature of God God is such an infinite glory in himselfe that no flesh can behold his glory and live Nor bath ony seme the Father at any time but the Sonne and those to whom the Sonne hath revealed him God is too bright a glory for a created being to see immediately therefore free-grace made Christ a Mediator to make known and discover God in his glory to his people and through this glasse Saints with open face beholding the glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image 2 Cor. 3. Iast I know not how better to expresse the nature of God then thus That hee is the first the fulnesse and the all of all true glory and excellency If you call mercy justice holinesse righteousnesse purity power infiniteness eternity to be glory This is God all this is God and God is all this and more then all that man can comprehend much lesse declare he is the first and the fulnesse and the all of all this there is not a glimps of glory but it is a beame of God all vessels of glory receive what they have from him hee is that fulnesse which filleth all things with himselfe the whole created being speakes nothing more plaine then this the infinite fulnesse of glory that is in the Creator And the holy Ghost by John in his Revel 21. Ch. 23. vers speaking of the glory of the new Jerusalem hath these words And the City had no neede of the Sunne neither of the Moone to shine in it for the glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof Whether this new Jerusalem be looked upon in
when we were dead in sinnes hath quickened us together with Christ Marke it it is love in God which is the originall of life in Saints it must needs be full love that should give life to soules dead in sinnes and it must be eternall love because it gives eternall life for it quickens soules together with Christ to live because he lives John 14.19 Now sayes this soule I thus glory singly in Christ which you cannot in any thing besides That holy and divine love is originally in God love in all the dimentions of it is lovely and ful of glory how ful of glory must it then needs be In the original of it which is God The Ocean Sea is the glory of all waters so is love in God the original glory of all love Now says the soul give mee leave to glory in my God as the God of love who is the eternal fountaine of love to whom I never went to in Christ but I found love and this I finde love in God is that which assures mee and carries me to him and truly ever since I have knowne him in Christ I have found him a God of love and his bosome of love a place of rest it is ful love I never wanted any thing when I lay downe to rest in it it is unchangeable love at no time a bed of thornes This love of God is so ful of glory in the enjoyment of it that it is the glory of all I doe enjoy it is Gods love in every mercy that makes it a mercy where Gods love is not the glory is departed from that thing Love in God is love in the original of it and there is heights depths breadths and lengths of love such heights as none can out-reach none can love more then God for he is the original of love or is originally love in him are breadths of love enough for all soules to spread themselves on to satisfaction and yet breadths of love to spare yea in him are depths of love as deepe as eternity Original love no soule can fathom its bottome or beginning it is such a deepe so firmly fixed it cannot be shaken to all eternity This love of God is not only the rivers of the waters of life but also such a deepe as can never be drawn dry I and it is lengths of love too love without end he cals it lengths because he cannot tel how long it exceeds both measure and expression this is all the account can be given of the length of it it is Gods love and God is love so that what God is that is this love now he that can measure God may measure love this is love singly in God so in God as in none besides God the fruits and effects of this love wil appear in the next particular but as love is originally fully and eternally in God so is God the only subject of his peoples glory wherefore he that glories of love let him glory in the Lord. The next particular is this The freenesse of Gods grace That grace is free none wil appeare so ignorant as to deny for the nature of the thing confirms it it could nor be grace were it not free but if that should not be understood yet the fruits and workings of Gods grace wil demonstrate it to be free-grace in al the operations of it from first to last And first Let us looke into predestinating and choosing grace Eph. 1.4 5. According as he hath chosen us in him in Christ before the foundation of the world having predestinated us unto the adoption of Children by Jesus Christ to himselfe according to the good pleasure of his will Marke how free-grace runnes through and gathers up this whole worke predestinated and chosen the very termes speaks freenesse but sayes the Text this is in Christ and this makes it still free-grace for Christ is wholly without our reach in our selves but that which puts all out of doubt is this the Text speaks plainly this worke is according to the good pleasure of his will God doth all in and by the freenesse of his owne grace nothing to move him but his owne bowels It is the Apostles argument upon this very question Rom. 9.18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardneth That is as I understand the scope of the holy Ghost in this place God chooseth whom he pleaseth in his free-grace to make them vessels of mercy in union with Christ and the others hee chooseth to leave in the first Adam dead in sinnes and trespasses If you aske me the reason of this I will answer you with the Apostles argument in vers 21. Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessell to honour and another to dishonour That I mention it for is to prove the freenesse of Gods choosing and electing grace and to that end it is a very ful Scripture for if you observe one clause in it it makes God to be as free in the vessels of honour as in the vessels of dishonour that is the same lump it is out of one and the same lump of clay that God doth both Now it must needes be free-grace that makes vessels of mercy to be filled with the riches of his glory out of the same lump that others remaine vessels of dishonor Thus Gods grace is free in choosing his owne vessels whom hee will fill with the fulnesse of his grace and glory to all eternity Secondly The grace of God is free in the calling of his chosen vessels out of themselves into himself Whom he predestinates before all time he cals in the fulnesse of his owne time and both in his free-grace Ephes 2.5 is a full proofe of this Even when wee were dead in sinnes hath quickened us together with Christ by grace yee are saved It is this free-grace of God that runs through the whole matter of salvation observe but the time of calling and it will appeare to be free-grace in God that cals even when dead in sinnes What could here move God but his owne free-grace the soule is dead there is no beauty in a dead soule to allure a living God nay dead in sinnes can this move a holy God to call such a soule to lye downe in his bosome No that which moves God is in himselfe the freenesse of his owne grace and the fulnesse of his owne bowels of love God can worke from himselfe to man though there be nothing in man to invite but to distast God and this is the glory of his free grace he cals a Moses out of Pharoah's Court a Saul out of the Sect of the Pharisees even when his heart was posting with his commission to persecute the Saints and by this call doth not only change his name from Saul to Paul but his spirit from a persecuter to a Preacher of Christ crucified What doth this prove but that God is free in his
calling grace and that it goeth hand in hand with his choosing he chooses to call and cals whom he chooseth and is free in his grace in all for nothing moves God in all this but his own free-grace Thirdly God justifies his elect and called by his free-grace See this in that plain Text Rom. 3.24 Being justified freely by is grace In three or foure of the next foregoing verses the Apostle shewes us how that by the deeds of the law shall no flesh he justified in the sight of God and that it is only Gods righteousnesse which is Christ that will be found righteous in the pure eyes of God for sayes he in vers 23. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God therefore our justification is meerly of his free-grace not by any deed or duty under the law vers 20. For by the law is the knowledge of sinne The law condemns it doth not justifie any it is only free-grace justifies So Gal. 2.16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the workes of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ And Gal. 3.11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God it is evident for the just shall live by faith By the law and the workes of the law in these Scriptures is comprehended all the best holyest and most exact performance of any soule though according to the commands of God that in none of these nor all these together is any soule justified in the sight of God for that is only the worke of free-grace but lest any should stumble at this that faith is so much mentioned in the matter of Justification the holy Ghost in Ephes 2.8 takes off all occasion of offence in that For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Hee binds up the whole matter of salvation of which justification is a part in the grace of God for by grace are yee saved Now God hath made faith as the hand to lay hold upon this salvation of his free-grace and that it might appeare to be all grace this is also the gift of God the workings of free-grace it is so much the more free that God gives both the hand and the gift too so the Apostle Rom. 8.33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect It is God that justifieth I of his owne free-grace God doth so fully acquit that nothing can be laid to the charge of those whom God doth justifie thus freely doth God acquit such as cannot justifie themselves by any deedes of the law though there be sin in the best duty yet there is justification in the free-grace of God though not of the sinne yet of the person There might be very much writ of this subject but I onely touch it here because it is more fully done in another place Fourthly God is free in his sanctifying grace his holy Spirit as the winde bloweth where it listeth Sanctification must needs be a free worke because it is the worke of a holy God in unholy soules there is no more in us to move God to cleanse us from our blood and pollution then there is to move him to love us when wee lay in our blood so that no eye but the eye of his grace could pitty us that power that overcame self must needs be freely without selfe now this is the sanctifying grace of God in the soules of his people and the Apostle Paul speaking of the worke of regeneration in his soule confesseth it is meerely of grace that I am what I am our state in the kingdome of glory to be ever with the Lord that is also the workings of orinall love and free-grace in God to be heire of God to possesse God and as joynt-heirs with Christ to be filled with his glory to all eternity this is free-grace it is too bigge to stand upon any other foundation but as two undeniable testimonies in the free-grace of God in all these particulars take Gods covenant of free-grace and Jesus Christ the gift of his free-grace into consideration First his Covenant in Jer. 31.33 34. What out of God could oblige God to make such a covenant as this is God engaging himselfe to put his law in our inward parts and to write it in our hearts and that he will be our God and we shall be his people that all shall know his way and that he will forgive our iniquity and remember our sinnes no more This may well be called the covenant of free-grace for it is the grace of God freely engaging himselfe to doe all this for us and in us it is too large to open where it is only brought as a proofe but this I can truly say of it it is in every part and in the whole the free-grace of God hee forgives all iniquity blots out all sinnes writes his holy law in the hearts and inward parts of his people teacheth them all to know his way and all this of his free-grace and to all this freenesse of grace he bindeth up himself by covenant not to make himselfe more faithfull for he is eternally and infinitely faithful but to make us more believing because by nature we believe in works not in free-grace But consider the Lord Jesus Christ who is the great gift of Gods free-grace in whom God filleth his people with grace and glory to all eternity whom God predestinates to the adoption of children hee doth it by Jesus Christ Ephes 1.5 Whom he cals and quickens hee doth it together with Christ Ephes 2.5 Whom he justifieth freely of his grace hee doth it through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ Rom. 3.24 When God in his free-grace gives wisdome righteousnesse sanctification and redemption hee gives it in Christ and makes Jesus Christ to be all this to his people 1 Cor. 1.30 When God glorifies his people with himselfe for ever he doth it as joynt-heirs with Christ After he had suffered in the flesh for us he goeth to heaven and glory to prepare mansions for us comes again to receive us to himselfe Now upon all these considerations tel me whether all the salvation in part or whole of the people of God be not the only workings designe of the eternal love and free-grace of God I hope none wil be so gracelesse as to deny it and to such as acknowledge it to them I say this is a generall full of particulers for such as glory to glory in the Lord. A believing soule wil tel you this he can glory in his election through the free-grace of God in Jesus Christ that none is or shall ever be able to plucke him out of Gods hands and hee will tell you that he is called into union with Christ by that eternall free-grace of God which will surely keepe him that he can never fall totally away Christ must have his whole body compleat in heaven not lose one member hee
wil also glory through the free-grace of God in this that Christ is made his Righteousnesse and Justification so that hee stands compleate before God in him Free-grace made Christ sinne for me sayes this soule that I might be made the righteousnesse of God in him 2 Cor. 5. last Jesus Christ in the designe of Gods free-grace hath borne sinne death hel law and curse for me that I am for ever acquitted from the condemning reigning or devouring power of any or of all these Now sayes this soule tel me you that understand Is nor this God of free-grace the only subject of a Saints glory Nay I wil tel you more God himselfe is the fulnesse of his peoples glory to all eternity hee lets the Worldlings for a little time to glut themselves with the World but himselfe is the free the full and eternal glory of his people in the Ages to come even to all eternity hee is filling his people with the exceeding riches of his grace and kindnesse in Christ Jesus Ephes 2.7 God doth to all eternity set open his bosom and not give to such as are heirs of himselfe flagons but oceans of love and glory It must needs be glory if it be Gods love Now this I and more then this more then eternity can tel is the free-grace of God therefore let him that glorieth glory in the Lord for he is God the only fountaine and fulnesse of free-grace But if any should object and say if grace be thus free in God to elect call justifie sanctifie and glorifie his people meerely of his free-grace why then did Christ take flesh and in the flesh satisfie the utmost of Gods justice for the sinnes of his people It seemes to appeare that God was satisfied in his justice he had the debt paid how then doe you make it grace To this I answer that in its proper place I shal make use of this argument to clear up the glory of God in the exactnesse of his justice but it doth no ways diminish the freeness of his grace to us for it is free-grace that made Christ to be the satisfaction of divine justice for our sinnes and that God satisfies his owne justice in himselfe doth no more make his grace not to be free then the making his Covenant in himselfe could keepe that from being free that justice is satisfied makes it ful redemption to us but that God doth it in Christ which is wholly out of our selves keeps it very exactly to bee the redemption of free-grace Wee are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Rom. 3.24 That God doth satisfie his justice in Christ it is that through him we might be made partake is of the redemption of his grace it is grace redeemes and just fies by Christ but Christ the gift of Gods grace cannot diminish his grace that which God gives his people through Christ though he satisfies his justice in the way yet he magnifies the freenesse of his grace in the work A third particular is this The riches of Gods mercy The Apostle Paul glories in God upon this very consideration in Ephes 2.4 But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith hee loved us and so forwards God to manifest his great love wherewith he loved his people bestowes on them the riches of his mercy namely his eternal love his free-grace his beloved Sonne and in him election calling justification sanctification and glorification and his holy spirit in these now this will be acknowledged to be rich mercy many doe pretend to be givers though they have nothing but what they first receive but none I am sure but blasphemers can pretend to be givers of such rich mercies as these God is the onely fountaine and giver of these more exceeding and eternall weights of glory Nay that which Worldlings make their God namely the World it was created by him and for him and though it be a curse to them that know no other God yet every piece and parcell of it sanctified is a blessing and a rich mercy of God to his chosen people love makes all conditions to be rich mercy of God to them It was a rich mercy to a darke world to say let there be light and it was so but then how rich is God in mercy when he makes known his eternall love and shines through the wounds of Christ by his owne spirit into a darke soule and bids the soule be of good cheere its sinnes are forgiven It stands compleat in Christ and is an heire of God a joynt-heire with Christ however men may slight the riches of these spiritual mercies whilst they are glutting their soules with the World yet let them remember the time is not farre off when death shall close their eyes and their soules sit upod their trembling lips and then a glimpse of a reconciled God in Christ will be found a rich mercy The Apostle cals the love of God heights and breadths depths and lengths of love Hee takes in all that hee could reckon up to shew the exceeding riches of it God is the fulnesse of glory and the fountaine of mercy therefore his mercies must needs be rich and full of glory So then as riches of mercy is a subject of glory let him that glorieth glory in the Lord. In the next place Consider the faithfulnesse of God in making good of his promises God is a free God in all his promises he onely ingages himselfe no soule can ingage God for to receive all from God and yet to oblige God is a contradiction the first is a truth of God what the latter is I leave the Reader to judge But as God is free in all his promises the whole workings of God in the world is an ample testimony to this truth and faithfulnesse of God but yet for more particular proofe take two or three Scriptures First Gods promises at the fault of the first Adam to give the Lord Jesus Christ the second Adam in Gen. 3.15 That the Seed of the Woman namely Christ should bruise the Serpents head This Serpent is the Devill Now to the making good of this promise the whole word of God and the salvation of his people is a full testimony For another great promise take that of Gods giving his Spirit to his people to teach them and to lead them into all truth and by which he doth write his Law in the hearts and inward parts of his people Jer. 31.33 John 14.26 Now how God doth make good this promise such as be truly spirituall can give in their testimony and I doubt not but God hath many thousand such witnesses in the world though such as know him not doe blaspheme and scoff at him in scoffing at his Spirit in his people yet Saints in truth will tell you that they in themselves are darknesse and God is onely light and it is the Spirit of God in them that is their light that they know
sting and Death under victory bereaved of its sting Death is a generall subject it concernes all flesh for it reacheth puts a period to all flesh truly as this other Scriptures holds it forth it is a very weighty subject and is worthy of the most serious meditations and considerations of all dying flesh that is in this life but clay wals and prisons to immortal soules such fraile buildings Death shal certainely cracke and leave in the grave til they be crumbled to dust from whence they were taken but the weight of Death lies not barely in this as it puts a period to the being and breathing of all flesh but in the sting of death which is sin and the strength of sin which is the law and under these considerations the Apostle takes it in this Scripture and in vers 55. puts a holy triumphing question O Death where is thy sting Not that hee was ignorant what was the sting of Death for in the very next verse he tels us what is the sting of Death and the strength of that sting but hee puts the question to let Death know that in the free-grace of God through Jesus Christ he had victory over him As if he had said Death I know that sinne is thy sting and the law is the strength of sinne but this I know in the Spirit of God that Christ hath born my sins fulfilled the law and satisfied divine justice for my soule so that now Death thou hast no sting in thee for me Christ in taking sin from me hath taken thy sting from thee so that now Thanks be to God which giveth me victory through my Lord Jesus Christ I can with glory put this question to thee O Death where is thy sting Death shal certainly sit in the bosome looke in the face and close the eyes of all flesh but whether in this presence Death appeares a friend or an enemie whether with or without his sting this is the great maine thing to be enquired after to be resolved in this the soule must look up to Christ behold Death first in him To be more distinct upon this weighty subject take some particular heads and observations from the words First That union with Christ gives Death to sinne gives satisfaction to the law and victory over Death The Apostle doth acknowledge that sin is the sting of Death and that the law is the strength of sin but notwithstanding hee blesseth God for victory over Death through our Lord Jesus Christ so as that which giveth victory over Death must be the death of sin and the satisfaction of the law and that is saith the Text our Lord Jesus Christ union with propriety and interest in Christ Christ by dying for his elect body did not only save them from their sinnes in being made sinne for them 2 Cor. 5. last and redeemed them from the curse of the law being made a curse for them Gal. 3.13 But did thereby give us victory over Death Christ by taking away sin bereaves Death of his sting by which Christ conquers Death for all that have union with him and interest in him so that through Christ that loved us wee are conquerours over Death Death where it hath no sting can have no victory but the death of sinne is victory over Death Christ he overcomes sinne and Death by dying he dyes for his people and his conquest over Death was for them for whom he dyed so that a believing soule looking upon Death through Christ doth triumph as the Apostle here O death where is thy sting And doth with Christ reigne over Death as an enemie destroyed and put under his feete vers 25 26. The believing soule in its union with Christ is above Death as Christ is above it not but that the bodies of Saints shall for a time sleepe in the grave but Death being without its sting is in that but a servant to put Gods children to bed for a time till corruption shall have put on incorruption and mortality hath put on immortality and then shall be brought to passe the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory The 2d. Observation is this That such as dye not in union with Christ they dye under the sting and victory of Death Death is as I may say death only in the sting when the sting appeares in Death then and then only hath death a grim countenance it is sinne that puts the terrour into Death but when the sting of sinne was taken away the Apostle could glory in and over Death but to Christ lesse soules Death comes in its full power It is appointed for all men once to dye and after death to come to judgement Now to a Christ-lesse soule death and sin appeares together and the sting of Death which is sin will goe along with the soule to judgement this makes death to be dreadfull to such poore soules and here Death is not a servant to lay the body to sleepe but a Jayler to bring soule and body in sinne before the just and righteous Judge to a soule out of Christ it is death to thinke of appearing before a righteous and holy God but when Death comes and the soule must certainly appeare before this tribunall this is death indeed a thousand deaths in one to such a soule it is death to live because the sentence will be goe you cursed this shall be your curse you shall live for ever out of the presence and glorious enjoyment of the everliving holy glorious God the sting of death is sinne Where death and sinne meets in one soul there death stings to death and then it is truly death because it hath its sting and there sinne hath its strength the law of God to accuse and the curse of that law to condemne to all eternity thus is Death in strength to Christ-lesse soules soules not in union with Christ I intend not in this meditation to take in all the parts of this subject for then I should be very large Nor shall I in this place take into consideration how Christ hath delivered his people from sinne and the curse of the law though both are proper to this Scripture because I have done it in some other parts of this booke I shall take that for granted and confine my meditations to that which I judge to be chiefe upon the Apostles spirit in this Scripture which is namely this The glory and excellency of Saints as we may glory in and triumph over Death through our Lord Jesus Christ First a Saint through Christ may glory over death in the very nature of it Death here is no death the sting being taken away it hath as it were lost its nature it is changed it is not what it was at first it is the nature of Death to devoure and destroy that appeares by the sting which is sin but through Christ Death is bereaved of this power having lost its sting in stead of a destroyer