nothing but holiness and urges it most pressingly upon all that receive it This is the very life of divine Faith touching the Mysteries of Salvation firmly to believe their Revelation by the Spirit of God this the Word it selfe testifies as we see and it is really manifest in it it carries the lively stamp of divine Inspiration but there must be a spirituall Eye to discern it he that is blind knows not that the Sun shines at noon but by the report of others but they that see are assur'd they see it and assur'd by no other thing but by its own Light To ask one that is a true Believer how know you the Scriptures to be divine is the same as to ask him how know you Light to be Light The Soul is nothing but Darkness and blindness within till that same spirit that shines without in the Word shine likewise within it and Effectually make it Light but that once done then is the word Read with some measure of the same spirit by which it was written and the Soul is ascertain'd that it is divine as in bodily fight there must be a meeting of inward Light Viz. the visuall spirits with the outward Object The spirit of God within brings Evidence with it and makes it self discernable in the word this all arguments all Books and study cannot attain unto it is given to believe No Man knows the things of a Man but the spirit of Man 1. Cor. 2.11 But how holds that here for if a Man speak out the things that are in his spirit then others may know them But the Apostle's aime is there to conclude that the things of God even such as were Revealed in his Word could not be known but by his own spirit ' it s so though Revealed yet they remain still unreveal'd till the spirit teach within as well as without Because intelligeable by none but by those that are the private Scholers and Hearers of the holy Ghost the author of them and because there are so few of these therefore there is so little reall Believeing amongst all the noise and profession that we make of it who is there if you will believe them that Believes not and yet truely there is too much Cause to continue the Prophets regret who hath believed our Report Learn then to suspect your selves and to finde out your own Unbelief that you may desire this Spirit to teach you inwardly those great Mysteries that he outwardly Reveals and Teaches by his Word Make use of that promise and press the Lord with it They shall be all taught of God But 2. There is here the Matter of this Doctrine which we have in three severall Expressions 1. That which is Repeated from the foregoing Verse 't is the Doctrine of Salvation that 's the end of it and 2. The Doctrine of sufferings and glory of Christ as the means 3. The Doctrine of Grace the spring of both And 1. Salvation the onely true Doctrine of true happiness which the wisest of naturall Men have grop't and sought after with much earnestness but with no success they had no other then the dark Moon light of Nature and that is not sufficient to find it out onely the Sun of Righteousness shining in the Sphere of the Gospel brings Life and Immortality to Light 2. Tim. 1.10 No wonder that naturall Wisdom the deepest of it is far from finding out the true method and way of cure seeing it cannot discover the disease of miserable Mankind Viz. the sinfull and wretched Condition of nature by the first Disobedience Salvation expresses not only that which is Negative but Implies likewise positive and perfect Happiness thus forgiveness of sins is put for the whole nature of Iustification frequently in scripture 't is more easy to say of this unspeakable Happiness what it is not then what it is there is in it a full and final freedom from all Annoyance all tears are wip'd away and their fountain dryed up all feeling and fear or danger of any the least evil either of sin or punishment banish'd for ever no Invasions of Enemies no robbing nor destroying in all this holy Mountain no voice of complaining in the streets of the new Jerusalem here 't is at the best but interchanges of Mornings of joy with weeping of sad evenings but there there shall be no Light no need of Sun nor Moon For the glory of the Lord shall lighten it and the Lamb shall be the Light thereof Well may the Apostle as he doth here throughout this Chap. lay this Salvation to Counter ballance all sorrows and Persecutions and whatsoever hardships can be in the way to it The soul that is perswaded of this in the midst of Storms and Tempests enjoys a Calme Triumphs in Disgraces grows Richer by all its Losses and by Death it self attaines this Immortall life Happy are they that have their eye fixed upon this Salvation and are longing and waiting for it that see so much of that brightness and Glory as darknâ— all the lusture of Earthly things to them and makes them trample upon those things which formerly they admir'd and doted on with the rest of the foolish world Those things we account so much of are but as rotten wood or Glow-wormes that shine onely in the night of our Ignorance and Vanity so soon as the Light beam of this Salvation enters into the soul it cannot much esteem or affect any thing below it and if those glances of it that shine in the Word and in the Soul of a Christian be so bright and powerfull what then shall the full sight and real possession of it be The worker of this Salvation whom the Prophets and Apostles make the summe of all their doctrine is Jesus Christ and the summe of that work of Redemption as we have it here is his Humiliation and Exaltation His Sufferings and the Glory that followed thereupon now though this serve as an Encouragement to Christians in their Sufferings that this is the way by which their Lord went into his Glory and is true also of Christ mysticall the Head with the Members as the scriptures often teach us Yet I conceive 't is here mainâ—ly intended as a summary of the work of our Redemption by Jesus Christ relateing to the salvation mention'd Verse 10. And as the Cause for the Effect so 't is put for it here The Prophets enquired and prophecied of that Salvation How By searching out and foretelling the Sufferings and Glory of Christ His sufferings then and his after Glories are our Salvation His sufferings is the purchace of our Salvation and His Glory is our assurance of it He as our head having Triumph'd and being Crown'd makes us likewise sure of Victory and Triumph Having entered possession to glory makes our Hope certain this is his prayer that where he is there we may be also and this his own assertion the glory which thou gavest Me I have given them Ioh. 17.22 24. this is
God was given to be tasted in the promises before the coming of Christ in the flesh But being accomplish'd in his coming then was the sweetness of grace made more sensible Then was it more fully broacht and let out to the Elect world when he was pierc'd on the Cross and his blood poured out for our redemption Through those holes of his wounds way we draw and taste that the Lord is gracious sayes S. August 2. Taste There is a tasting of temporary believers spoke of Heb. 6.4 Their highest sense of spirituall things and it will be in some far higher than we easily think yet is but a taste and is call'd so in comparison of the truer fuller sense that true believers have of the grace and goodness of God which compar'd with temporary taste is more than tasting the former is tasting rather an imaginary tast then real but this is a true feeding on the graciousness of God yet call'd but a tast in respect of the fulness to come though it is more than a tast as you difference it from the hypocrites sense yet 't is no more but a tast compar'd with the great marriage feast we look for Jesus Christ being all in all unto the soul faith apprehending him is all the spirituall senses it is the eye that beholds his matchless beauty and so enkindles love in the soul and can speak of him as having seen him and taken particuliar notice of him Cant. 5.9 'T is the eare that discernes his voyce Cant. 2.8 'T is faith that smells his name poured forth as an ointment faith it touches him and draws vertue from him and faith that tastes him Cant. 2.3 And here If ye have tasted c. There must be 1. a firme believing the truth of the promises wherein the free Grace of God is exprest and exhibited to us 2. A particular application or attraction of that grace to our selves which is as the drawing those breasts of consolation namely the promises contain'd in the old and new Testament 3. There is a sense of the sweetness of that grace being applied or drawn in to the soul and that is properly this tast No unrenewed Man hath any of these in truth not the highest kind of temporary believer he cannot have so much as a real lively assent to the generall truth of the promises for had he that the rest would follow but as he cannot have the least of these in truth he may have the counterfit of them all not only of assent but application yea and a false spiritual joy arising on it and all these so drawn to the life that they may resemble much the truth of them and to give clear characters of difference is not so easie as most imagine but doubtless the true living faith of a Chiristian hath in it self such a particular stamp as brings with it it s own evidence when the soul is clear and the light of Gods face shines upon it Indeed in the dark we cannot read nor distinguish one mark from another but when a Christian hath light to look upon the work of God in his own soul although he cannot make another sensible of that by which he knows it yet he himself is ascertain'd and can say confidently in himself this I know that this faith and â—ast of God I have is true the seal of the spirit of God is upon it and this is the reading of that new name in the white stone that no Man knowes but he that hath it There is in a true Believer such a constant love to God for himself and continual desire after him simply for his own excellency and goodness that no other can have On the other side would an Hypocrite deal truly and impartialy by himself he would readily find out something that would discover him more or less to himself but the truth is Men are willing to deceive themselves and thence arises the difficulty One Man cannot make another sensible of the sweetness of Divine Grace he may speak to him of it very excellently but all he sayes in that kind is an unknown language to a natural Man he hath many good words but he cannot tell what they mean The natural Man tastes not the things of God for they are spiritually discern'd A Spiritual Man himself doth not fully conceive this swetness that he tastes of 't is an infinite Goodness and he hath but a taste of it the Peace of God is a main fruit of this his goodness it passeth all understanding sayes the Apostle not only all natural understanding as some modifie it but all understanding even the supernatural understanding of those that enjoy it and as the Godly Man cannot conceive it all so that which he conceives he cannot express it all and that which he doth express the carnal mind cannot conceive of it by his expression But he that hath indeed tasted of this goodness O how tastless are those things to him that the World call's sweet as when you have tasted somewhat that is very sweet it disrelisheth other things after it Therefore can a Christian so easily either want or use with disregard the delights of this earth His heart is not upon them for the delight that he finds in it God carryeth it unspeakably away from all the the rest makes them in comparison seem sapless to his tast Salomon tasted of all the delicacies the choisest dishes that are in such esteem amongst Men and not only tasted but eat largly of them and yet see how he goes over them to let us know what they are and passes from one dish to another this also is vanity and of the next this also is vanity and so through all and of all in general All is vanity and vexation of Spirit or feeding on the Wind as the word may be rendred 3. We come in the third place to the Inference If ye have tasted c. Then lay aside all Malice and guile and Hipocrisies and Envies and all evil speakings Verse 1. For it looks back to the whole Exhortation sure if you have tasted of that kindness and sweetness of God in Christ it will compose your spirits and conform them to him it will diffuse such a sweetness through your soul that there will be no place for malice and guile There will be nothing but love and meekness and singleness of heart therefore they that have bitter malitious Spirits evidence they have not tasted of the love of God as the Lord is good so they that taste it are made like him Eph. 4.32 Be ye kind one to another tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ sake hath forgiven you Again if ye have tasted then desire more and this is the truest sign of it he that is in a continual hunger and thirst after this graciousness of God sure he hath tasted of it My soul thirsteth for God saith David he had tasted before Verse 4. he remembers that he went to the
flesh and dwelt amongst Men in a Tabernacle like theirs and suffered death in the flesh that he who was Lord of Life hath freed us from the sentence of Eternal Death that he broke the bars and chains of Death and rose again that he went up into Heaven and there at the Fathers right hand sits in our flesh and that glorified above the Angels This is the great Mistery of Godliness And a part of this Mistery is that he is Believed on in the World 1 Tim. 3.16 This Natural Men may discourse of and that very knowingly and give a kind of natural Credit to 't as to a History that may be true but firmly to believe that there is divine Truth in all these things and to have a perswasion of it stronger then of the very things we see with our eyes such an assent as this is the peculiar work of the spirit of God and is certainly saving Faith The Soul that so believes cannot chuse but Love 't is commonly true the Eye is the ordinary door by which Love enters into the Soul and it is true in this Love though t is denied of the Eye of sense yet you see 't is ascrib'd to the Eye of Faith though you have not seen him you Love him because you believe Which is to see him spiritually Faith indeed is distinguish'd from that Vision that is in Glory but it is the Vision of the Kingdom of Grace 't is the Eye of the New Creature that quicksighted Eye that pierces all the Visible Heavens and sees above them that looks to things that are not seen 2 Cor. 4.18 And is the evidence of things not seen Heb. 11.1 that sees him that is invisible v. 27. 'T is possible that one may be much Lov'd upon the report of their worth and Vertues and upon a Picture of them lively drawn before sight of the party so commended and represented but certainly when they are seen and found answerable to the former it raises the Affection that it first begun to a far greater height We have the report of the perfections of Jesus Christ in the Gospel yea so clear a description of him that it gives a picture of him and that together with the Sacraments are the only lawful and the only lively pictures of our Saviour Gal. 3.1 Now this Report Faith believes and beholds this picture and so lets in the Love of Christ to the Soul but further it gives a particular experimental knowledge of Christ and acquaintance with him It causes the Soul find all that is spoken of him in the Word and his beauty there represented to be abundantly true makes it really taste of his sweetness and by that possesses the heart more strongly with his Love perswading it of the truth of those things not by reasons and arguments but by an Inexpressible kind of Evidence that they only know that have it Faith perswades a Christian of these two things that the Philosopher gives as the causes of all Love Beauty and Propriety the Loveliness of Christ in himself and our interest in him The former it effâ—ctuaâ—s not only by the first apprehending and believing of those hâ—s Excellencies and Beauty but by frequent beholding of him and Eyeing him in whom all Perfection dwells and looks so ofâ— on him till it sets the very Impression of his Image as it were upon the Soul that it can never be blotted out and forgot The latter it doth by that particular Uniting Act which makes him our God and our Saviour Ye Love The distinctions that some make of Love need not be taken as of differing kinds but different actings of the same Love by which we may try our so much pretended Love of Christ which in truth is so rarely found There will then be in this Love if it be right these three qualities Goodwill Delight and Desire 1. Goodwill earnest wishing and as we can promoting Gods Glory and stirring up others so to do They that seek more their own things then the things of Jesus Christ more their own Praise and Esteem then His are strangers to this divine Love-For it seeks not her own things This bitter Root of self-love is most hard to pluck up this strongest and sweetest Love of Christ alone doth it actually though gradually This Love makes the Soul as the lower Heaven slow in its own motion most swift in the motion of that first that wheels it about so the higher degree of Love the more swift It Loves the hardest tasks And greatest difficulties where it may perform God service either in doing or in suffering for him It is strong as death and many waters cannot quench it The greater the task is the more real is the testimony and expression of Love and therefore the more acceptable to God 2. There is in true Love a complacency and delight in God A Conformity to his will Loving what he Loves and studious of his will ever seeking to know more clearly what it is that is most pleasing to him contracting a likeness to God in all his actions by conversing with him frequent contemplating of God and looking on his beauty as the Eye lets in this Affection so it serves it constantly and readily looks that way that Love directs it thus the soul that is possess'd with this Love of Jesus Christ hath its eye much upon him thinks often on his former sufferings and present Glory the more it lookes upon Christ the more it loves and still the more it loves the more it delights to look upon him 3. There is in true Love a Desire for 't is but small beginnings and tastes of his Goodness that the soul hath here therefore 't is still looking out and longing for the day of Marriage the time is sad and wearisome and seems much longer then it is while 't is deteind here I desireâ— to be dissolved saith St. Paul and to be with Christ. God is the Sum of all things lovely thus excellenâ—ly Greg. Nazian expresseth himself Ovat 1. If I have any Possessions Health Credit Learning this is all the contentment I have of them that I have somewhat I may despise for Christ who is totus dâ—sâ—derâ—bilis totuâ— desiderabile And this Love is the sum of all he requires of us 't is that which makes all our meanest Services acceptable and without which all we offer to him is distasteful God doth not only deserve our Love by his matchless Excellency and Beauty but by his Matchless Love to us and that is the strongest Loadstone of Love He hath loved me saith the Apostle Gal. 2.20 How appears that in no less then this he hath given himself for me Certainly then there is no other Character of our Love then this to give our selves to him that hath so loved us and given himself for us This affection must be bestowed somewhere there is no Man but hath some prime choyce somewhat that is the predominant delight of his soul will it
disparages not their extraordinary Visions and Revelations and that which is added that the Spirit of Christ was in them and did foretel the things to come It was their constant Duty and they being sensible of their duty made it their constant Exercise to search into Divine Misteries by Meditation and Prayer yea and by Reading such holy writers as were already extant in their times as Dan. 9. and 10. For which Cause some taking the word actively Conceive Daniel to be call'd there a Man of desires because of his great desire and dilligent search after the knowledge of those High things And in this dilligent way they constantly waited for these Revelations which sometimes when it seem'd good unto the Spirit of God were imparted unto them Prophesie resideth not say the Hebrew Doctors but in a Man that is great in Wisdom and Vertue whose affections overcome him not in any worldly things but by his knowledge he overcometh his Affections continually on such a Man the Holy Spirit cometh down And his Soul is associated to the Angels and he is changed to another Man thuâ— Maimonides 'T was the way of the Prince of darkness amongst the Idolatrous Gentiles to speak either through senseless Statues or where they uttered his Oracles it was by such profane Prophets as he had to cause them in a fury tumble forth words they understood not and knew not what they said but the Spirit of God being Light and the Holy Prophets Inspired with it they being dilligent attendants on its Motions and Searchers of the Misteries of Salvation understood well what their business was and to what purpose tended those things of the Kingdom of Christ which they by Inspiration did foretel and therefore bended their thoughts this way praying and searching and waiting for Answers studying to keep the passage as it were open for the beams of those Divine Revelations to come in at not to have their Spirits clogg'd and stopt with earthly and sinful Affections endeavouring for that calm and quiet Composure of Spirit in which the voyce of Gods Spirit might be the better heard Thus Psal. 85.8 and Hab. 2.1 In both which places followes an excellent Prophesie Concerning Christ and that Salvation which he wrought for his People Were the Prophets not exempted from the pains of Search and Inquiry that had the Spirit of God not only in a high measure but after a singular manner how unbeseeming then is slothfulness and Idleness in us whether is it that we judge our selves advantag'd with more of the spirit then those holy men or that we Esteem the Doctrine and Misteries of Salvation on which they bestow'd so much of their labour unworthy of ours these are both so gross that we will be loath to own either of them and yet our laziness and negligence in searching after those things seems to charge us with some such thought as one of those You will say this concerns those that succeed to the work of the Prophets and Apostles in ordinary the Ministers of the Gospel And it doth indeed fall first upon them It is their task indeed to be dilligent and as the Apostle exhorts his Timothy to attend on reading but above all to study to have much Experimental knowledge of God and his Son Jesus Christ and for this end to disentangle and free themselves as much as is possible from lower things to the search of heavenly Misteries Prov. 18.1 As they are called Angels so ought they to be as much as they can attain to it in a constant nearness unto God and attendance on him like unto the Angels and look much into these things as the Angels here are said to do to endeavour to have their souls purified from the affections of sin that the light of Divine truth may shine clear in them and not be fogg'd and misted with filthy vapours to have the Impressions of God clearly written in their breasts not mix'd and blurr'd with earthly characters seasoning all their readings and common way of studies with much Prayer and divine Meditation They that Converse most with the King and are inward with him know most of the affairs of state and even the secrets of them that are hid from others and certainly those of Gods Messengers that are oftenest with himself cannot but underdand their business best and know most of his meaning and the affairs of his Kingdom And to that End 't is confess'd that singular dilligence is requir'd in them but seeing the Lord hath said without exception that his secret is with them that fear him and that he will reveal himself and his saving truths to those that humbly seek them Do not any of you your selves so much injury as to barr your selves from sharing in your measure of the search of these same things that were the study of the Prophets and which by their study and publishing them are made the more accessible and easie to us Consider that they doe concern us universally if we would be saved for 't is Salvation here that they studied Search the Scriptures sayes our Saviour Ioh. 5. And that is the motive if there can be any that may be thought in reason pressing enough or if we doe indeed think so For in them ye think to have Eternal life And it is there to be found Christ is this Salvation and that Eternal life and he adds further it is they those Scriptures that testifie of me These are the Golden mines in which alone the abiding treasures of Eternity are to be found and therefore worthy all the digging and paines we can bestow on them Besides their Industry in this enquiry and search there is here expressed their ardent affection to the thing they Prophesied of and their Longings and Wishes for its Accomplishment viz. The coming of Jesus Christ the promised Messiah the top of all their desires the great Hope and the Light of Israel No wonder they desired his day that had so much joy in the seeing it So far off as over the head almost of two thousand years Faith overlooking them and foreseeing it so in Abraham his heart danc'd for joy Ioh. 8.36 Abraham saw my day and Rejoyced And this is conceived to be the meaning of those Expressions in that mistical Song as they suit those times of the Jewish Church breathing out her longings for the coming of her Beloved his speaking by the Prophets were his voice as afar off but his incarnation was his coming near and kissing his Church with the kisses of his mouth as Cant. Chap. 1. Verse 1. and to omit other expressions throughout the Song the last Chapter Verse 1. is tender and pathetical Oh that thou wert as my Brother c. and the last words of it Make hast my Beloved and be thou like a Roe or a young Hart upon the Mountain of Spices And when this salvation came in the fulness of time we see how joyfully good old Simeon embraces it and thought he had seen
without it 't is true that the substantial Eternal word is to us as we said the spring of this New birth and life the head from whom the spirits of this supernatural life flow but that by the Word here is meant the Gospel the Apostle puts ouâ— of doubt Verse last and this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto you Therefore it is indeed that this Word is thus the seed of this New birth because it contains and declares that other word the Son of God as our life The word is spoken in common and so is the same to all hearers but then all being naturally shut against it God doth by his own hand open some hearts to receive it and mixes it with faith and those it renews and restoreth in them the Image of God drawes the traits of it anew and makes them the Sons of God My Doctrine shall drop as the dew sayes Moses the word as a heavenly dew not falling beside but dropt in to the heart by the hand of Gods own spirit makes it all become spiriâ—ual and heavenly and turns it into one of those drops of dew that the Children of God are compared to Psal. 110. Thou hast the dew of thy youth The natural estate of the soul is darkness and the word as a divine light shining into it transforms the soul into its own nature that as the word is called Light so is the soul renew'd by it ye were darkness but now are ye not only enlightn'd but light in the Lord. All the evils of the natural mind are often compriz'd under the name of darkness and Errour and therefore the whole work of conversion likewise signified by light and truth he begat us by the word of truth So 2 Cor. 4 6. alluding to the first fiat Lux or Let there â—e Light in the Creation The word brought within the soul by the spirit lets it see its own necessity and Christs sufficiency convinceth it throughly and causeth it to cast over it self upon him for life and this is the very begetting of it again to Eternal life So that this Efficacy of the word to prove successful seed doth not hang upon the different abilities of Preachers their more or less Rhetorick or Learning 'T is true Eloquence hath a great advantage in civil and moral things to perswade and and to draw the hearers by the Ears almost which way it will but in this spiritual work to revive a soul to beget it anew the Influence of heaven is the main there is no way so common and plain being warranted by God in the delivery of saving truth but the spirit of God can revive the soul by it and all the skilful and most autoritative way yea being withal very spiritual yet may effect nothing because left alone to it self One word of holy Scripture or of truth conform to it may be the principle of Regeneration to him that hath heard multitudes of excellent Sermons and hath often read the whole Bible and still unchang'd if the spirit of God preach that one or any such word to the Soul God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever should believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life It will be cast down with the fear of perishing and driven out of it self by that and rais'd up and drawn to Jesus Christ by the hope of everlasting life it will believe on him that it may have life and be inflamed with the Love of God and give it self to him that so loved the World as to give his only begotten Son to purchase us that everlasting life Thus may that word prove this Immortal Seed which tho very often read and heard before was but a dead letter A drop of those liquors that are called Spirits operates more than large draughts of other waters one word spoke by the Lord to the heart is all Spirit and doth that which whole streams of Mans eloquence could never effect In hearing of the Word Men look usually too much upon Men and forget from what spring the Word hath its power they observe too narrowly the different hand of the Sowers and too little depend on his hand that is great Lord both of Seed-time and Harvest Be it sowen by a weak hand or a stronger the Immortal seed is still the same yea suppose the worst that it be a foul hand that sowes it that the Preacher himself be not so sanctified and of so edifying a life as you would wish yet the seed it self being good contracts no defilement and may be effectual to Regeneration in some and strengthening of others Although he that is not renew'd by it himself cannot have much hope of such success nor reap much comfort by it and usually doth not seek nor regard it much but all Instruments are alike in an Almighty hand Hence learn 1. That true conversion is not so slight a work as we commonly account it 'T is not an outward change of some bad customes which gains the name of a reform'd Man in the ordinary dialect 't is a New birth and Being and elsewhere called a new Creation though it be but a change in qualities as 't is such a one and the qualities so far distant that it bears the name of the most substantial productions from Children of disobedience and that which is link't with it heirs of wrath to be sons of God and heirs of glory They have a new spirit given a free princely noble spirit as the word is Psal. 51. and this spirit acts in their life and action 2. Consider this dignity and be kindled with the ambition of it how doth a Christian pity that poor vanity that men make so much noise about of of their kindred and extraction this is worth glorying in indeed to be of the highest blood royal and in the nearest Relation Sons of the King of Kings by this new birth and addes Matchless honour to that birth which is honourable But we all pretend to be of this number Would we not study to cozen our selves the discovery would not be so hard to know whither we are or not In many their false confidence is too evident No appearance of the spirit of God not a foot-step like his leading and that character Rom. 8.14 not a lineament of God's visage as their father if ye know that he is righteous sayes St. Iohn 2.29 ye know then that every one that doth righteousness is born of him And so on the contrary how contrary to the most holy God the lover and fountain of holiness are they that Swinishly love to wallow in the mire of unholiness Is Swearing and Cursing the accent of the Regenerate the Children of God No 't is the language of Hell Do children delight to indignifie and dishonour their Fathers Name No Earthly mindedness is a countersign Shall the King's Children they that were brought up in scarlet as Ieremy laments embrace the dunghil
life is and wherein the nature of it consists we may easily know what is the growth of it when holiness increases the sanctifying graces of the Spirit grow stronger in the soul and consequently act more strongly in the life of a Christian then he growes Spiritually And as the word is the means of begetting this Spiritual life so likewise of its increase 1. If we consider the nature of the Word in general that it is Spiritual and Divine treats of the highest things and therefore hath in it a fitness to elevate Mens minds from the Earth being often conversant with it to assimilate them to it self as all kind of Doctrine readily doth to these that are much in it and apply their minds to study it Doubtless such kind of things as are frequent with Men have an influence into the disposition of their souls The Gospel is called Light and the Children of God are likewise called Light as being transform'd into its nature and thus they are still the more by more hearing of it and so they grow If we look more particularly unto the strain and tenour of the Word it is most fit for increasing the graces of the Spirit in a Christian for there be in it particular truths relative to them that are apt to excite them and set them on work and so to make them grow as all habits do by acting it doth as the Apostles word may be translated stir up the sparks and blow them into a greater flame makes them burn clearer and hotter That it doth both by particular Exhortation to the study and Exercise of those graces sometimes pressing one and sometimes another and by right representing to them their objects The Word feeds faith by setting before it the free grace of God his Rich Promises and his Power and truth to perform them all shews it the strength of the New Covenants not depending upon it but holding in Christ in whom all the Promises of God are Yea and Amen and drawing faith still to rest more intirely upon his Righteousness It feeds Repentance by making the vileness and deformity of sin daily more clear and visible still as more of the Word hath admission into the Soul the more it hates sin being the more discovered and the better known in its own native colour As the more light is in a House the more any thing in it that is uncleanly or deformed is seen and dislik'd Likewise it increaseth love to God by opening up still more and more of his infinite Excellency and lovelyness and as it borrowes the resemblance of the vilest things in nature to express the foulness and hatefulness of sin so all the beauties and dignities that are in all the creatures are call'd together in the Word to give us some small scantling of that uncreated beauty that alone deserves to be loved Thus might it be instanc'd in all other graces But above all other Considerations this is in the Word observable as the increaser of grace in that it holds forth Jesus Christ to our vieu to look upon not only as the perfect pattern but as the full fountain of all grace from whose fulness we all receive the contemplating of him as the perfect Image of God and then drawing from him as having in himself a treasure for us these give the soul more of that Image which is truly Spiritual growth This the Apostle expresseth excellently 2 Cor. 3. ult speaking of the Ministry of the Gospel revealing Christ that beholding in him as 't is Chap. 4. Vers. 6. In his face the glory of the Lord we are changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the spirit of the Lord. Not only that we may take the Copy of his Graces but have a share of them There be many things might be said of this spirituall growth but I will add only a few 1. In the judging of this growth some conluding too rigidly against themselves that they grow not by the word because it is not sensible to them as they desire But 1. this is known in all things that grow that 't is not discerned in motu sed in termino not in the growing but when they are grown 2. Besides other things are to be considered in this although other graces seem not to advance yet if thou growest more self-denying and humble in the sense of thy slowness all is not lost although the branches shut not up so fast as thou wishest yet if the root grow deeper and fasten more it s an usefull growth he that is still learning to be more in Jesus Christ and less in himself to have all his dependance and comfort in him is doubtless a growing believer On the other side a far greater number conclude wrong in their own favour imagining that they do grow if they gain in some of those things we mention'd above namely if more knowledge and more faculty of discoursing if they find often some present stirrings of joy or sorrow in hearing of the word if they reform their life grow more civil and blameless c. Yet all these and many such things may be in a naturall Man who notwithstanding grows not for that 's impossible he is not in that estate a subject capable of this growth for he is dead he hath none of this new life to which this growth relates Herod heard gladly and obey'd many things Consider then what true delight we might have in this You find a pleasure when you see your Children grow when they begin to stand and walk c. You love well to perceive your estate or your honour grow but the soul to be growing liker God and nearer heaven if we know it is a pleasure far beyond them all to find pride and Earthliness and vanity abating and faith and love and spirituall mindedness increasing especially if we think whither this growth be not as our naturall life that is often cutt off before it attain full age as we call it and if it attain that falls again to move downwards and decays as the Sun being at its Meridian begins to decline again But this life shall grow on-in whomsoever it is and come certainly to its fullness after which there is no more need of this word either for growth or nourishment no death no decay no old age but perpetuall youth and a perpetuall spring ver aeternum fulness of joy in the presence of God and everlasting pleasures at his right hand Verse 3. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is Gracious OUR Naturall desire of food arises principally from its necessity for that end which nature seeks the growth or at least the nourishment of our bodies but besides there is a present sweetness and pleasingness in the use of it that serves to sharpen our desire and is plac'd in nature for that purpose thus the Children of God in their spiritual life are naturally carried to desire the means of their nourishment and of their growth
awak'd to seek diligently after Jesus and not to rest till they find him they 're well enough without him it suffices them they hear there is such a one but they ask not themselves is he mine or no But sure if that be all not to doubt the Bruites believe as well It were better out of all question to be labouring under doubtings if it be a more hopeful condition to find a Man groaning and complaining than speechless and breathless and not stirring at all There be in Spiritual doubtings two things their is a sollicitous care of the Soul concerning its own estate and diligent inquiry into 't and that is laudable being a true work of the spirit of God but the other thing in them perplexity and distrust that arises from darkness and weakness in the soul as where there is a great deal of smoak and no clear flame it argues much moysture in the matter yet it witnesseth certainly that there is fire there and therefore dubious questioning of a Man concerning himself is a much better evidence than that senseless deadness that most take for believing Men that that know nothing in sciences have no doubts he never truly believ'd that was not made first sensible and convinc'd of unbelief This is the Spirits first errand in the World to convince it of sin and the Sin is this that they believe not If the Faith that thou hast grew out of thy natural heart of it self 't is but a Weed be sure the right plant of Faith is alwayes set by Gods own hand and 't is watered and preserv'd by him because expos'd to many hazzards he watches it Night and Day Isa. 27.3 I the Lord do keep it I will water it every moment lest any hurt it I will keep it night and day Again how impudent is it in the most to pretend believing while they wallow in Profaness if Faith unite the soul unto Christ certainly it puts it into participation of his Spirit for if any Man have not the spirit of Christ he is none of his sayes St. Paul This faith in Christ bring us into Communion with God Now God is light says St. Iohn and therefore inferrs if we say we have fellowship with God and walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth The lie appears in our practise an unsuitableness in our carriage as he said of him that sign'd his Verse wrong fecit solaecismum manu But there be imaginary Believers that are a little more refin'd that live after a blameless yea and a Religious manner for there outward and yet are but appearances of Christians have not the living work of Faith within and all these exercises are dead works in their hands Amongst these some may have such motions within themselves as may deceive themselves as well as their outward deportment deceives other some transient touches of desire to Christ upon the unfolding of his excellencies in the Preaching of the word and upon some conviction of their own necessity and conceive some joy upon thoughts of apprehending him and yet all this proves but an evanishing fancy an embracing of a shaddow And because Men that are thus deluded meet not with Christ indeed do not really find his sweetness therefore within a while they return to the pleasure of sin and their latter end proves worse than their beginning their hearts could not possibly be stedfast because there was nothing to fix them on in all that work wherein Christ himself was wanting But the truly believing Soul that is brought unto Jesus Christ and fastened upon him by Gods own hand abides stay'd on him and departs not And in these the very belief of the things that are spoken concerning Christ in the Gospel the perswasion of Divine truth is of a higher nature than the common consent that they call Historical another knowledge and evidence of the mysteries of the Kingdom than natural Men can have this is indeed the ground of all the very thing that causes a Man rest upon Christ when he hath a perswasion wrought in his heart by the Spirit of God that Christ is an able Redeemer a sufficient Saviour able to save all that come to him Then upon this the heart resolves upon that course seeing I am perswaded of this that whoso believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life as here it is shall not be confounded I am to deliberate no longer this is the the thing I must doe to lay my soul upon him upon one that is an Almighty Redeemer And it does so Now these first actings of Faith have in themselves an evidence that distinguishes them from all that 's counterfeit a light of their own by which the soul wherein they are may discern them and say this is the right work of Faith especially when God shines upon the Soul and clears it in the discovery of his own work within it And further they may find the influence of Faith upon the affections purifying them as our Apostle sayes of it Act. 15.9 Faith knits the heart to a holy Head a pure Lord the spring of purity and therefore cannot chuse but make it pure it is a beam from heaven that raises the mind to a Heavenly temper Although there remaines of sin in a believing soul yet 't is a hated wearysome guest there 't is not there as its delight but as its greatest grief and malady that it is still lamenting and complaining of and had rather be rid of than gain a World Thus 't is purified from affecting sin So then where these are a Spiritual apprehension of the Promises and a cleaving of the Soul unto Christ and such a delight in him as makes sin vile and distastful that the heart is set against it and as the Needle touch'd with the Loadstone is still turn'd towards Christ and lookes at him in all estates The Soul that is thus dispos'd hath certainly Interest in him and therefore ought not to affect an humour of doubting but to conclude that how unworthy soever in it self yet being in him it shall not be ashamed not only it shall never have cause to think shame of him but all its just cause of shame in it self shall be taken away it shall be cover'd with his Righteousness and appear so before the Father Who must not think if my sins were to be set in order and appear against me how would my face be fill'd with shame Though there were no more if some thoughts that I am guilty of were laid to my charge I were utterly sham'd and undone Oh! Nothing in my self but matter of shame but yet in Christ more matter of glorying who endured shame that we might not be ashamed We cannot distrust our selves enough nor trust enough in him Let it be right Faith and there is no excess in believing Though I have sinn'd against him and abus'd his goodness yet I will not leave him for whether should I go he and none but he hath
a Natural Man so little understands that is the cause of all that Spiritual Light of Grace that a Believer does enjoy No right knowledge of God to Man once fallen from it but in his Son no comfort in beholding God but through him Nothing but just anger and wrath to be seen in Gods lookes but through him in whom he is well pleased The Gospel shews us the Light of the knowledge of God 2 Cor. 4.6 but 't is in the face of Iesus Christ therefore the Kingdom of light oppos'd to that of Darkness Col. 1. is called the Kingdom of his dear Son or the Son of his Love There is a Spirit of Light and Knowledge flowes from Jesus Christ into the Souls of Believers that acquaints them with the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God which cannot otherwise be known And this Spirit of Knowledge is withal a Spirit of Holiness for Purity and Holiness is likewise signified by this Light he remov'd that huge dark body of sin that was betwixt us and the Father and eclips'd him from us the light of his countenance sanctifieth by truth 't is a light that hath heat with it and hath influence upon the affections warmes them towards God and divine things this darkness here is indeed the shadow of death and so they that are without Christ till he visit them are said to sit in darkness and in the shadow of death So this Light is Life Ioh. 1.4 Doth enlighten and enliven begâ—ts new actions and motions in the Soul the right notion that he hath of things as they are work upon him and stir him accordingly discovers a man to himself and lets him see his own Natural filthiness and makes him loath himself and fly from himself run out of himself And the excellency he sees in God and his Son Jesus Christ by this new Light enflames his heart with their Love takes him up with estimation of the Lord Jesus and makes the World and all things in it that he esteemed before base and mean in his eyes Then from this Light arises Spiritual Joy and Comfort so Light signifies frequently as in that of the Psalmist the latter clause expounds the former Light is sowen for the Righteous and joy for the upright in heart As this Kingdom of Gods dear Son that is this Kingdom of Light hath righteousness in it so it hath Peace and Ioy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14. 'T is a false prejudice the World hath taken up against Religion that 't is a sowr Melancholly thing There is no truly Lightsome and Comfortable life but it All others have what they will they live in darkness and is not that truly sad and comforâ—less Would you think it a pleasant life though you had fine Cloathes and good Dieâ— but never see the Sun and were still kept in a Dungeon with them thus are they that live in Worldly Honour and Plenty but still without God they are in continual darkness with all their injoyments It is true the light of Believers is not here perfect and therefore their joy is not perfect neither sometimes over clouded but the comfort is this that it is an everlasting light it shall never go out in darkness as is said in Iob of the light of the Wicked â—nd it shall within a while be perfected There is a bright morning without a Cloud that shall arise The Saints have not only Light to lead them in their journey but much purer Light at home an Inheritance in Light Colos. 1. The Land where their Inheritance lyeth is full of Light and their Inheritance it self is light For the Vision of God for ever is that Inheritance that City hath no need of the Sun nor of the Moon to shine in it for the glory of the Lord doth lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof As we said that increated Light is the happiness of the Soul the beginnings of it are our begun happiness they are beams of it sent from above to lead us to the Fountain and fulness of it With thee sayes David is the Fountain of Life and in thy Light shall we see light There are two things spoken of this Light to commend it His Marvellous Light that it is after a peculiar manner Gods and then that is is Marvellous All light is from him the light of sense and that of reason therefore he is called the Father of Lights but this Light of Grace is after a peculiar manner his being a light above the reach of Nature infus'd into the Soul in a supernatural way The light of the Elect World where God specially and graciously recides Natural Men may know very much in natural things and it may be in supernatural things after a natural manner They may be full of School-Divinity and able to discourse of God and his Son Christ and the Mystery of Redemption c. and yet want this peculiar light by which Christ is known to Believers they may speak of him but 't is in the dark they see him not and therefore they love him not the light they have is as the light of some things that shine only in the night a cold Glow-worm-light that hath no heat with it at all Whereas a Soul that hath some of His Light Gods peculiar Light communicated to it sees Jesus Christ and loves and delights in Him and walks with Him A little of this light is worth a great deal yea more worth than all that other common speculative and discoursing knowledge that the greatest Doctors can attain unto 't is of a more excellent kind and original 't is from Heaven and ye know that one beam of the Sun is more worth than the light of ten thousand Torches together 't is a pure undecaying Heavenly light whereas the other is gross and earthly be it never so great and lasts but a while Let us not therefore think it Incredible that a poor unletter'd Christian may know more of God in the best kind of knowledge than any the wisest and Learnedest natural Man can do for the one knowes God only by Mans Light the other knowes him by his own light and that 's the only right knowledge as the Sun cannot be seen but by its own light so neither can God be savingly known but by his own revealing Now this Light being so peculiarly Gods no marvel if it be Marvellous the common light of the world is so though because of its commoness we think not so The Lord is Marvellous is Wisdom in Power in all his works of Creation and Providence But above all in the workings of his Grace This Light is unknown to the World and so Marvellous in the rareness of beholding it that there be but a few that partake of it And to them that see it is Marvellous because in it they see so many excellent things that they knew not before As if a Man were born and brought up till he came to years of understanding in a Dungeon where
they that are Strangers to it begin to discern it any thing right they cannot chuse but love it and where it begets not love yet it silences Calumny or at least convinces its falshood The goodness or beauty of a Christian's Conversation consisting in that Symmetry and Conformity to the word of God as its rule he ought diligently to study that rule and to square his wayes by it not to walk at random but to apply that rule to every step at home and abroad and to be as careful of the beauty of his wayes to keep that unspotted as those Women are of their faces and attire that are most Studious of comliness But so far are we that call our selves Christians from this exact regard of our Conversation the most part not only have many four spots but they themselves and all their wayes nothing but defilement all one spot as our Apostle calls them blots are they and spots 2 Pet. 2.13 and even they that are Christians indeed yet not so watchful and accurate in all their wayes as becomes 〈◊〉 staining their holy Profession either with Pride or Coveteousness or contentions or some other such like uncomeliness Let us therefore resolve all more to study this good and comely conversation the Apostle â—ere exhorts to that it may be such as becometh the Gospel of Christ as St. Paul desires his Philippians And if you live amongst profane Persons that will be to you as the unbelieving Gentiles were to these believing Jewes that lived amongst them traducers of you and given to speak evil of you and of Religion in you trouble not your selves with many apologies and clearings when you are evil spoke of but let the â—â—act of your life answer for you your honest and blameless conversation that will be the shortest and realest way of confuting all obloquies as when one in the Schools was proving by a sophistical Argument that there could be no 〈◊〉 the Philosopher answered it fully and shortly by rising up and walking If thou would'st pay them home this is a kind of revenge not only allowed thee but recommended to thee be aveng'd on evil speakings by well doing shame them from it It was a King that said it was Kingly to do well and be ill spoke of Well may Christians acknowledge it to be true when they consider that it was the lot of their King Iesus Christ And well may they be content seeing he hath made them likewise Kings as we heard V. 9. to be conform to him in this too this Kingly way of suffering to be unjustly evil spoken of and still to go on in doing the more good alwayes aiming in so doing as our Lord did at the glory of our Heavenly Father that is the 3 d. thing That they may glorifie God He sayes not they shall praise or commend you but shall glorifie God What way soever this time this day of Visitation be taken the effect it selfe is this they shall glorifie God 't is this the Apostle stills holds before their eye and that upon which a Christian doth willingly set his eye and keep it fixed on it in all his wayes he doth not teach them to be sensible of their own esteem as it concerns themselves but only as the glory of their God is interess'd in it were it not this a generous minded Christian could set a very light rate upon all the thoughts and speeches of Men concerning him whether good or bad and could easily drown all their mistakes in the Conscience of the favour and approbation of his God 't is a small thing for me to be judged of Man or the day of Man he that judgeth me is the Lord. Man hath a day of judging but it and his judgment with it soon passes away but God hath his day and stand his sentence abideth for ever as the Apostle there adds as if he should say I appeal to God But considering that the Religion he professes and the God whom he worships in that Religion are wrong'd by those reproaches and that the calumnies cast upon Christians reflect upon their Lord this is the thing that makes him sensible he feels on that side only the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me sayes the Psalmist And this makes a Christian desirous even to Men to vindicate his Religion and his God without regard to himself because he may say the reproaches of them that reproach only me have fallen upon thee This is his intent in the holiness and integrity of his life that God may be glorified this is the Axis about which all this good conversation moves and turnes câ—nâ—inually And he that forgets this let his conversation be never so plausible and spotless knows not what it is to be a Christian. As they say of the Eagles who try their young ones whether they be of the right kind or no by holding them before the Sun and if they can look stedfastly upon it they own them if not they throw them away this is the true evidence of an upright and real Christian to have a stedfast eye on the glory of God the father of Lights In all Let God be glorified sayes the Christian and that suffices that 's the summe of his desires far from glorying in himself or seeking to raise himself for he knows that of himself he is nothing but by the free grace of God he is what he is whence any glorying to thee rottenesse and dust sayes St. Bern. whence is it to thee if thou art holy Is it not the holy spirit that hath sanctified thee If thou couldest work miracles though they were done by thy hand yet it were not by thy power but by the power of God To the end that my glory may sing praise unto thee sayes David Psa. 30. Whether his tongue or his soul or both What he calls his glory he shews us and what use he hath for it namely to give the Lord glory to sing his praises and that then it was truely Davids glory when 't was so employ'd in giving glory to him whose peculiar due glory is What have we to do in the world as his creatures Once and again his creatures his new creatures created unto good works but to exerise our selves in those and by those to advance his glory That all may return to him from whom all is as the rivers run back to the Sea from whence they came Of him and through him and therefore for him are all things says the Apostle They that serve base Gods seek how to advance and agrandize them The covetous Man studies to make his Mammon as great as he can all his thoughts and pains run upon that service and so the voluptuous and ambitious for theirs And shall not they that profess themselves the servants of the only great and the only true God have their hearts much more at least as much possess'd with desires of honouring and exalting him should not this be their predominant
equally from every Minister alike yet it must be acknowledged that there is something we know not what to call it more acceptable reception of those who at first were the means of bringing men to God then others like the opinion some have of Physitians whom they love The Apostle comforts these strangers of this dispersion by the spiritual union which they obtained by Effectual calling and so calls off their eyes from their outward dispersed and dispised condition to look above that as high as the spring of their happiness the free love and Election of God Scattered in the Countries and yet gathered in Gods Election chosen or pickt out Stangers to men amongst whom they dwelt but known and foreknown to God removed from their own Country to which men have naturally an unalterable affection but made heirs of a better as followes verse 3.4 And having within them the evidence both of Eternal Election and that expected salvaâ—ion the Spirit of holiness verse 2. At the best a Christian is bâ—t a Stranger here set him where you will as our Apostle teacheth after and 't is his priviledge that he is so and when he thinks not so he forgets and disparages himself and descends far below his quallity when he is much taken with any thing in this place of his Exile But this is the wisdom of a Christian when he can solace himself against the meaness and any kind of discomfort of his outward condition with the comfortable assurance of the love of God that he hath called him to holiness given him some measure of it and an endeavour after more and by this may he conclude that he hath ordained him unto salvation if either he is a Stranger where he lives or as a stranger deserted of his friends and very near stript of all outward comforts yet may he rejoyce in this that the Eternal unchangable Love of God that is from Everlasting to Everlasting is sealed to his soul O what will it avail a man to be compassed about with the favour of the world to sit unmolested in his own home and possessions and to have them very great and pleasant well moneyed and landed and befriended and yet estranged and sever'd from God not having any token of his special Love To the Elect The Apostle here denominates all the Christians to whom he writes by the condition of true Believers calling them Elect and sanctified c. And the Apostle St. Paul writes in the same stile in his Epistles to the Churches not that all in these Churches were such indeed but because they professed to be such and by that their profession and Calling as Christians they were obliged to be such and as many of them as were in any measure true to that their Calling and profession were really such Besides it would seem not unworthy of Consideration that in all probability there would be fewer false Christians and the number of true believers usually greater in the Churches in those Primitive times then now in the best reformed Churches because there could not then be many of them that were from their Infancy bred in the Christian Faith but for the greatest part were such as being of years of discretion were by the hearing of the Gospel converted from Paganisme and Iuduisme to the Christian Religion first and made a deliberate choise of it to which there were at that time no great outward Encouragements and therefore the lesse danger of multitudes of hypocrites which as Vermine in Summer breed most in the time of the Churches Prosperity Tho no Nation or Kingdom had then universally received the faith but rather hated and persecuted it yet were there even then amongst them as the writings of the Apostles testifie false Brethren and inordinate walkers and men of corrupt minds earthly minded and led with a spirit of envy and contention and vainglory Howsoever the question that is moved concerning the necessary qualifications of all the members of a true visible Church can no way as I conceive be decided from the Inscriptions of the Epistle but eertainly they are useful to teach Christians and Christian Churches what they ought to be and what their holy profession requires of them and sharply to reprove the gross unlikeness and inconformity that is in the most part of man to the description of Christians As there be some that are too strait in their Judgement concerning the being and nature of the visible Church so certainly the greatest part of Churches are too loose in their practice From the dissimilitude betwixt our Churches and those we may make this use of reproof That if aâ— Apostolical Epistle were to be directed to us it behoved to be Inscribed to the Ignorant prophane maliâ—ious c. As he who at the hearing of the Gospel read said Either this is not the Gospel or we are not Christians So either these Charâ—cters given in the Inscription of these Epistles are not true Characters or we are not true Christians Verse 2. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through Sanctification of the Spirit unto Obedience and sprinckling of the blood of Iesus Christ. IN this verse we have their Condition and Causes of it Their Condition Sanctified and Iustified the former expressed by Obedience the latter by sprinkling of the blood of Christ. The Causes 1 Eternal Election 2. The Execution of that Decree Their Effectual Calling which I conceive is meant by Election here the selecting them out of the World and joyning them to the fellowship of the Children of God so Ioh. 15.19 The former Election particularly ascribed to God the Father the latter to the Holy Spirit And the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God is here the cause of their Justification and so the whole Trinity concurring dignifie them with this their Spiritual and happy estate First I shall discourse of these seperately and then of their Connection 1. Of the state it selfe and first of Iustification tho named last This sprinkling has respect to the Rite of the Legal Purification by the sprinkling of Blood and that appositely for these Rites of sprinkling and Blood did all point out this Blood and this Sprinkling and exhibited this true ransome of souls which was only shadowed by them As the use and end of Sprinkling was Purification and Expiation because sin merited death and that the pollutions and staines of human nature was by sin Such is the pollution that it can be no manner of way washt off but by Blood Heb. 9. â—2 Neither is there any Blood able to purge from sin except the most precious Blood of Jesus Christ which is called the blood of God Act. 20.28 That the stain of sin can only be washt off by Blood inâ—imates that it merits Death And that no Blood but that of the Son of God can do it intimates that this stain merits Eternal Death and it had been our portion except the death of the Eternal Lord of life had freed
us from it Filthiness needs sprinkling Guiltiness such as deserves death needs sprinkling of Blood and the death it deserves being Everlasting death The Blood must be the Blood of Christ. The Eternal Lord of life dying to free us from the sentence of death The Soul as the body hath its life its health its purity and the contrary of these its Death Diseases Deformities and Impurity which belong to it as to their first Subiect and to the body by participation The Soul and Body of all mankind is stained by the Pollution of sin The impure Leprosie of the Soul is not a spot outwardly but wholly inward hence as the corporal Leprosie was purified by the sprinkling of blood so is this Then by reflecting we see how all this that the Apostle St. Peter expresseth is necessary to Justification 1. Christ the Mediator betwixt God and man is God and man 2. A Mediator not only interceeding but also satisfying Eph. 2.16 3. This satisfaction doth not reconcile us unless it be applyed Therefore there is not only mention of blood but the sprinkling of it the spirit by faith sprinkleth the soul as with hysop wherewith the sprinkling was made this is it of which the Prophet speaks Isai. 52.15 So shall he sprinkle many Nations And which the Apostle to the Hebrewes prefers above all Legal sprinklings Chap. 9.12 13 14. both as to its duration and as to the excellency of its effects Men are not easily convinced and perswaded of the deep stain of sin and that no other Laâ—er can fetch it out but the sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ. Some that have moral Resolutions of amendment dislike at least gross sins and purpose to avoid them and 't is to them cleanness enough to reform in those things but they consider not what becomes of the guiltiness they have contracted already and how that shall be purged how their natural pollution shall be taken away be not deceived in this 't is not an evaâ—ishing sigh or a light word or a wish of God forgive me no nor the highest current of Repentance nor that which is the truest evidence of Repentance Amendment 'T is none of these that purifies in the sight of God and expiats wrath they are all imperfect and stained themselves cannot stand and answer for themselves much less be of value to counterpoise their former guilt of sin the very tears of the purest Repentance unless they be sprinkled with this Blood are impure all our washings without this are but washings of the Blackmore it is labour in vain Ier. 2.22 Iob. 9.30 31. There is none truly purged by the Blood of Christ that do not endeavour purity of heart and Conversation but yet it is the Blood of Christ by which they are all fair and there is no spot in them here 't is said Elect to obedience but because that obedience is not perfect there must be sprinkling of the Blood too There is nothing in Religion further out of natures reach and out of its likeing and believing then the doctrine of Redemption by a Saviour and a Crucified Saviour by Christ and by his blood first shed on the Cross in his suffering and then sprinkled on the soul by his Spirit 'T is easier to make men sensible of the necessity of Repentance and amendment of life though that is very difficult then of this purging by the sprinkling of this precious Blood Did we see how needful Christ is to us we would esteem and love him more 'T is not by the hearing of Christ and of his blood in the Doctrine of the Gospel 't is not by the sprinkling of water even that water that is the sign of this blood without the blood it self and the sprinkling of it Many are present where it is sprinkled and yet have no portion in it Look to this that this blood be sprinkled on your souls that the destroying Angel may pass by you There is a Generation not some few but a generation deceived in this they are their own Deceivers pure in their own eyes Prov. 30.12 How earnestly doth David pray wash me Purge me with hysop Though bathed in tears Psa. 6.6 that satisfied not wash thou me This is the honourable condition of the Saints That they are purified and consecrated unto God by this sprinkling yea have on loâ—g while Robes washt in the Blood of the Lamb There is mention indeed of great Tribulation but there is a double comfort Joyned with it 1. They come out of it that tribulation hath an end And 2 They pass from that to glory for they have on the Robe of Candidates long white Robes washt in the blood of the Lamb washt white in blood as for this blood 't is nothing but purity and spotlesness being stained with no sin and besides hath that vertue to take away the stain of sin where 't is sprinkled My Wellbeloved is white and ruddy saith the Spouse thus in his death ruddy by bloodshed white by Innocence and purity of that blood Shall they then that are purged by this blood return to live among the Swine and tumble with them in the pudle what gross injury is this to themselves and to that Blood by which they were cleansed They that are chosen to this sprinkling are likewise chosen to Obedience this blood purifieth the heart yea This blood purgeth our Consciences from dead works to serve the living God Heb. 9.14 Vnto Obedience 'T is easily understood to whom when obedience to God is expressed by the simple absolute name of Obedience it teacheth us that to him alone belongs Absolute and Unlimited Obedience all obedience by all creatures And 't is the shame and misery of man that he hath departed from this Obedience that we are become Sons of disobedience But Grace renewing the hearts of believers changeth their natures and so their names and makes them Children of obedience As afterwards in this Chapter This Obedience consists as in the receiving Christ as our Redeemer so also at the same time as our Lord or King an intire rendring up of the whole man to his obedience This Obedience then of the only begotten Jesus Christ may well be understood not as his Actively as Beza but Objectivly as 2 Cor. 10.5 I think here 't is contain'd yea chiefly understood To signifie that Obedience which the Aposte to the Romans calls the Obedience of faith by which the Doctrine of Christ is received and so Christ himself which uniteth the believing soul to Christ he sprinkles it with his blood to the remission of sin and is the root and spring of all future obedience in the Christian life By Obedience Sanctification is here intimated it signifies then both habitual and active obedience Renovation of heart and conformity to the Divine will the mind is illuminated by the Holy Ghost to know and believe the divine will yea this Faith is the great and chief part of Obedience Rom. 1.8 the truth of the Doctrine
is first impressed on the mind hence flowes out pleasant obedience and full of love hence all the affections and the whol body with its members learn to give a willing obedience and submit unto God whereas before they resisted him being under the standerd of Satan This Obedience tho imperfect yet hath a certain if I may so say imperfect perfection It s universal three manner of wayes 1. in the subject 2. In the Object 3. In the duration the whole man subjected to the whole Law and that constantly and perseveringly The first universality is the cause of the other because it s not in the tongue alone or in the hand c. but has its root in the heart therefore doth not wither as the grasse or flower lying on the superfice of the earth but it flourishes because rooted and therefore it embraces the whole Law because it arises from a reverence it has for the Lawgiver himself Reverence I say but tempered with Love hence it accounts no Law nor command little or of small value which is from God because he is great and highly esteemed by the pious heart No command hard tho contrary to the flesh because all things are easie to Love there is the same authority in all as St. Iames divinely argues And this Authority is the golden chain of all the commandments which if broke in any link all falls a pieces That this three fold perfection of obedience is not a picture drawn by fancy is evident in David Psal. 119. where he subjects himself to the whole Law His feet v. 105. his mouth v. 13. his heart v. 11. the whole tenor of his life v. 24. He subjects himself to the whole law v. 6. and he professes his constancy therein in v. 16. and 33. teach me the way of thy Statutes and I shall keep it unto the end According to the foreknowledge of God the Father The exactest knowledge of things is to know them in their causes it is then an excellent thing and worthy of their endeavours that are most desirous of knowledge to know the best things in their highest Causes and the happiest way of this knowledge is to possess those things and to know them in Experience to such the Apostle here speaks and sets before them the excellency of their spiritual condition and leads them to the causes of it Their Estate is that they are sanctified and justified the nearest cause of both these is Iesus Christ he is made unto them both Righteousness and Sanctification the sprinkling of his blood purifies them from guiltines and quickens them to obedience Now followes to consider the appropriateing or applying Cause the Holy and holy making or sanctifying Spirit the Author of their selecting from the world and effectual calling unto grace The source of all the appointing or decreeing Cause is God the Father for though they all work Equally in all yet in order of working we are taught thus to distinguish and particularly to ascribe the first work of Eternal Election to the first Person of the blessed Trinity In or through Sanctification for to render it Elect to the sanctification is strained so then I conceive this Election is their Effectual Calling which is by the working of the holy Spirit 1 Cor. 26.27.28 where Vocation and Election are used in the same sense Ye see your Calling Brethren how that not many wise after the flesh c. but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to condemn the wise 't is the first act of the decree of Election the beginning of its performance in these that are Elected and 't is in it self a real seperating of men from the profane and miserable Condition of the world and an appropriating and consecrating of a man unto God and therefore both in regard of its relation to Election and in regard of its own nature it well bears that name Rom. 8.28.30 Act. 2.47 13.48 Ioh. 15.19 Sanctification in a narrower sense as distinguished fâ—om Iustification signifieth the inherent holiness of a Christian or his Inclinement and Innablement to obedience mentioned in this verse but 't is here more large and so extends with the whole work of Renovation and is the severing and seperating of men to God by his holy Spirit drawing them unto him and so it comprehends Justification as here and the first working of faith by which the soul is justified through its apprehending and applying the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Of the spirit The Word calls men externally and by that Eternal calling prevails with many to an External receiving and professing of Religion but if it be left alone it goes no further it is indeed the means of sanctification and effectual calling Joh. 17.17 Sanctifie them through thy truth But this is doth when the spirit that speaks in the Word works in the heart and causes it to hear and obey The Spirit or Soul of a man is the chief and first subject of this work and 't is but slight false work that begins not there but the Spirit here is rather to be taken for the Spirit of God the Efficient then the Spirit of man the Subject of this sanctification And therefore our Saviour in that place prayes to the Father that he would sanctifie his own by that truth and this he doth by the concurrence of his Spirit with that word of truth which is the life and vigour of it and makes it prove the power of God unto salvation to them that believe 't is a fit means in it self but 't is then a prevailing meanes when the Spirit of God brings it in to the heart 't is a Sword and sharper then a two edged Sword fit to divide yea even to the dividing of Soul and Spirit But this it doth not without it be in the Spirits hand and he applyes it to this cutting and dividing The word calls but the Spirit Drawes not sever'd from that word but working in it and by it 'T is a very difficult work to draw a Soul out of the hands and strong chains of Satan and out of the pleasing Entanglements of the world and out of its own natural perversness to yield up it self unto God to deny it self and live to him and in so doing to run against the main stream and the current of the ungodly world without and Corruption within The strongest Rhetorick the most moving and persuasive way of discourse is all too weak the tongue of Men and Angels cannot prevail with the soul to free it self and shake off all that deteins it although it be convinced of the truth of those things that are represented to it yet still it can and will hold out against it and say non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris The hand of Man is too weak to pluck any soul out of the croud of the world and set it in amongst the select number of Believers Only the Father of Spirits hath absolute command of Spirits viz. the Souls of Men
to work on them as he pleaseth and where he will This powerful this sanctifying Spirit knowes no Resistance works sweetly and yet strongly it can come in to the heart whereas all other speakers are forc'd to stand without That still voice within perswades more then all the lowd crying without as he that is within the house though he speak low is better heard and understood then he that shouts without doors When the Lord himself speaks by this his spirit to a Man selecting and calling him out of the lost world he can no more disobey then Abraham did when the Lord spoke to him after an extraordinary manner to depart from his own Country and Kindred Gen. 12.4 Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken to him There is a secret but very powerful vertue in a word or look or touch of this spirit upon the soul by which 't is forced not with a harsh but a pleasing violence and cannot chuse but follow it not unlike that of Elija's Mantle upon Elisha 1 Kin. 19.19 How easily did the Disciples forsake their callings and dwellings to follow Christ. The spirit of God drawes a Man out of the world by a sanctfied Light sent into his mind discovering to him 1. How base and false the sweetness of sin is that withholds men and amuses them that they return not and how true and sad the bitterness is that will follow upon it 2. Setting before his eyes the free and happy condition the glorious liberty of the Sons of God the riches of their present enjoyment and their far larger and assured hopes for afterwards 3. Making the beauty of Jesus Christ visible to the soul which straight way takes it so that it cannot be stayed from coming to him though its most beloved friends most beloved sins lye in the way and hang about it and cry will you leave us so It will tread upon all to come within the embracements of Jesus Christ and say with St. Paul I was not disobedient to or unperswaded by the heavenly Vision 'T is no wonder that the Godly are by some called singular and precise they are so Singular a few selected ones pickt out by Gods own hand for himself Psal. 4.3 Know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself Therefore saith our Saviour the world hates you because I have chosen you out of the world For the world lyes in unholiness and wickedness is buried in it And as living men can have no pleasure amongst the dead neither can these Elected ones amongst the ungodly they walk in the World as warily as a Man or Woman neatly apparel'd would doe amongst a multitude that are all sullied and bemired Endeavour to have this sanctifying spirit in your selves pray much for it for his promise is past to us that he will give this holy spirit to them that ask it and shall we be such fools as to want it for want of asking when we find heavy setters on our souls and much weakness yea aversness to follow the voice of God calling us to his obedience then pray with the Spouse Draw me She cannot go nor stirre without that drawing and yet with it not only goes but runs We will run after thee Think it not enough you hear the word and use the outward Ordinances of God and profess his Name for many are thus called and yet but a few of them are chosen There is but a small part of the world outwardly called in comparison of the rest that is not so and yet the number of true Elect is so small that it gains the number of these that are called the name of many They that are in the visible Church and partake of external vocation are but like a large list of names as in civil elections is usual out of which a small number is chosen to the dignity of true Christians and invested into their priviledge some men in nomination to Offices or employments think it a worse disapointment and disgrace to have been in the list and yet not chosen them if their names had not been mention'd at all certainly 't is a greater unhappines to have been not far from the Kingdom of God as our Saviour speaks and miss of it then still to have remained in the furthest distance to have been at the mouth of the Haven the fair Havens indeed and yet driven back and Shipwrackt your labour is most preposterous you seek to ascertain and make sure things that cannot be made sure and that which is both more worth and may be made surer then them all you will not endeavour to make sure Hearken to the Apostles advice and at length set to this in earnest to make your calling and Election sure make sure this Election as 't is here for that 's the Order your effectual calling sure and that will bring with it assurance of the other the eternal Election and love of God towards you which follows to be considered According to the foreknowledge of God the Father Known unto God are all his works from the beginning saith the Apostle Iames Act 15.18 He sees all things from the beginning of time to the end of it and beyond to all Eternity and from all Eternity he did foresee them but this foreknowledge here is peculiar to the Elect Verâ—a sansus in sacra scriptura connotant affectus as the Rabbins remark so in man Psal. 66. if I see Iniquity and in God Psal. 1. ult Amos 3.2 and in that speech of our Saviour relating it as the terrible doom of Reprobates at the last day Depart c. I know you not I never knew you so St. Paul Rom. 7.15 and Bezâ— observes that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by the Greeks sometimes taken for deceâ—â—ere judicare thus some speak to cogâ—osce upon a business so then this foreknowledge is no other but that Eternal love of God or decree of Election by which some are appointed unto life and being foreknown or elected to that end they are predestinate to the way to it Rom. 8.29 'T is most vain to Imagine a foresight of faith in men and in the vieu of that as the Condition of Election it self to have chosen them for 1. Nothing at all is futurum or can have that imagined futurition so to speak but as it is and because 't is decreed by God to be and therefore as before the Apostle St. Iames sayes known to God are all his own works therefore because his works in time and his purpose from Eternity 2. 'T is most absurd to give any reason of Divine will without himselfe 3. This easily solves all that difficulty that the Apostle speaks of and yet he never thought of such a solution but runs high for an answer not to satisfie cavilling reason but to silence it and stop its mouth For thus the Apostle Argues Rom. 9.19 20. Thou wilt say then unto me why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will
Nay but O man who art thou that replyest against God Who can conceive whence this should be that any man should believe unless it be given him of God and if given him then it was his purpose to give it him and if so then is it evident that he had a purpose to save him and for that end he gives faith not therefore purposes to Save because Man shall believe 4. This seems cross to these Scriptures where they speak of the subordination or rather Coordination of those two as here Foreknown and Elect not because of Obedience or sprinkling or any such thing but to Obedience and sprinkling which is by faith So he predestinated not because he foresaw Men would be conform to Christ but that they might be so as Rom. 8.29 For whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate and the same order Act. 2.47 And the Lord added to the Church dayly such as should be saved and 13.48 And as many as were ordained to Eternal life believed This Foreknowledge then is his Eternal and Unchangable Love and that thus he Chuseth some and rejecteth others is for that great End to manifest and magnifie his Mercy and Justice but why he appointed this Man for the one and the other for the other made Peter a vessel of this mercy and Iudas of wrath this is even so because it seemed good to him This if it be harsh yet is Apostolick Doctrine Hath not the Potter saith St. Paul power over the same Lump to make one Vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour This deep we must admire and alwayes in considering it close with this O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God Now the Connexion of these we are for our profit to take notice of that effectual Calling is inseparably tyed to this Eternal Foreknowledge or Election on the one side and Salvation on the other These two links of the chain are up in Heaven in Gods own hand but this middle one is let down to earth into the hearts of his Children and they laying hold on it hath sure hold on the other two for no power can sever them and therefore the reading the characters of Gods Image in their own souls those are the counterpain of the golden characters of his Love in which their names are written in the Book of Life Their believing writes their names under the promises of the revealed Book of Life the Scriptures and so ascertains them that the same names are in the secret Book of Life that God hath by himself from Eternity So finding the stream of grace in their hearts tho they see not the Fountain whence it flowes nor the Ocean into which it returns yet they know that it hath its source and shall return to that Ocean which ariseth from their Eternal Election and Salvation and shall empty it selfe into Eternity of happiness Hence much joy ariseth to the Believer this tye indissolvable as the Agents are the Father the Son and the Spirit So Election and Vocation and Sanctification and Iustification and Glory and therefore in all conditions they may from the sence of the working of the Spirit in them look back to that Election and forward to that Salvation but they that remain unholy and dissobedient have as yet no evidence of this Love and therefore cannot without vain presumptions and self delusion Judge thus of themselves that they are within the peculiaâ— Love of God but in this Let the Righteous be glad and let them shout for joy all that are upright in heart 'T is one main point of happiness that he that is happy doth know and judge himselfe to be so this being the peculiar good of a reasonable creature 't is to be enjoyed in a Reasonable way 't is not as the dull resting of a Stone or any other natural body in its natural place but the knowledge and consideration of it is the fruition of it the very relishing and tasting its sweetness The perfect blessedness of the Saints is abiding them above but even their present condition is truly happy tho incompleatly and but a small beginning of that which they expect and this their present happiness is so much the more the more clear knowledge and firm perswasion they have of it 't is one of the pleasant fruits of the Godly to know the things that are freely given them of God 1 Cor. 2.12 Therefore the Apostle to comfort his dispersed Brethren sets before them a description of that excellent Spiritual Condition to which they are called If they be inseparably linkt together then by any one of them a man may lay hold upon all the rest and may know that his hold is sure and this is that way wherein we may attain and ought to seek that comfortable assurance of the Love of God Therefore Make your Calling sure and by that your Election for that being done this follows of it self We are not to pry immediately into the Decree but to read it in the performance though the Mariner sees not the Pole-star yet the Needle of the Compass that points to it tells him which way he sails thus the heart that is touched with the Loadstone of Divine Love trembling with godly fear and yet still looking towards God by fixed believing it points at the Love of Election and tells the soul that its courss is heavenward towards the Haven of Eternal rest He that Loves may be sure he was loved first and he that chuses God for his delight and Portion may conclude confidently that God hath chosen him to be one of those that shall enjoy him and be happy in him for ever for that our Love and Electing of him is but the return and repercussion of the beams of his Love shining upon us Find thou but within thee Sanctification by the Spirit and this argues necessarily both Justification by the Son and the Election of God the Father 1 Ioh. 4.13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us because he has given us of his Spirit 'T is a most strange demonstration ab Effectu reciproco He Called those he hath Elected he Elected those he Called where this sanctifying Spirit is not there can be no perswasion of this Eternal Love of God they that are Children of disobedience can conclude no otherwise of themselves but that they are the Children of wrath Although from present unsanctification a Man cannot inferre that he is not Elected for the Decree may for part of a Mans life run as it were under-ground Yet this is sure that that estate leads to death and unless it be broken will prove the black line of reprobation A man hath no Portion amongst the Children of God nor can read one word of Comfort in all the Promises that belongs to them while he remains unholy Men may please themselves in prophane Scoffing at the Holy Spirit of Grace but let them withal know this that that Holy Spirit
they mock and despise is that Spirit that seals men to the day of Redemption Eph. 4.30 If any pretend they have the Spirit and so turn away from the straight rule of the Holy Scriptures they have the Spirit indeed but 't is a fanatical Spirit the Spirit of Delusion and Giddiness but the Spiâ—it of God that leads his Children in the way of truth and is for that purpose sent them from Heaven to guide them thither squares their thoughtts and wayes to that Rule And that Word whereof it is Author which was inspired by it sanctifies them to Obedience He that saith I know him and keepeth not his Commandments is a Lyar and the truth is not in him 1 Ioh. 2.4 Now this Spirit that sanctifieth and sanctifieth to Obedience is within us the Evidence of our Election and Earnest of our salvation and whoso are not sanctified and led by this Spirit the Apostle tells us what is their Condition Rom. 8.9 if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Let us not delude our selves this is a truth if there be any in Religion they that are not made Saints in the estate of Grace shall never be Saints in Glory The Stones that are appointed for that Glorious Temple above are hewen and polished and prepar'd for it here as the stones were wrought and prepared in the Mountains for building the Temple at Ierusalem This is the Order Psal. 84.12 He gives Grace and Glory as Moralists can tell us that the way to the Temple of Honour is through the Temple of Vertue They that think they are bound for Heaven in the wayes of sin have either found a new way untroden by all that are gone thither or will find themselves deceived in the end We need not then that poor shift for the pressing of Holiness and Obedience upon Men. to represent it to them as the meriting cause of Salvation this is not at all to the purpose seeing without it the Necessity of Holiness to Salvation is pressing enough for holiness is no less necessary to Salvation then if it were the meriting Cause of it it is as insepararably tyed to it as the purpose of God and in the Order of performance Godliness is as certainly before Salvation as if Salvation did wholly and all together depend upon it and were in point of Justice deserved by it Seeing then there is no other way to Happiness but by Holiness no Assurance of the Love of God without it Take the Apostles advice study it seek it follow earnestly after holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Grace unto you and peace be multâ—plyed It hath always been a civil custom amongst Men to season their intercourse with good wishes one for another this the Apostles use in their Epistles in a spiritual divine way suitable to their holy Writings It well becomes the Messengers of Grace and Peace to wish both and to make their salutation conform to the main scope and subject of their discourse The Hebrew word of salutation we have here Peace and that which is the spring both of this and these good things are all in the other word of Salutation used by the Greeks Grace All right Rejoycing and Prosperity and Happiness flowes from this source and from this alone and is sought elsewhere in vain In general this is the Character of a Christian spirit to have a heart fill'd with Blessing with this sweet good will and good wishing to all especially to those that are their Brethren in the same Profession of Religion And this Charity is a precious Balm diffusing it self in the wise and seasonable expressions of it upon fit occasions and those expressions must be cordial and sincere not like that you call Court Holy-water in which there is nothing else but falshood or vanity at the best This manifests Men to be the Sons of Blessing and of the ever blessed God the Father of all Blessing when in his name they bless one another yea our Saviours Rule goes higher to bless those that curse them and urges it by that Relation to God as their Father that in this they may resemble him That ye may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven But in a more eminent way it s the duty of Pastors to bless their People not only by their publick and Solemn Benediction but by daily and instant Prayers for them in secret And the great Father who seeth in Secret will reward them openly They are to be ever both endeavouring and wishing their increase of knowledge and all Spiritual grace in which they have St. Paul a frequent Pattern They that are Messengers of this Grace if they have Experience of it 't is the Oyl of gladness that will dilate their heart and make it large in Love and spiritual desires for others Especially their own Flocks Let us 1 Consider the matter of the Apostles desire for them Grace and peace 2. The measure of it that it may be multiplyed 1 Grace We need not make a noise with the many School-distinctions of Grace and describe in what sense 't is here to be taken for no doubt 't is all saving Grace to those dispersed Brethren so that in the largest Notion that it can have that way we may safely here take it What is preventing Grace assisting Grace Working and Co-working Grace as we may admit these differences in a sound sense but divers Names of the same effectual saving Grace in relation to our different Estate as the same Sea receives different names from the different parts of the shoar it beats upon First It Prevents and Workes then it Assists and Prosecutes what it hath wrought he worketh in us to will and to do but the whole sense of saving Grace I conceive is comprehended in these two 1 Grace in the Fountain that is the peculiar Love and Favour of God 2. In the Streams the Fruits of this Love for 't is not an empty but a most rich and liberal Love viz. All the Graces and spiritual Blessings of God bestowed upon them whom he hath freely chosen The Love of God in it selfe can neither Diminish nor Increase but it is Multiplied or abounds in the Manifestation and Effects of it so then to desire Grace to be multiplied to them is to Wish to them the living Spring of it that Love that cannot be exhausted but is ever flowing forth and in stead of abateing makes each day richer then another And this is that which should be the top and summe of Christian Desires To have or want any other thing indifferently but to be resolved and resolute in this to seek a share in this Grace the free Love of God and the sure Evidences of it within you the fruit of holiness and the Graces of his Spirit but the most of us are otherwise taken up We will not be convinc'd how basely and foolishly we are busied though in the best and most respected employments
apparent of Eternal flames 'T is an Everlasting Inheritance too but so much the more fearful being of Everlasting Misery or so to speak of Immortal Death and we are made sure to it they who remain in that Condition cannot lose their Right although they gladly would escape it they shall be forâ—'d to enter Possession But 't is by a new and supernatural Birth that men are both freed from their Engagement to that woful Inheritance and invested into the Rights of this other here mentioned as full of happiness as the former is miserable Thefore are they said here to be begotten again to that lively Hope God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ hath begotten us again And thus are the Regenerate the Children of an Immortal Father and so entituled to an Inheritance of immortality if Children then Heirs heirs of God This Sonship is by Adoption in Christ therefore added joynt heirs with Christ Rom. 8.17 we Adopted and He the only begotten Son of God by an Eternal Ineffable generation And yet this our Adoption is not a meer extrinsecal denomination as is adoption amongst Men but accompanied with a real Change in those that are adopted a new Nature and Spirit infus'd into them by reason of which as they are Adopted to this their Inheritance in Christ they are likewise begotten of God and born again to it by the Supernatural work of Regeneration They are like their heavenly Father they have his Image renewed on their Souls and their Fathers Spirit They have and are acted and led by it This is that great Mistery of the Kingdome of God that puzled Nicodemus it was darkness to him at first till he was instructed in that Night under the covert whereof he came to Christ. Nature cannot conceive of any Generation or birth but that which is within its own compass only they that are partakers of this Spiritual Birth understand what it means to others it is a Ridle an unsavory unpleasant subject 'T is sometime ascribed to the subordinate means to Baptism called therefore the Laver of Regeneration Tit. 3.5 To the Word of God Iam. 1.18 It s that Immortal Seed whereby we are born again by the Ministers of this Word and the seals of it as 1 Cor. 4.15 For though you have ten thousand Instructers in Christ yet have ye not many Fathers For in Christ Iesus I have begotten you through the Gospel As also Gal. 4.19 But all those have their vigour and efficacy in this great work from the Father of Spirits who is their Father in their first Creation and Infusion and in this their Regeneration which is a new and second Creation 2 Cor. 5.17 If any man be in Christ he is a new Creature Divines have reason to inferre from the Nature of Conversion thus exprest that Man doth not bring any thing to this work himself 't is true he hath a will as his natural Faculty but that this Will Embraces the offer of Grace and turns to him that offers it is from Renewing Grace that sweetly and yet strongly strongly and yet sweetly inclines it I. Nature cannot raise it selfe to this more then a man can give natural being to himselfe 2. 'T is not a superficial change 't is a new life and being A moral man in his changes and Reformations of himselfe is still the same man though he Reform so far as Men in their ordinary phrase call him quite another Man yet in truth till he be born again there is no new nature in him The Slugard turns on his bed as the door on the hinges sayes Solomon Thus the Natural man turns from one custome and posture to another but never turns off But the Christian by vertue of this new birth can say indeed ego non sum ego I am not the same man I was You that are Nobles aspire to this honourable Condition add this Nobleness to the other for it far surpasses it make it the Crown of all your honours and advantages And you that are of mean birth or if you have any Crack or stain in your birth the only way to make up and repair all and truly to Enoble you is this to be the Sons of a King yea of the King of Kings and this Honour have all his Saints To as many as received him he gave this priviledge to be the Sons of God Joh. 1.12 Vnto a lively Hope Now we are the Sons of God saith the Apostle 1 Ioh. 3.2 But it doth not yet appear what we shall be These Sons are Heirs but all this lifetime is their underage yet even then being partakers of this New Birth and Sonship they have Right to it and in the assuronce of that Right this Living Hope As an Heir when he is Capable of those thoughts hath not only Right of Inheritance but may rejoyce in the hope he hath of it and please himself in thinking on 't but hope is said to be only of an uncertain good true in the world's phrase 't is so for their Hope is conversant in uncertain things or in things that may be certain after an uncertain manner all their woldly Hopes are tottering built upon sand and their Hopes of Heaven are but blind and groundless Conjectures but the Hope of the Sons of the Living God is a living Hope That which Alexander said when he dealt liberally about him that he left hope to himself the Children of God may more wisely and happily say when they leave the hot pursuit of the world to others and despise it their Portion is Hope the thread of Alexanders life was â—ut off in the midst of his Victories and so all his Hopes evanished but their hope cannot dye nor disapoint them But then it s said to be Lively not only Objectively But Effectively Enlivening and Comforting the Children of God in all Distresses Enabling them to encounter and surmount all difficulties in the way And then it is formally so it cannot fail dyes not before accomplishment Worldly Hopes often mock Men and so cause them to be ashamed and Men take it as a great blot and are most of all ashamed of those things that discover weakness of judgment in them now worldly Hopes doe thus they put the fool upon a Man when he hath judged himself sure and laid so much weight and expectation on them then they break and foyl him they are not Living but Lying Hopes and dying Hopes they die often before us and we live to bury them and see our own own Folly and Infelicity in trusting to them but at the utmost they dye with us when we dye and can accompany us no further But this Hope answers Expectation to the full and much beyond it and deceives no way but that happy one of far exceeding it A living Hope living in Death it selfe The World dare say no more for its devise but dum spiro spero but the Children of God can add by vertue of this living Hope dum exspiro
foot and take this kingdome by a hand of violence that God is so well pleased with he is willingly overcome by that force and gives the kingdome most willingly where it is so taken 't is not attain'd by slothfullness and sitting still with folded hands It must be invaded with strength of faith with armies of Prayers and Tears and they that set upon it thus are sure to take it Consider what we are doing how we misplace our diligence on things that abide not or we abide not to enjoy them We have no abiding City here saith the Apostle but he adds that which comforts the Citizens of the new Ierusalem Wee look for one to come whose builder and maker is God Hear not those things idley as if they concerned you not but let them move you to Resolution and Actions say as they said of Canaan 't is a good land Let 's go up and possesâ— it Learn to use what you have here as Travellers and let your home your Inheritance your Treasure be on high which is by far the richest and the safest and if it be so with you then Where your Treasure is there will your hearts be also Verse 6. Wherein ye greatly Rejoyce though now for a season if need be ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations THe same Motives cannot beget contrary passions in the soul therefore the Apostle reduces the mixture of sorrowing and Rejoycing that is usuall in the heart of a Christian to the different causes of them and shews which of the two hath the stronger cause and therefore is alwayes predominant Entertains it and Considers it aright His Scope is to stir up and strengthen spirituall joy in his afflicted Brethen and therefore haveing set the matter of it before them in the preceeding verses he now applies it and expresly opposes it to their distresses Some read those words exhortatively In which râ—joyce ye 't is so intended but I conceive it serves that end better indicatively as we now read it in which ye rejoyce It exhorts more insinuatively and perswasively that it may be so to urge it on them that it is so Thus St. Paul Acts. 26.27 King Agrippa believest thou the prophets I know that thou believest And straight he answered Thou almost perswadest me to be a Christian. This implies how just and how reasonable it is that the things spoken of should make them glad they will Rejoyce in those Yea do Rejoyce certainly if you know and consider what the causes of your joy are ye cannot chuse but find it within you and in such a measure as it swallowes up all your temporary Sorrowes how great and how many soever their causes be We are then to consider severally those bitter waters and sweet this Sorrow and this Joy 1. in their Springs 2. in their Streams And first they are called Temptations and manifold Temptations The habits of divine supernaturall Grace are not acquirable by humane study or Industry or by Excercise they are of immediate Infusion from Heaven yet are they infus'd to that end that they may act and exercise themselves in the severall conditions and occurrences of a Christians life and by that they grow stronger Whatsoever oppositions or difficulties Grace meets with in its acting go under this generall name of Temptations It is not necessary to reckon up the variety of senses of this word in its full latitude how God is said to tempt man and how 't is said that he tempts him not how man tempts God and how 't is said that God is not tempted how Satan tempts men and men one another and a man himselfe All those are severall acceptations of this word But Temptations here meant are they by which men are tempted and particularly the Saints of God and though there is nothing in the words that may not agree to all sorts of Temptations the godly are subject to yet I conceive it is particularly meant of their Afflictions and Distresses as the Apostle Iames likewise uses it Chap. 1. ver 2. And they are so called because they give particular and notable proof of the temper of a Christians spirit and draw forth Evidence both of the Truth and the measure of the Grace that is in them if they fail and are foyled as sometimes they are this convinces them of that humane frailty and weakness that is in them and so humbles them and drives them out of themselves to depend upon another for more strength and better success in after Encounters If they acquit themselves like Christians indeed the Lord managing and assisting that Grace which he hath given them then all their Valour and Strength and Victories return to his praise from whom they have received all A Man is not onely unknown to others but to himself that hath never met with such difficulties as require Faith and Christian Fortitude and Patience to surmount them how shall a man know whether his meekness and calmness of spirit be reall or not while he meets with no provocation nothing that contradicts or crosses him but when somewhat sets upon him that is in it self very unpleasant and grievous to him and yet if in that case he retains his Moderation of spirit and flyes not out into Impatience neither against God nor Men this gives experiment of the truth and soundness of that Grace in him whereas standing water that 's clear at top while 't is untouch'd yet if it have mudd at the bottome stirre it a little and it rises presently 'T is not altogether unprofitable yea 't is much wisdom in Christians to be arming themselves against such Temptations as may befall them hereafter though they have not as yet met with them to labour to overcome them before hand to suppose the hardest things that may be incident to them and to put on the strongest Resolutions they can attain unto yet all that is but an imaginary effect and therefore there is no assurance that the victory is any more then imaginary too till it come to Action and then they that have spoken and thought very confidently may prove but as he said of the Athenians sortes in tabula Patient and Couragious in Picture or fancy and notwithstanding all their armes and dexterity in handling them by way of exercise may be foully defeated when they are to fight in earnest The Children of Ephraim being armed and carrying bowes says the Psalmist Psa. 78.9 yet turned back in the day of battell 'T is the battell tries the Souldier and the storm the pilot how would it appear that Christians can be themselves not onely patient but cheerfull in Poverty in Disgrace and atempts and Persecutions if it were not often their Lot to meet with those He that framed the heart knows it to be but deceitfull and he that gives Grace knows the weakness and strength of it exactly yet He is pleased to speak thus that by afflictions and hard tasks he tries what is in the hearts of his Children
be spoke too much of for 't is Vnspeakable nor too much magnified for it is Glorious To Evidence the truth of this and to confirme his Brethren in the experienc'd knowledge of it he expresses here more particularly and distinctly the causes of this their Joy which are 1. The Object or Matter of it 2. The Apprehension and appropriation of that Object which two conjoyn'd are the entire cause of all Rejoyceing The Object is Jesus Christ verse 8. And the Salvation purchased by him verse 9. For these two cannot be sever'd and these two Verses that speak of them require as is evident by their connexion to be considered together 2. The apprehension of these 1. set forth negatively not by bodily sight 2. Positively whereas that might seem to abate the certainâ—y and liveliness of their Rejoyceing that 't is of things they had not seen nor do yet see that is abundantly made up by three for one each of them more excellent then the meer bodily sight of Christ in the flesh which many had which were never the better by 't the three are those three prime Christian Graces Faith Love and Hope The two former in ver 8. the 3 d. in ver 9. Faith in Christ begetting Love to him and both these giving assured Hope of salvation by him making it as certian to them as if it were already in their hand and they in possession of it And from all those together results this Exultation or leaping for joy Ioy unspeakable and full of Glory This is that one thing that so much concerns us and therefore we mistake very far and forget our own highest interest too much when we either speak or hear of it slightly and apply not our hearts to it What is it that all our thoughts and endeavours drive at What means all that we are doing in the World tho we take several wayes to it and wrong wayes for the most part yea such wayes as lead not to it but set us further off from it yet that which we all seek after by all our labour under the Sun is something that may be matter of Contentment and rejoycing to us when we have attain'd it now here it is and in vain is it sought for elsewhere And for this end 't is represented to you that it may be yours if ye will entertain it not only that you may know this to be a truth that in Jesus Christ is laid up true Consolation and Rejoyceing that he is the Magazine and Treasury of it but that you may know how to bring him home into your hearts and lodge him there and so to have the spring of Joy within you That which gives full joy to the Soul must be something that is higher and better then it self in a word he that made it can only make it glad after this manner with unspeakable and glorious joy but the Soul remaining guilty of Rebellion against him and unreconcil'd cannot behold him but as an Enemy any belief that it can have of him while 't is in that posture is not such as can fetch Love and Hope and so Rejoycing but such as the Faith of devils produceth only begetting terrour and trembling but the light of his Countenance shining in the face of his Son the Mediator glads the heart and 't is the looking upon him so that causeth the soul to Believe and Love and Hope and Rejoyce Therefore the Apostle Eph. 2. In his description of the estate of the Gentiles before Christ was preach'd to them joynes these together without Christ that was the cause of all the rest therefore without comfort in the Promises without Hope and without God in the world So he is here by our Apostle exprest as the object In all these therefore he is the matter of our Joy because our Faith and Love and Hope of Salvation The Apostle writing to the dispersed Jewes many of whom had not known nor seen Christ in the flesh commends their Love and Faith for this reason that it did not depend upon bodily sight but was pure and spiritual and made them of the number of those that our Saviour himselfe pronounces blessed who have not seen and yet believe You saw him not when he dwelt amongst men and walked to and fro Preaching and working Miracles Many of those that did then hear and see him believed not yea they scoff'd and hated and persecuted him and in the end Crucified him you that have seen none of all those things yet having heard the Gospel that declares him you have believed Thus Observe the working or not working of Faith doth not depend upon the difference of the external Ministry and gifts of Men for what greater difference can there be that way than betwixt the Master and the Servants betwixt the great Prophet himself and his weak sinful Messengers and yet many of those that saw and heard him in Person were not converted believ'd not in him and thousands that never saw him were converted by his Apostles and as it seems even some of those that were some way accessory to his death yet were brought to Repentance by this same Apostles Sermon Act. 2. Learn then to look above the outward Ministry and any difference that in Gods dispensation can be there and know that if Jesus Christ himself were on Earth and now Preaching amongst us yet might his incomparable words be unprofitable to us not being mix'd with faith in the bearers But where that is the meanest despisable conveyance of his Message received with humility and affection will work blessed Effects Whom not seeing yet believeing Faith elevates the Soul not only above sense and sensible things but above Reason it selfe as reason corrects the Errours that sense might occasion So supernatural Faith corrects the Errours of natural Reason judging according to Sense The Sun seems less then the wheel of a Chariot but Reason teaches the Philosopher that 't is much bigger then the whole Earth and the cause why it seems so little is its great distance The Naturally wise man is as far deceiv'd by this carnal Reason in his estimate of Jesus Christ the â—un of Righteousness and the cause is the same his great distance from him as the Psalmist speaks of the wicked Psal. 10.5 Thy Iudgements are far above out of his sight He accounts Christ and his Glory a smaller matter then his own Gain Honour or Pleasure for these are near him and he sees their quantity to the full and counts them bigger yea far more worth then they are indeed but the Apostle St. Paul and all they that are enlightened by the same Spirit they know by Faith which is divine Reason that the Excellency of Jesus Christ far surpasses the worth of the whole Earth and all things earthly Phil. 3.7.8 To give a right assent to the Gospel of Christ is Impossible without divine and saving Faith infused in the Soul to believe that the Eternal Son of God cloath'd himselfe with humane
not then be our wisdom to make the worthiest choyce seeing it is offered us and is extream folly to reject it Grace doth not pluck up by the roots and wholly destroy the natural passions of the mind because they are distempered by sin that were an extreme remedy to Cure by killing and heal by cutting off no but it corrects the distemper in them it dries not up this main stream of Love but purifies it from the Mud it is full of in its wrong Course or calls it to its Right Channel by which it may run into Happiness and empty it selfe into the Ocean of goodness The Holy Spirit turns the love of the soul towards God in Christ for in that way only can it apprehend his Love so then Jesus Christ is the first Object of this divine Love he is Medium unionis through whom God conveys the sense of his Love to the soul and receives back its Love to him And if we will consider his incomparable Beauty we may look on it in the holy Scriptures particularly in that divine song of Loves Wherein Solomon borrowes all the beauties of the Creatures dips his pencill in all their severall Excellencies to set him forth unto us who is the chief of ten Thousands There is an inseparable intermixture of Love with Belief and a pious Affection receiving divine Truth so that in effect as we distinguish them they are mutually strengthened the one by the other and so though it seem a Circle 't is a divine one and falls not under censure of the School's Pedantry If you ask how shall I do to Love I Answer Believe If you ask how shall I believe I Answer Love Although the Expressions to a carnall mind are altogether unsavoury by gross mistaking them yet to a Soul taught to Read and Hear them by any measure of that same Spirit of love wherewith they were penn'd they are full of heavenly and unutterable sweetness Many Directions and means of begetting and increasing this Love of Christ may be here offered but they that delight in number may multiply them but sure this One will Comprehend the greatest and best part if not all of them Believe and you shall Love Believe much and you shall Love much labour for strong and deep persuasions of the glorious things that are spoken of Christ and this will command Love Certainly did Men indeed believe his worth they would accordingly Love him for the Reasonable Creature cannot but affect that most which it firmly believes to be worthy of affection O this mischief of Unbelief is that which makes the heart cold and dead towards God Seek then to believe Christs Excellency in himselfe and his Love to us and our interest in him and this will kindle such a fire in the heart as will make it ascend in a Sacrifice of Love to him Many Signes likewise of this Love may be multiplied according to the many fruits and workings of it but in them all it self is its own most infallible Evidence When the soul finds that all its Obedience and endeavour to keep the Commands of Jesus Christ which himself makes its Character do flow from Love then it is true and sincere For do or suffer what you will withour Love all passes for nothing All are Cyphers without it they signifie nothing 1. Cor. 13. This is the Message of the Gospell and that which the Ministry aimes at and therefore the Ministers ought to be Suitors not for themselves but for Christ to Espouse souls to him and to bring in many hearts to Love him And certainly this is the most compendious way to perswade to all other Christian duties this is to converse with Jesus Christ and therefore where his Love is no other incentive will be needfull For Love delights in the presence and converse of the party Loved If we are to perswade to duties of the second Table the summe of those is Love to our Brethren resulting from the Love of Christ which diffuseth such a sweetness into the soul that its all Love and meekness and Gentleness and long suffering If times be for suffering Love will make the soul not onely bear but welcome the bitterest afflections of life and the hardest kinds of death for his sake In a word there is in Love a sweet constraint or tying of the heart to all Obedience and Duty The Love of God is requisite in Ministers for their preaching of the word so our Saviour to St. Peter Iohn 21.15 Peter lovest thou me then feed my lambs It is requisite for the people that they receive the Truth in the Love of it and that Christ preach'd be Entertain'd in the soul and Embrac'd by Faith and Love You that have made choyce of Christ for your Love let not your hearts slip out to renew your wonted base familiarity with Sin For that will bring new bitterness to your souls and at least for some time will deprive you of the sensible favour of your beloved Jesus delight alwayes in God and give him your whole heart for he deserves it all and is a satisfying good to it the largest heart is all of it too strait for the riches of consolation that he brings with him seek to Increase in this Love for tho its at first weak yet Labour to find it daily rise higher and burn hotter and clearer and consume the dross of Earthly desires Receiving the end of your Faith Although the soul that Believes and Loves is put in present possession of God as far as it is Capable in its sojourning here yet it desires a full Enjoyment which it cannot attain to without Removing hence While we are present in the body we are absent from the Lord saith the Apostle And because they are assur'd of that happy Exchange that being united and freed of this body they shall be present with the Lord and that having his own word for 't that Where he is they shall be also this begets such an assured Hope as bears the name of possession Therefore its said here Receiveing the end of your faith This Receiveing likewise flows from Faith Faith apprehends the present Truth of the divine Promises and so makes the things to come present and Hope looks out to their after Accomplishment which if the promises be true as Faith averrs then Hope hath good reason firmly to expect it This desire and Hope are the very wheels of the Soul that carry it on and Faith the common Axis on which they rest In the words there are two things 1. The good hoped for in Christ so Believed on and Loved 2. The assuredness of the Hope it selfe yea as sure as if it were already accomplished As for the good hoped for it consists 1. In the nature of it Viz. The Salvation of their Soul 2. in a Relative Property of it the End of their Faith The nature of it is Salvation and Salvation of the soul it imports full deliverance from all kind of misery and
the safe possession of perfect happiness when the soul shall be out of the reach of all Adversaries and adverse Accidents no more subjected to those Evils that are its own properly namely the Conscience of Sin and fear of Wrath and sad Defections nor yet subject to those other Evils it endur'd by Society with the body outward distresses and Affliction Persecutions Poverty diseases c. 'T is call'd Salvation of the soul not excluding the body from the society of that Glory when it shall be rais'd and reunited to the Soul but because the soul is of it self an Immortall substance and both the more Noble part of Man and the prime subject both of Grace and glory and because it arrives first at that blessedness and for a time leaves the body in the dust to do homage to its Originall therefore it is only named here but Jesus is the Saviour of the body too and he shall at his coming change our vile bodies and make them like his glorious body The End End or Reward for it is both It s the End either at which Faith aimes or wherein it Ceaseth it s the Reward not of their Works nor of Faith as a work deserving it but as the Condition of the New Covenant which God according to the tenour of that Covenant first works in his own and then Rewards as if it were their work And this Salvation or Fruition of Christ is the proper Reward of faith which Believes in him unseen and so obtains that happy sight 't is the proper work of faith to believe what thou seest not and the Reward of faith to see what thou hast believed This is the Certainty of their Hope that 't is as if they had already receiv'd it if the promise of God and the merit of Christ hold good then they that believe in him and Love him are made sure to salvation The promises of God in Christ are not yea and nay but they are in him yea and in him Amen sooner may the Rivers run back-ward and the course of the Heavens change and the frame of nature be dissolv'd then any one soul that is united to Jesus Christ by Faith and Love can be sever'd from him And so fall short of salvation hoped for in him and this is the matter of their rejoycing Ye Rejoyce with Ioy unspeakable The naturall Man sayes the Apostle receiveth not things of God for they are foolishness unto him and he adds the Reason why he cannot know them for they are spiritually discern'd he hath none of that faculty by which they are discern'd there is a vast disproportion betwixt those things and Natures highest Capacity it cannot work beyond its Sphere Speak to the Naturall Man of the matter of Spirituall grief the sense of Guiltiness and the Apprehension of Gods displeasure or the hiding of his favour and the Light of his countenance from the soul these things stirre not him he knows not what they mean Speak to him again of the Peace of Conscience and sense of Gods Love and the Joy that arises hence He is no less stranger to that As our Saviour speaks mourn to him and he laments not pipe to him and he dances not Mat. 11. but as it there follows there is a wisdom in those things though they seem Folly and Non-sense to the foolish world and this wisdom is justified of her own Children Having said somewhat allready of the Causes of this spirituall Joy the Apostle speaks of here It remains now that we consider those two things 1. How Joy ariseth from those Causes 2. the Excellency of this Joy as 't is here express'd There is here a sollid sufficient Good and the heart made sure of it being partly put in present possession of it and in a most certain Hope of all the rest And what can be more required to make it joyfull Jesus Christ the treasure of all blessings received and united to the soul by Faith and Love and Hope Is not Christ the Light and Joy of the Nations such a light as Abraham at the distance of many ages of more then two thousand years yet saw by faith and seeing Rejoyced Besides this brightness that makes light a joyfull object Light is often in Scripture put for Joy Christ this Light brings Salvation with him He is the Sun of Righteousness and there is healing under his wings I bring you said the Angel good tydings of great Ioy that shall be to all people And their Song hath in it the matter of that Joy Glory to God in the Highest peace on Earth and good will toward Men. But to the end we may Rejoyce in Christ we must find him ours otherwise the more Excellent he is the more Cause hath the heart to be sad while it hath no portion in him my spirit hath Rejoyced saith the Blessed Virgin in God my Saviour Thus 1. Ioh. 1.3 Having spoken of our Communion with Christ he adds these things I write that your Ioy may be full Faith worketh this Joy by uniteing the Soul to Christ and applying his merites and from that application arises the pardon of sin and so that load of misery which was the great Cause of Sorrow is removed and so soon as the Soul finds it selfe lightned and unloaded of that burden that was sinking it to Hell it cannot chuse but leap for Joy in the Ease and Refreshment it finds Therefore that Psalm that David begins with the doctrine of the Pardon of Sin he Ends it with an Exhortation to Rejoyceing Blessed is the Man whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered Psal. 32.1 Thus he begins but he ends vers 11. Be glad in the Lord and Rejoyce ye Righteous and shout for joy all ye that are â—pright in heart S. Peter speaks to his hearers of the Remission of sins Act. 2.38 and verse 41. 't is added they received his words Gladly and our Saviour joynes these two together be of good Comfort thy sins are forgiven thee Thus Isaiah 61.1 Good tidings of Liberty to Captives is proclaimed and a notable change there is of their Estate Who mourn in Zion Giving them beauty for ashes the Oyle of joy for mourning and the garment of praise for the Spirit of Heaviness Think with what Joy the long imprison'd debter drown'd in debt recâ—â—ves a full Discharge and his Liberty or a condemned Malefactor the news of his Pardon and this will somewhat resemble it but yet fall far short of the joy that Faith brings by bringing Christ to the Soul and so forgiveness of sins in him But this is not all This Believing Soul is not only a debter acquitted and set free but Enrich'd besides with a new and great Estate not onely a pardon'd Malefactor but withall highly preferr'd and advanc'd to honour having a Right by the promises to the unsearchable Riches of Christ as the Apostle speaks and is receiv'd into favour with God and unto the Dignity of Sonship taken from the dunghill
this hope as may be seeing in it self it is so perfect and firm so assur'd an Hope that they aspire to all the assurance and perfection of it they can attain This Hope as I conceive is not only to have the habit of it strong in the Soul but to act it often to be often turning that way to view that approaching day of Liberty Lift up your heads for the day of your Redemption draweth nigh Where this hope is often acted it will grow strong as all habits doe and where 't is strong it will work much and delight to act often and will control both the doubtings and the other many impertinent thoughts of the mind and force them to yeild the place to it Certainly they that affect that coming of Christ much will look often out to it we are usually hoping after other things that doe but offer themselves to draw us after them and to scorn us What are the breasts of most of us but so many nests of foolish hopes and fears intermixed that entertain us day and night and steal away our precious hours from us that might be laid out so gainfully upon the wise and sweet thoughts of Eternity and upon the blessed and assured hope of the coming of our beloved Saviour The other words of Exhortasion hereuâ—ed are subservient to this end that this hope may be the more perfect and firm and is much after the same manner joyned by our Saviour Luke 12.35 with the expectance and waiting for his coming and in this posture the Israelites eating the passover were expecting their deliverance so we our full and final freedom If you would have much of this call off your affections from other things that they may be capable of much of it The same eye cannot both look up to Heaven and down to earth at the same time the more your affections are truss'd up and disentangled from the world the more expedite and active will they be in this hope the more sober they are the less will they fill themselves with the course delights of earth the more room will there be in them and the more they shall be filled with this hope It is great folly in our spiritual warfare to charge our selves superfluously All fulness of one thing hinders the receiving and admittance of any other especially of things so opposite as these fulnesses are opposed Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess but be ye filled with the Holy Ghost saith the Apostle that is a brutish fulness makes a Man no Man this Divine makes him more than a Man 't were happy to be filled thus as that it might be call'd a kind of drunkenness as it is was with the Apostles Act. 2. Be sober Or Watch the same word signifies both and with good reason for you know the unsober cannot watch Now though one main part of sobriety is that which more properly and particularly bears this name temperance in meat and drink and against this not only the purity and spirtualness of Religion but even moral vertue inveighs as its special Enemy yea nature it self and they that only naturally consider the body and its interest of Life and health find reason enough to cry down this base intemperance which is so hateful by its own deformity and withal carries its punishment along with it But this sobriety is indeed most necessary for the preservation of grace and spiritual temper of the soul and is here intended yet I conceive 't is not all that is here meant the word is more general for the moderate and sober use of all things worldly as he sayes Gird up the loynes of your mind so 't is to be understood let your minds be sober all your affections inwardly attempered to your spiritual condition not glutting your selves with fleshly and perishing delights of any kind for the more you take in of these the less you shall have of spiritual comfort and of this perfect hope They that pour out themselves upon present delights look not like strangers and hopeful expectants of another Life and better pleasures And certainly the Captain of our Salvation will not own them for his followers that lye down to drink of these waters but only such as in passant take of them with their hand As excessive eating or drinking makes the body sickly and lazy fit for nothing but sleep and besots the mind cloyes up the way with filthy crudities through which the spirits should pass bemires them and makes them move heavily as a coach in a deep way thus doth all immoderate use of the world and its delights wrong the soul in its spiritual condition makes it sickly and feeble full of spiritual distempers and inactivity benummes the graces of the spirit and fills the soul with sleepy vapours makes it grow secure and heavy in spiritual exercises and obstructs the way and motion of the spirit of God in the soul therefore if you would be spiritual healthful and vigorous and enjoy much of the consolation of heaven be sparing and sober in those of the earth and what you abate of the one shall be certainly made up in the other Health and a good constitution of body is a more constant remaining pleasure then that of excess and momentany pleasing of the palate thus the comfort of this hope is a more refined and more abiding contentment than any is in the passing enjoyments of this world and 't is a foolish bargain to exchange a drachme of the one for many pounds of the other Consider how pressingly the Apostle St. Paul reasons 1 Cor. 9.25 And take withall our Saviours exhortation Be sober and watch for ye know not at what hour your Lord will come The double minded man sayes S. Iames is unstable in all his wayes although the word signifies usually deceitfulness and dissimulation of mind answering to the Hebrew phrase of a heart and a heart Yet here I conceive it hath another sense agreeable to the Apostles present discourse and scope 't is doubtfulness and unsetled wavering of mind 'T is impossible that the course of Life can be any other but uneven and incompos'd if the spring of it the heart whence are the issues of Life be so a Man that is not agreed within not of one mind with himself although there were nothing to trouble nor alter him from without that inward commotion is a sufficient principle and cause of inconstancy How much more then must he waver when he is assaulted and beat upon by outward oppositions he is like the waves of the Sea of himself ever fluctuating to and fro according to the Natural Instability of that Element and then being expos'd to the tossings of all the waves that arise 'T is therefore in Religion a main thing to have the heart establish'd and fixed in the belief and hope of the great things we look for this will beget strength of resolution and constancy in action and in suffering too And this is
as to be scorn'd out of it being so honourable and happy and the day is at hand wherein those that scoffe you would give much more than all that the best of them ever possess'd in the world to be admitted into your number Seeing you have purifi'd your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit Here is 1. The chief seat or subject of the work of sanctification the Soul 2. The subordinate means Truth 3. The Nature of it obeying of truth 4. The chief worker of it The Holy Spirit For the first 'T is no doubt a work that goes through the whole man renews and purifies all Heb. 10.22 2 Cor. 7.1 But because it purifies the soul therefore 't is that does purifie all There begins impurity Mat. 15. not onely evil thoughts but all evill actions come forth from the heart which is there all one with the soul and therefore this purifying begins there makes the tree good that the fruit may be good 't is not so much externall performances that are the difference of Men as their inward temper we meet here in the same place and all partake of the same word and prayer But how wide a difference is there in Gods eye betwixt an unwash'd profane heart in the same exercise and a soul purified in some measure in obeying the truth and desirous to be further purified by further obeying it 2. That which is the subordinate means of this purity is the Truth or the word of God it is truth and pure in it self and begets truth and purity in the heart by teaching it concerning the holy and pure nature of God shewing it and his holy will which is to us the rule of purity And by representing Jesus Christ unto us as the fountain of our purity and Renovation from whose fulness we may receive grace for grace 3. The nature of this work that wherein the very being of this purifying consists is the Receiving or Obeying of this Truth So Gal. 3.1 Where 't is put for right believing The chief point of obedience is believing the proper obedience to Truth is to give credit to it and this divine belief doth necessarily bring the whole soul into obedience and conformity to that pure Truth which is in the word and so the very purifying and renewing of the soul is this obedience of faith as unbelief is its cheif impurity and disobedience therefore Act. 15.9 faith is said to purifie the heart 4. The chief worker of this sanctification is the Holy spirit of God they are said here to purifie themselves For 't is certain and undeniable that the soul it self doth act in believing or obeying the truth but not of it self it is not the first principle of motion They purifie their souls but 't is by the spirit They doe it by his enlivening power and a purifying vertue recevied from him Faith or obeying the truth works this purity But the Holy Ghost works that faith as in the forecited place God is said to purifie their hearts by faith Verse 8. He doth that by giving them the Holy Ghost The truth is pure and purifying yet can it not of it self purifie the soul but by the obeying or believing it and the soul cannot obey or believe but by the spirit which works in it that faith and by that faith purifies it and works Love in it ' it s the Impurity and Earthliness of Mens minds that is the great cause of disuâ—ion and disaffection amongst them and of all their striâ—es Iam. 4.1 This spirit is that fire that refines and purifies the soul from the dross of earthly desires that possess it and sublimates it to the love of God and of his Saints because they are his and are purified by the same spirit T is the property of fire to draw together things of the same kind the outward fire of Enmities and persecution that are kindled against the godly by the world doth some-what and if it were more considered by them would do more in this knitting their hearts closer one to another but it is this inward pure and purifying fire of the Holy Ghost that doth most powerfully unite them The true reason why there is so little truth of this Christian mutuall Love amongst those that are called Christians is because there is so little of this purifying Obedience to the truth whence it flowes Faith unfeigned would beget this Love unfeigned men may exhort to them both but they require the hand of God to work them in the heart Verse 23. Being borne again not of Corruptible seed But of Incorruptible by the word of God which liveth and abideth for ever THE two things that make up the Apostles Exhortation are the very summe of a Christians duty to walk as obedient children towards God and loving brethen one towards another And that it may yet have the deeper impression he here represents to them anew that new birth he mentioned before by which they are the children of God and so brethren We shall first speak of this Regeneration And then of the Seed This is the great dignity of believers that they are the sons of God Io. 1.12 and the great Evidence of the love of God that he hath bestow'd this dignity on them 1 Io. 3.1 For they are no way needfull to him he had from Eternity a Son perfâ—ctly like himself the character of his person and one Spirit proceeding from both and there is no Creation neither the first nor the second can add any thing to those and their happiness 't is most true of that blessed Trinity Satis amplum alter alterj Theatrum sumus But the gracious purpose of God to impart his goodness appears in this that he hath made himself such a multitude of sons not onely Angels that are so called but man a little lower than they in nature yet dignified with this name in his Creation St. Luke 3.38 Which was the Son of Adam which was the son of God He had not onely the Impression of Gods footsteps as they speak which all the Creatures have but of his Image and most of all in this is his rich Grace magnified that sin having defac'd that Image and so degraded Man from his honour and devested him of that title of sonship and stampt our polluted nature with the marks of vileness and bondage yea with the very Image of Satan Rebellion and Enmity against God that out of Mankind thus ruin'd and degenerated God should raise to himself a new Race and Generation of sons For this designe was the word made flesh Io. 1. The son made Man to make men the sons of God and 't is by him alone we are restor'd to this they that receive him receive with him and in him this priviledge Verse 12. And therefore 't is a sonship by Adoption and is so called in scripture in difference from his Eternall and Ineffable Generation who is and that was the onely begotten son of God yet that we may
word And there is such a necessity of this that the most approv'd teachers of wisdom in a human way have requir'd this of their Scholars that to the end their minds might be capable of it they should be purified from vice and wickedness for this reason the Philosopher judges young Men unfit hearers of morall Philosophy because of the abounding and untamedness of their passions granting that if those were compos'd and order'd that they might be admitted And it was Socrates his custome when any ask'd him a question to be inform'd by him before he would answer them he ask't them concerning their own qualities and course of life Now if Men require a calm and purified disposition of mind to make it capable of their doctrine how much more is it sutable and necessary for learning the doctrine of God and those deep mysteries that his word opens up 't is well express'd in that Apocryphal Book of Wisdome that forward thoughts separate from God and wisdom enters not into a malitious soul no indeed that 's a very unfit dwelling for it and the very Heathen could say the mind that is impure is not capable of God and divine things Seneca Therefore we see the strain of that book of Proverbs that speaks so much of this wisdom it requires in the first chap. That they that would hear it do retire themselves from all ungodly customes and practices And indeed how can the soul apprehend spirituall things that is not in some measure refin'd from the love of sin that abuses and bemires the minds of Men and makes them unable to arise to heavenly thoughts Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God sayes our Saviour not only shall they see him perfectly hereafter but as they can receive him he will impart and make known himself unto them here so Iohn 14.23 This is it that makes the word obscure namely the filthy mists within whereas on the contrary he will in just judgement hide himself and the saving truth of his word from those that entertain and delight in sin The very sins wherein they delight shall obscure and darken the light of the Gospel to them that though it shine clear as the Sun at noon-day they shall be as those that live in a dungeon they shall not discern it And as they receive no benefit by the word that have these evils here mention'd reigning and in full strength in them so they that are indeed born again the more they retain of these the less shall they find the influence and profit of the word for this exhortation concernes them they may possibly some of them have much remainder of these corruptions unmortified therefore exhorted to lay aside intirely those evils all malice all hypocrisie c. And so though they hear the word often yet be in a spirituall Atrophy eat much and grow nothing by it find no increase of grace and spirituall strength Would we know the main cause of our fruitless hearing of the word here it is Men bring not meek and guiless spirits to it not minds emptied and purified to receive it but stuff'd with Malice and Hypocrisie and Pride and other such evils and where should the Word enter when all is so taken up And if it did enter how should it prosper amongst so many enemies Or at all abide amongst them either they will turn it out again or choak and kill the the power of it We think Religion and our own Lusts and secret heart-Idols should agree together because we would have it so but this is not possible either therefore labour to entertain the word of Truth in the â—ove of it and lodge the mystery of Faith in a pure conscience as the Apostle St. Paul speaks joyn those together with David Psal. 119 113. I hate vain thoughts but thy Law do I love And as here our Apostle Lay aside all malice and hypocrisie and envy and evil speakings and so receive the Word or else look for no benefit by it here nor for salâ—ation by it hereafter but cast out all impurity and give your whole heart to it so desire it that you may grow and then as you desire you shall gâ—ow by it Every real Believer hath receiv'd a life from Heaven far more excelling our natural life than that excels the life of the Beasts And this life hath its own peculiar desires and delights that are the proper actings and the certain characters and evidence of it amongst others this is one and a main one answerable to the like desire in natural life namely a desire of food and because 't is here still imperfect therefore the natural end of this is not only nourishment but growth as 't is here express'd The sincere Milk of the word The Life of grace is the proper life of a reasonable soul and without it the soul is dead as the body is without the soul so that without untruth this may be rendered reasonable milk as some read it but certainly that reasonable milk is the Word of God The milk of the Word It was before call'd the immortal seed and here 't is the milk of those that are born again and thus it is very agreeable nourishment to that spiritual life according to their saying iisdemalimur ex quibus constamus as the milk that Infants draw from the brest is most connatural food to them being of that same substance that nourish'd them in the womb But when they are brought forth that food followes them as it were for their supply in that way that is provided in nature for it by certain veins it ascends into the breasts and is there fitted for them and they by nature directed to find it there Thus as a Christian begins to live by the power of the word he is by the nature of that spiritual life directed to that same word as its nourishment To follow the resemblance further in the qualities of milk after the Monkish way that runs it self out of breath in an Allegory I conceive is neither solid nor profitable and to speak freely the curious searching of the similitude in other qualities of milk seems to wrong the quality here given it by the Apostle in which it is so well resembl'd by milk namely the simple pureness and sincerity of the word besides that the pressing of comparisons of this kind too far proves often so constrain'd ere they have done with it that by too much drawing they bring forth blood in stead of milk Pure and unmix'd as milk drawn immediately from the brest the pure word of God without the mixture not only of errour but of all other composition of vain unprofitable subtilties or affected humane eloquence such as become not the Majesty and gravity of Gods word If any man speak sayes our Apostle let him speak as the Oracles of God light conceits and Flowers of Rhetorick wrong the word more than they can please the hearers the weeds among the Corn make it
of the honour of the only begotten Sons on whom they have believed made by him Kings and Priests unto God the father then sure they have other thoughts it makes them no more envy but pity the ungodly and account all their pomp and all their possessions what it is indeed no other but a glistering misery and themselves happy in all estates to say with David The lines have fallen to me in a pleasant place I have a goodly heritage Makes them digest all their sufferings and disgraces with patience yea with joy and think more of praising than complaining of shewing forth his honour who hath so honoured them especially considering the freeness of his grace that it was that alone maâ—e the difference calling them altogether undeservedly from that same darkness and misery in which unbelievers are deservedly left Now the third thing here to be spoken to is the end of their calling to shew his praise c. And the more to prize the reasonableness of that their happy estate to which God hath exalted them it is express'd in other termes which therefore we will first consider and then the end To magnifie the grace of God the more we have here 1. Both the termes of this motion or change from whence and to what it is 2. The principle of it the calling of God From darkness There is nothing more usual not only in divine but in humane writings than to borrow outward sensible things to expresse things intellectual and amongst such expressions there is none more frequent than that of Light and darkness transfer'd to signifie the good and evil estate of Man as sometimes for his outward prosperity or adversity but especially for things proper to his mind the mind is called Light because the Seat of Truth and Truth is most fitly called Light being the chief beauty and ornament of the rational world as Light is of the visible And as the Light because of that its beauty is a thing very refreshing and comfortable to them that behold it as Salomon sayes 't is a pleasant thing to see the sun So is Truth a most delightfull thing to the soul that rightly apprehends it This may hely us to conceive of the Spiritual sense in which it is here taken The estate of Lost Mankind is indeed nothing but darkness being destitute of all Spirituall truth and comfort and tending to utter and everlasting darkness And it is so because by sin the soul is separate from God who is the first and highest light that primitive truth as he is light in himself As the Apostle 8. Iohn tells us God is light and in him there is no darkness at all expressing the excellency and purity of his nature so he is light relatively to the soul of Man Psa. 27. the Lord is my light sayes David And the soul being made capable of divine light cannot be happy without it give it what other light you will still 't is in darkness so long as 't is without God being the peculiar light and life of the soul. And as truth is united with the soul in apprehending it and light with the visive faculty so that the soul may have God as its light it must of necessity be in union with God Now sin hath broke that union and so cut off the soul from its light and implung'd it into spiritual darkness Hence all that confusion and disorder in the soul which is ever the companion of darkness Tohu vahohu as at first when darkness was on the face of the deep Being ignorant of God and of our selves it followes that we love not God because we know him not yea though we think it a hard word we are haters of God for not only doth our darkness import Ignorance of him but an enmity to him because he is light and we are darkness And being ignorant of our selves not seeing our own vileness because we are in the dark we are pleas'd with our selves and having left God do love our selves in stead of God Hence are all the wickednesses of our hearts and lives which are no other but in place of obeying and pleasing God a continual Sacrificing to those Gillulim those base dunghill Gods our own lusts For this the Apostle gives as the root of all those evils 2 Tim. 3.2 covetous boasters c. Because in the first place lovers of themselves therefore proud c. And lovers of pleasures more than of God and this self-love cannot subsist without gross ignorance minds so darkned that we cannot withal see what we are For if we did it were not possible but we would be far of another mind very far out of loving and liking with our selves Thus our souls being filled with darkness are likewise full of uncleaness as that goes along too with darkness they are not only dark as dungeons but withall filthy as they use to be so Eph. 4.18 understandings darkned alienated from the life of God And therefore Ver. 19. give themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleaness with greediness They have no light of solid comfort Our great comfort here is not in any thing present but in hope now being without Christ and without God we are without hope Eph. 2.12 And as the estate from whence we are called by grace is worthily called Darkness so that to which it calls us deserves as well the name of Light As Christ likewise that came to work our deliverance is frequently so call'd in Scripture Io. 1. c. Not only in regard of his own nature being God equal with the father and therefore light as he is God of God and therefore Light of light But relating to Men Iohn 1.4 that life was the light of Men. as he is stiled the word and the wisdom of the father not only in regard of his own knowledge but as revealing him unto us Iohn 1.18 1 Cor. 1.24 Compared with Ver. 30. And stiled by Malachy the sun of righteousness Now the sun is not only a Luminous body but a Luminary giving light unto the world Gen. 1. He is our light oppos'd to all kind of darkness to the dark shaddow 's of the ceremonial Law which possibly is here meant as a part of that darkness from which the Apostle Writes that these Jews were delivered also by the knowledge of Christ When he came the day broke and the shaddowes flew away To the darkness likewise of the Gentiles superstitions and Idolatries therefore these two are joyned by old Simeon a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of his People Israel And to all that believe of both he is Light oppos'd to the Ignorance and slavery and misery of their natural estate teaching them by his Spirit the things of God and reuniting them with God who is the light of the Soul I am sayes he the light of the World he that followes me shall not walk in darkness And it is that mysterious Union of the Soul with God in Christ which
he had never seen light and were brought forth on a sudden or not to need that imagination take the Man that was born blind at his first sight after Christ had cur'd him what wonder think we would seize upon him to behold on a sudden the beauty of this visible World especially of that Sun and that Light that makes it both Visible and Beautiful But much more matter of Admiration is there in this Light to the Soul that is brought newly from the darkness of corrupt Nature They see as it were a new World and in it such wonders of the rich Grace and Love of God such matchless worth in Jesus Christ the Sun of Righteousness that their Souls are fill'd with admiration and if this Light of Grace be so Marvellous how much more Marvellous shall the Light of Glory be in which it ends Hence learn 1. To Esteem highly of the Gospel in which this Light shines unto us the Apostle calls it therefore the Glorious Gospel 2 Cor. 4. sure we have no cause to be asham'd of it but of our selves that we are so unlike it 2. Think not you that are grosly ignorant of God and his Son Christ and the Mysteries of Salvation that you have any Portion as yet in his Grace for the first Character of his renewed Image in the Soul is Light as it was his first work in the World What availes it us to live in the Noon-day-light of the Gospel if our hearts be still shut against it and so within we be nothing but darkness as a House that is close shut up and hath no entry for light though 't is day without still 't is night within 3. Consider your delight in the works of Darkness and be affraid of that great Condemnation this is the Condemnation of the World that light is come into it and Men love darkness rather than Light Joh. 3.19 4. You that are indeed partakers of this happy change Let your hearts be habitations of light Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them Study much to increase in Spiritual light and knowledge and withal in holiness and obedience if your light be this Light of God truly Spiritual Light these will accompany it Consider the rich Love of God and account His Light marvellous as in it self so in this that he hath bestow'd it on you and seeing you were once darkness but now are light in the Lord I beseech you nay 't is the Apostle and in him the Spirit of God does it Walk as Children of the Light But to proceed to speak to the other parts of this Verse 'T is known and confess'd to be a chief point of Wisdom in a Man to consider what he is from whom he hath that his being and to what end When a Christian hath thought on this in his Natural being as he is a Man he hath the same to consider over again of his Spiritual being as he is a Christian and so a New Creature And in this notion all the three are very clearly represented to him in these words 1. What he is First by these Titles of Dignity in the first words of this Verse And again by an estate of Light in the last clause of it 2. Whence a Christian hath this Excellent being is very expresse here He hath called That God who is the Author of all kind of being hath given you this called you from darkness to his marvellous Light if you be a Chosen Generation it is he that hath chosen you 1 Pet. 1.2 if you be a Royal Priesthood you know that 't is he that hath anointed you If a Holy Nation he hath sanctified you Iob. 17.17 If a Peculiar or Purchasd People 'T is he that hath bought you 1 Cor. 6.20 All are in this calling and they are all one thing 3. To what end to shew forth his Praises Of the first of these in all the several expressions of it we have spoken before now are to be considered the other two 2. Called you They that live in the Society and profess the faith of Christians are called unto Light the light of the Gospel that shines in the Church of God Now this is no small Favour and Priviledge while many People are left in darkness and in the shaddow of death to have this Light arise upon us and to be in the Region of it the Church the Goshen of the World for by this outward light we are invited to this happy State of saving inward Light and that is here to be understood as the means of this These Jewes that were called to the Profession of the Christian Faith to whom our Apostle writes were even in that called unto a Light hid from the rest of their Nation and from many other Nations in the World But because the Apostle doth out of doubt describe here the lively Spiritual Estate of true Believers therefore this calling doth further import the effectual work of conversion making the day-light of Salvation not only without but within them the day star to arise in their hearts as he speaks 2 Ep. 1.19 When the Sun is arisen yet if a Man be lying fast in a dark Prison and in a deep sleep too 't is not day to him he is not call'd to Light till some open the doors and awake him and bring him forth to it this God doth in the calling here meant That which is here called Calling in regard of the way of Gods working with the Soul in regard of the power of it is called a rescuing bringing forth of the soul so the Apostle St. Paul speaks of it Col. 1.13 Delivered from the power of darkness and translated to the Kingdom of his dear Son That delivering and translating is this calling and 't is from the Power of Darkness a forcible Power that detains the Soul Captive as there are chaines of Eternal darkness upon damned Spirits which shall never be taken off wherein they are said to be reserv'd to the judgment of the great day so there are chaines of Spiritual darkness upon the Soul unconverted that can be taken off by no other hand but the Powerful hand of God He calls the sinner to come forth and withal causes by the power of that his voyce the bolts and fetters to fall off and inables the Soul to come forth into the Light 't is an operative word that effects what it bids as that in the creation He said let there be Light and it was Light To which the Apostle hath reference 2 Cor. 4.6 God calls Man he works with him indeed as with a reasonable creature but sure he likewise works as himself as an Almighty Creator He works strongly and sweetly with an Almighty easiness One Man may call another to this Light and if there be no more he may call long enough to no purpose as they tell of Mahomet's miracle that misgave he call'd a mountain to come to him but it stirr'd
wrong'd us who ever it is but especially being one of our Brethren in this Spiritual sense Many are the Duties of this peculiar fraternal love that mutual Converse and admonition and reproof and comforting and other Duties which are in neglect not only amongst formal but even amongst real Christians Let us intreat more of his Spirit who is Love and that will mend this Fear God All the Rules of equity and Charity amongst Men flow from a higher Principle and depend upon it and there is no right observing of them without due regard to that therefore this word that expresses that Principle of Obedience is fitly inserted amongst these The first obligemenâ— of Man being to the Soveraign Majesty of God that made him and all their mutual Duties one to another deriv'd from that A Man may indeed from Moral Principles be of a mild inoffensive Carriage and do Civil right to all Men But this answers not the Divine Rule even in these same things after the way that it requires them The Spiritual and Religious observance of these Duties towards Men springs from a respect to God and terminates there too begins and ends in him and generally all obedience to his Commands both such as regulate our behaviour towards himselfe immediately and such as relate to Men doth arise from a holy fear of his Name Therefore this fear of God upon which followes necessarily the keeping of his Commandements is given us by Solomon as the total Sum of Mans business and Duty and so this way to solid happiness 't is totum hominis after he had made his discoveries of all things besides under the Sun gone the whole circuit and made an exact valuation and found all to amount to nothing but vanity and vexation of Spirit The account he gives of it it was all for this purpose to illustrate and establish this truth the more and to make it the more acceptable to be a repose after so much weariness and such a tedious Journey and so as he speaks there Verse 10. A word of delight as well as a word of truth that the mind might sit down and quiet it self in this from the turmoyl and pursuit of vanity that keeps it busy to no purpose in all other things but whereas there was emptiness and vanity that 's just nothing in all other things there was not only something to be found but all in this one this fear of God and that 's keeping of his Commandments which is the proper fruit of that fear All the repeated declaring of Vanity in other things both severally and altogether in that Book are but so many stroakes to drive and fasten this nail as 't is there Verse 11. This word of Wisdom which is the Summe of all and contains all the rest So Iob after a large inquest for Wisdom searching for its Vein as Men do for Mines of Silver and Gold hath the return of a Non inventium est from all the Creatures The Sea sayes it is not in me c. But in the close finds it in this The fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from evil that is understanding Under this fear is comprehended all Religion the inward and outward of it all his worship and Service and all the observance of His Commandements which is there Eccles. 12. and elsewhere expresly joyned with it and therefore is included in it when 't is not express'd so Iob. 28. to depart from evil that is understanding repeating the former words by that So Psal. 111. Verse 10. It hath in it all holiness and Obedience they grow all out of it It is the beginning and it is the top or consummation of wisdom for the word signifies both Think it not then a trivial common matter to speak or hear of this Subject but take it as our great lesson and business here on earth that the best proficients in it have yet need to learn it better and that it requires our uncessant dilligence and study all our dayes This fear hath chiefly these things 1. A reverent esteem of the Majesty of God which is a main fundamental thing in Religion and that moulds the heart most powerfully to the obedience of his will 2. A firm belief of the Purity of God and of his power and justice that he loves holiness and hates all sin and can and will punish it 3. A right apprehension of the bitterness of his wrath and the sweet of his Love that His incensed Anger is the most terrible and intollerable thing in the World absolutely the fearfullest of all evils and on the other side His Love of all good things the best the most blessed and delightful yea only blessedness Life is the Name of the sweetest good we know and yet this loving kindness is better then life sayes David 4. It supposes likewise Soveraign love to God for his own infinite Excellency and goodness 5. From all these things springs a most earnest desire to please him and in all things and unwillingness to offend Him in the least and because of our danger through the multitude and strength of tentations and our own weakness a continual selfe-suspition a holy fear least we should sin and a care and watchfulness that we sin not and deep sorrow and speedy returning and humbling before him when we have sinned There is indeed a base kind of fear that in the usual distinction they call servile fear But to account all fear of the Judgements and Wrath of God a Servile fear or not to stand upon words to account such a fear improper to the Children of God I conceive is a wide mistake Indeed to fear the punishment of sin without regard ro God and his Justice as the inflicter of them or to forbear to sin only because of those punishments so as if a Man can be secur'd from those he hath no other respect to God that would make him fear to offend this is the character of a slavish and base mind Again for a Man so to apprehend wrath in relation to himself as to be still under the horrour of it in that notion and not to apprehend Redemption and deliverance by Jesus Christ is to be under that Spirit of bondage which the Apostle speaks of Rom. 8. And such fear though a Child of God may for a time be under it yet the lively actings of faith and persuasion of Gods love and the feeling of reflexe love to him in the Soul doth cast it out according to that of the Apostle 1 Ioh. 4.18 true love casteth out fear But to apprehend the punishments the Lord threatens against sin as certain and true and to consider the greatness and fearfulness of them but especially the terrour of the Lords anger and hot displeasure above all punishments and though not only no nor chiefly for these yet in contemplation of those as very great and weighty to be affraid to offend that God who hath threatned such things as the just
an unpleasant way indeed if you look no further but a Kingdom at the end of it and the Kingdom of God will transfuse pleasure into the painfullest step in it all so Psal. 34.19 It seems a sad condition that falls to the share of Godly men in the World to be eminent in sorrowes and troubles Many are the afflictions of the Righteous but that which followes weighs it abundantly down in consolation that the Lord himselfe is engaged in their afflictions both for their deliverance out of them in due time and in the mean time their support and preservation under them The Lord delivers them out of them all And till he does that he keepeth all their bones c. Which was literally verified in the Natural body of Christ as St. Iohn observes and holds Spiritually true in his mystical body The Lord supports the Spirits of Believers in their troubles with such solid consolations as are the Pillars and strength of their Souls as the bones are of their Body as the Hebrew word for them imports so he keepeth all his bones and the desperate condition of wicked men is oppos'd to illustrate this Verse 21. But evil shall slay the Wicked Thus Ioh. 16.33 In the closure they are forewarned what to expect at the Worlds hands as they were divers times before in that same Sermon but it is a sweet Testament take it alltogether Ye shall have tribulation in the World but Peace in me and seeing he hath joyntly bequeathed these two to his followers were it not great folly to cast such a bargain And to let go that Peace for fear of this trouble the trouble is but in the World but the Peace is in him who weighs down thousands of Worlds So then they do exceedingly mistake and misreckon themselves that would agree Christ and the World that would have the Church of Christ or at least themselves for their own shares enjoy both kinds of peace together would willingly have Peace in Christ but are very loath to part with the Worlds Peace they would be Christians but they are very ill satisfied when they hear of any other but ease and Prosperity in that estate and willingly forget the tenor of the Gospel in this and so when times of trouble and sufferings come their minds are as new and uncouth to it as if they had not been told on 't before hand They like better of St. Peters carnal advice to Christ to avoid suffering Mat. 16. than of of his Apostles Doctrine to Christians teaching them that as he suffered so they likewise are called to suffering Men readily think as he did there that Christ should favour himself more in his own body his Church than to expose it to so much suffering and most would be of Rome's mind in this at least in affection that the badge of the Church should be Pomp and Prosperity and not the Cross the true cross of Afflictions and sufferings is too heavy and painful But Gods thoughts are not ours those he calls to a Kingdome he calls to sufferings as the way to it He will have the heirs of Heaven know they are not at home on earth and that this is not their rest he will not have them with the abus'd World fancy a happiness here and seek life as St. Augustin sayes beatam vitam quaerere in regione mortis The reproaches and wrongs that encounter them shall elevate their minds often to that Land of Peace and rest where righteousness dwells The hard Task-masters shall make them weary of Egypt which otherwise possibly they would comply too well with and dispose them for deliverance and make it welcome which it may be they might but coldly desire if they were better us'd He knowes what he does that secretly serves his good ends of Mens evil and by the Plowers that make long furrowes on the back of his Church makes it a fruitful Field to himself Therefore 't is great folly and unadvisedness to take up prejudice against his way and think it might be better as we would model it and to complain of the order of things whereas we should complain of disordered minds but we had rather have all alter'd and chang'd for us the very course of Providence than seek the change of our own perverse hearts but the right temper of a Christian is to run alwayes cross to the corrupt stream of the World and humane iniquity and to be willingly carried along with the stream of divine Providence and not at all to stir a hand no nor a thought to row against that mighty current and not only is he carryed with it upon necessity because there is no steering against it but chearfully and voluntarily not because he must but because he would And this is the other thing to which they are joyntly called as to suffering so to calmness of mind and patience in suffering although their suffering be most unjust yea this is truly a part of that Duty they are called to to that integrity and innofensiveness of Life that may maâ—e their sufferings at Mens hands alwayes unjust to the entire Duty here is Innocency and Patience doing willingly no wrong and yet cheerfully suffering it done to them if either of the two be wanting their suffering doth not credit their Profession but dishonours it if they be patient under deserved suffering their guiltiness darkens their Patience and if their suffering be undeserv'd yea and the cause of them honourable yet impatience under them staines both their sufferings and their cause and seems in part to justify the very injustice that is us'd against them But where innocency and Patience meet together in suffering there sufferings are in their perfect lustre These are they that honour Religion and shame the enemies of it It was the concurrence of these two that was the very triumph of the Martyrs in times of Persecution that tormented their Tormentors and made them more then Conquerors even in sufferings Now that we are called both to suffering and to this manner of suffering the Apostle puts out of question by the Supream example of our Lord Jesus Christ for the Sum of our Calling is to follow him Now in both these in suffering and in suffering Innocently and Patiently the whole History of the Gospel testifies how compleat a Pattern he is And the Apostle gives us here a Summary yet a very clear account of it The Words have in them these two things 1. The perfection of this Example 2. Our obligation to follow it I. The example he sets off to the full 1. In regard of the greatness of his sufferings 2. Of his spotlesness and Patience in suffering The first we have in that word he suffered and after Verse 24. We have his crucifying and his stripes expresly specified Now this is reason enough and carries it beyond all other reason why Christians are call'd to a suffering Life seeing the Lord and Author of that Calling suffer'd himself so much The
our miserable natural estate there is as close an union betwixt us and sin as betwixt our Souls and Bodies it lives in us and we in it and the longer we live in that condition the more the union growes and the harder it is to dissolve it and it is as old as the union of Soul and Body begun with it so that nothing but that death here spoke of can part them And this death in this relative sense is mutual in the work of conversion sin dyes and the soul dyes to sin and these two are really one and the same the spirit of God kills both at one blow Sin in the Soul and the soul to sin as the Apostle sayes of the World both are kill'd the one to the other And there are in it chiefly these two things that make the difference 1. The Solidness And 2. The universallity of this change under this notion of Death Many things may ly in a Man's way betwixt him and the acting of divers sins which possibly he affects most some restraints outward or inward may be upon him the authority of others or the fear of shame or punishment or the check of an enlightned conscience and though by reason of these he commit not the sin he would yet he lives in it because he loves it because he would commit it as we say the soul lives not so much where it animats as where it Loves And generally that kind of Metaphorical life by which a Man is said to live in any thing hath its principal Seat in the affection that 's the immediate link of the union in such a life and the untying and death consists chiefly in the disengagement of the heart breaking off the affection from it Ye that love the Lord hate evil An unrenewed mind may have some temporary dislikes even of its beloved sins in cold blood but it returnes to like them within a while A Man may not only have times of cessation from his wonted way of sinning but by reason of the Society wherein he is and withdrawing of occasions to sin and divers other causes his very desire after it may seem to him to be abated and yet he not dead to sin but only asleep to it and therefore when a temptation back'd with opportunity and other inducing circumstances comes and joggs him he awakes and arises and followes it A Man may for a while distaste some meat that he loves possibly upon a surfet but he regains quickly his likeing of it Every quarrel with sin and fit of dislike of it is not this hatred Upon the lively representing the deformity of his sin to his mind Certainly a Natural Man may fall out with it but these are but as the litle jarres of Husband and Wife that are far from dissolving the Marriage 't is not a fixed hatred such as amongst the Jews inferr'd a divorce if thou hate her put her away and that is to die to it as by a Legal Divorce the Husband and Wife are civilly dead one to another in regard of the ty and use of Marriage Again some Mens Education and Custome and morall principles may free them from the grossest kind of Sins yea a Man's temper may be averse from them but they are alive to their own kind of sins such as possibly are not so deform'd in the common account Coveteousness or Pride or hardness of heart and either a hatred or disdain of the wayes of Holiness that are too strict for them and exceed their size Beside for the good of humane Society and for the Interest of his own Church and People God restrains many Natural Men from the height of wickedness and gives them moral Vertues There be very many and very common sins that more refined Natures it may be are scarce tempted to but as in their Diet and Apparel and other things in their Natural Life they have the same kind of being with other Persons though more neat and pleasant so in this living to sin They live the same life with other ungodly Men though in a litle more deicate way They consider not that the Devils are not in themselves subject to nor capable of many of those sins that are accounted grossest amonst Men and yet are greater Rebels and Enemies to God than Men are But to be dead to sin goes deeper and extends further than all these Namely a most inward alienation of heart from sin and most universal from all sin an antipathy to the most beloved sin Not only he must forbear sin but hate it I hate vain thoughts and not only hate some but all I hate every false way A stroke at the heart does it which is the certainest and quickest Death of any wound For in this dying to sin all the whole Man of necessity dyes to it the mind dyes to the Device and study of Sin that vein and invention becomes dead the hand dies to the acting of it the ear to the delightful hearing of things profane and sinful the Tongue to the Worlds dialect of Oaths and rotten-speaking and calumny and evil speaking this is the commonest piece of the Tongues life in sin the very natural heat of sin that acts and vents most that way the Eye dead to that intemperate look that Solomon speaks of eyeing the Wine when it is red and well colour'd in the cup. Prov. 23. That is is taken with looking on the glittering skin of that Serpent till it bite and sting as there he addes Dead to that unchaste look that sets fire in the heart to which Iob blind folded and deaded his eyes by an express compact and agreement with them I have made a Covenant with mine eyes The Eye of a Godly Man is not on the false sparkling of the Worlds Pomp and Honour and Wealth 't is dead to them quite dazled with a greater beauty the grass look's fine in the morning when 't is set with those liquid Pearles the drops of dew that shine upon it but if you can look but a little while on the body of the Sun and then look down again the Eye is as it were dead sees not that faint shining on the earth that it thought so gay before and as the Eye is blinded and dies to it so within a few hours it quite evanishes and dyes it self Men think it strange that the Godly are not of their Dyet that their Appetite is not stirr'd with the delights of dainties they know not that such as be Christians indeed are dead to those things and the best dishes that are set before a dead Man give him not a stomach The Godly Mans throat is cut to those meats as Solomon advises in another subject But why may not you be a litle more sociable to follow the fashion of the World and and take a share with your Neighbours may some say without so precise and narrow examining every thing 'T is true sayes the Christian that the time was I advis'd as litle with
look gay but it were all the better they were not amongst it Nor can those mixtures be pleasing to any but carnal minds they that are indeed the Children of God as Infants who like their brest milk best pure do love the word best so and wheresoever they find it so they relish it well whereas Natural Men cannot love Spiritual things for themselves desire not the word for its own sweetness but would have it sauâ—'d with such conceits as possibly spoyl the simplicity of it or at the best love to hear it for the witt and learning which without any wrongful mixâ—ure of it they find in one delivering it more than another but the Natural and Genuine appetite of the Children of God is to the word for it self and only as milk sincere milk And where they find it so from whomsoever or in what way soever deliver'd unto them they feed upon it with delight before conversion Witt or Eloquence may draw a Man to the Word and possibly prove a happy bait to catch him as St. Augustin reports of his hearing St. Ambrose but once born again then 't is the Milk it self they desire for it self Desire the sincere milk Not only hear it because it is your custom but desire it because it is your food and 't is 1. A natural desire as the Infants of milk not upon any external respect or inducement but from an inward Principle and bent of nature and because natural therefore 2. Earnest not a cold indifferent willing that cares not whether it obtain or no but a vehement desire as the word signifies and the resemblance clearly bears as a child that will not be still'd till it have the breast offer it what you will Silver Gold or Jewels it regards them not these answer not its desire and that must be answered Thus David My soul breaketh for the longing it hath to thy judgements As a Child like to break its heart with crying for want of the Breast And again because natural 't is 3. Constant the Infant is not cloy'd nor wearyed with daily feeding on the breast but desires it every day as if it had never had it before thus the Child of God hath an unchangeable appetite for the word 't is daily new to him he finds still fresh delight in it thus David as before cited My Soul breaketh for the longing it hath for thy judgements at all times And then Psal. 1. this Law was his Meditation day and night Whereas a Natural Man is easily surfeited of it and the very commonness and cheapness of it makes it contemptible to him And this is our case that wherein we should wonder at Gods singular goodness to us and therefore prize his Word the more that very thing makes us despise it Whereas others our Brethren have bought this milk with their own Blood we have it upon the easiest terms that can be wish'd only for the desiring without hazard of bleeding for it and scarce at the pains of sweating for it That ye may grow thereby This is not only the end for which God hath provided his Children with the Word and moves them to desire it but which they are to intend in their desire and use of it and answerable to Gods purpose they are therefore to desire it because it is proper for this end and that by it they may attain this end to grow thereby And herein indeed these Children differ from Infants in the Natural life that are directed to their food beside their knowledge and without intention of its end but this rational milk is to be desir'd by the Children of God in a rational way knowing and intending its end having the use of Natural reason renew'd and sanctifi'd by supernatural grace Now the end of this desire is growth Desire the Word not that you may only hear it that is to fall very far short of its true end Yea 't is to take the beginning of the work for the end of it the Ear is indeed the mouth of the mind by which it receives the Word as Elihu compares it Iob. 34.2 but meat that goes no further than the Mouth you know cannot nourish Neither ought this desire of the Word to be only to satisfie a custom 't were an exceeding folly to make so superficial a thing the end of so serious a work Again to hear it only to stop the Mouth of Conscience that it may not clamour more for gross impiety in contempt of it this is not to hear it out of desire but out of fear to desire it only for some present pleasure and delight that a man may find in it is not the due use and end of it that there is delight in it may help to commend it to those that find it so and so be a meanes to advance the end but the end it is not To seek no more but a present delight that evanisheth with the sound of the words that dye in the air is not to desire the Word as Meat but as Mufick as God tells the Prophet Ezekiel of his People Ezek. 33.32 And lo thou art unto them as a very lovely Song of one that hath a pleasant voyce and can play well on an Instrument for they hear thy words and they do them not To desire the Word for the increase of knowledge although this is necessary and commendable and being rightly qualified is a part of spiritual accretion yet take it as going no further it is not the true end of the Word nor the venting of that knowledge in speech and frequent discourse of the Word and the Divine truths that are in it which where it is govern'd with Christian Prudence is not to be despis'd but commended yet certainly the highest knowledge and the frequentest and skilfullest speaking of the Woâ—d sever'd from the growth here mention'd misses the true end of the Word If any one's Head or Tongue should grow apace and all the rest stand at a stay it would certainly make him a Monster and they are no other that are knowing and discoursing Christians and grow daily in that but not at all in holiness of heart and life which is the proper growth of the Children of God Epictetus his comparison of the sheep they return not what they eat in grass but in Wool David in that 119. Psalm that is wholly spent upon this subject the excellency and use of the Word of God expresseth Verse 11 6. his delight in it his earnest desire to be further taught and to know more of it his readiness to speak of it Verse 13 27. but withal you know he joynes his desire and care to keep it to hide it in his heart c. Psal. 119. Verse 11 5 24. To make it the Man of his Counsel to be as the whole Assembly of his privy Counsellors and to be ruled and guided by it and with him to use it so is indeed to grow by it If we know what this Spiritual