doe enjoy this life of holinesse In the sixth place you shall have modesty mixed with much magnanimity Modesty mixed with magnanimity which is rarely found in men indued only with Morrall or Civill gifts but in nature the more modest the lesse magnanimous But a Christian the more modest he is the more magnanimous look at Paul and touching the righteousnesse which is of the Law he is indued with many carnall priviledges according to the Law but now all these are but losse and drosse and dung that he might win Christ all his good parts of nature and all his common gifts of grace yet all of them but drosse and dung this was the modest spirit of Paul a man who sometimes saith of himselfe He was not inferiour to the very chief Apostles 2 Cor. 12.11 yet againe saith he I am nothing there is his magnanimity When he is opposed and vilified by the false Apostles what hath Paul forgot his modesty now that he knowes not how to submit himselfe nor to compare himselfe with his equals No but though chiefe of the Apostles yet am I nothing He lookes at every thing he had as nothing This I am but yet I am nothing He sometimes calls himselfe the least of all the Apostles 1 Cor. 15.9 10 and yet other whiles not inferiour to the very chiefe of them Sometimes he calls himselfe the least of all Saints Eph. 3.8 and yet sometimes not inferiour to the very chiefe Apostles and this he had learned he had been instructed thus to deny himselfe he desired that he might know nothing but Christ and him crucified See the noble spirit of this selfe-deniall servant of God sometimes whey the Magistrates had done him wrong see then how he stands upon his priviledges he complaines they had beaten him a Roman being uncondemned Act. 16.9 and when they heard this they would have sent him away privately nay let them come and fetch him out See now a man of a great and magnanimous spirit though a man as fit to put up wrongs as any man yet when he sees the glory of God is interested in his person and his calling or his cause is called in question then he knowes how to stand upon his worth and if in such a case he sustaine open wrong then he will plead the liberty of a Subject whereas at another time he would have done more to a farre lesse man then a Magistrate He is become all things to all men that he might save some every way so gentle that you may turn him about your hand any way but else he wil stand upon his worth and not inferiour to the very chief Apostles those that are greatest and chiefest such who seemed to be pillars he is not inferiour to any of them the greatest of them all equall to the best of them if not before them all and yet laboured more then they all 1 Cor. 15. last to shew you the marvellous modesty of the spirit of grace a work incompattible to nature but is found only in a spirit of holinesse and there only they are combined together in the same person at the same time and in the same businesse with the same breath he can tell you He is not inferiour to the very chief Apostles and yet I am nothing Notable is that expression of David to this purpose My eyes are not lofty nor my heart haughty but I have behaved may selfe as a weaned childe Psal 131.1 2 Now you would thinke if a man were such a weaned humble creature he could not tell how to speake nor to take any great things in hand but when he comes to speake to that Psal 24.7 opened you shall marke the frame of his spirit Psal 24.7.9 Stand open ye everlasting doores and be ye lift up ye everlasting gates that the King of glory may come in When he lookes at earthly things yea the best of them his heart is so weaned from them that he knowes not how to have an high thought weaned even from a Kingdome as a childe from the breast and yet the same soule that is thus weaned and thus meane in his owne eyes when he comes to spirituall matters it is wonder to see the height of his spirit these things are too low and too shallow for him hee knowes not how to close with nor to content himselfe with such poore things as these be Crownes and Scepters and Dignities his heart was weaned from them all all of them things too low and too meane for him to be exercised about now be ye lift up ye gates and he meanes the heart and conscience of a man the affection of his soul lift up these to the wayes of God he would now be of an higher straine so that a man would wonder at this though the matter be great and high every way farre above all earthly things yet notwithstanding he lookes at them all as matters fit for his heart to be raised up unto he lookes at the favour of God and the blood of Christ and pardon of sinne the Kingdome of glory he lookes at all these high matters as fit objects for his heart to be set upon His eyes were not haughty and he did not exercise himselfe in great matters concerning earthly things and yet was it not a great matter to be King of Israel yet is it not a greater matter to be the Sonne of God then to be the Son in Law to a King but his eyes are not haughty he doth not exercise himselfe in such things as these be but yet he exerciseth himselfe in greater matters then these things are and therfore when as Christian men are thought to be of shallow weake spirits and know not how to carry on end matters in this world yet when they come to spirituall matters there they can tell how to set their hearts a work about such matters about the inheritance of the Kingdome of Heaven about the favour of God and the light of Gods countenance these be great matters when they come to have the eye of God upon them they can looke for the glory of his presence and the fellowship of the Angels and they can discourse and tell you of great blessings that God hath layed up for them in Christ then they can exercise their hearts in such great matters Psal 149.6 Let the high praises of God be in their mouthes what a strange speech is there Psal 149.6 expounded for a man that sometimes said Great matters are too high for him yet now as it is in the Originall High things the high glorious things of God the great things of God the magnanimous things of God the high praises of God the high Majesty of God the high praises and thanksgiving of God let them be in their mouthes the mighty power of God let that be in their lips and a two-edged sword in their hands Hee speakes of a word of Prophesie and instruction to the people the word is called
that vanish away in outward rejoycing so as no life in his heart in a manner is left Peter when he had denyed his Master his heart was much oppressed within him he was pricked and wounded with anguish in his soul but there was some life in that But what was it with David after his committing of uncleannesse nine or ten months together he pleaseth himselfe in his pleasures and delights and contentments which his royalty put upon him and made Vriah drunke and did eate and drink himselfe liberally with him and in the end put him to death and that very sleightly and when he heares of it makes no matter of it but the sword devoures one as well as another and had not his pulse beating in him no warme breath comes from him but an empty flourish and outward joyallity as if he had sung all care away and all fear of God out of his heart As if there was no spirituall affection left in his heart of the estate of the whole Church of God whereas his poore servant could say unto him shall I goe home and sollace my self with my wife and children the case standing with the Church so as it doth he would not do so a word that one would have thought would have warmed a good mans heart but he was not warmed with it nor with any lively affection not any beating of his pulse to Christianity nothing stirring but a swounding of the whole man that he that had seen David in such a case and had never known him before he might have written in his forehead a man forsaken of God and void of all feare of his name had he seen him in this case Where was then Davids life all this while It was a fearefull condition and of all we read in the Scripture none so farre forsaken whose whole spirit was so farre benumbed as Davids then was and yet truly life there was stil in him I doubt not though all this while you shal see that either David prayed not all this while and that hath been the case sometimes of right godly men that have sometimes not of three yeares together made a private Prayer in their Closets have been content to come to duties in the Family cause others to perform duties but for their own parts further then a form of religion or shame or satisfying of conscience forces them they let all rest no affection at all to the duty they know God tooke no pleasure in such a soule while they lived in such a course and so would they lye many moneths and yeares and all that while not so much as lift up a private prayer to God and this is a far worse case then the other and yet even this sometimes befalls them when as sinfull lusts have so distempered the life of Christ in them there is still an habit of grace in the soule but yet scarce any life of Religion putting forth it selfe but still where warmth is removed so much life from holy duties is taken away And another answer to this poynt is that even as you see it is by the Almighty power of God that there may be fire and not heat as you see in the fiery Furnace whereinto the three Children was cast though it was made exceeding hot yet it had not power to hurt an haire of their heads nor to swinge a lap of their Garments the power of the sire was propended by the mighty power of God as there is this power in God concerning materiall fire so is there a marvellous hellish and Devillish power in sinne though not an Almighty power yet very like to an Almighty power that that which hath a mighty worke of God by the Almighty power of his grace in the hearts of the Servants of God the work of an Almighty power There is such a venemous power in sin as that it will susspend all acts of grace Power of sinne not so much as shew any act of grace in a Christian soule but the soule and all the graces in it shall lye as the body of a man in a swound not any breathing or sight or hearing or motion nothing to shew of any spirituall life that if he should continue so you would conclude he were dead only this kind of life of grace is there you shall have thus much life in him There is a kinde of unlistinesse and heavinesse of soule to act wickednesse with all that strength and power which sometimes a godly man while he was carnall did reach forth his heart and hand unto a kind of frame of spirit in a Christian when it is at the worst though it can solace it selfe very farre in sinne and goes on hardening its heart in its owne way most desperately and frowardly yet notwithstanding there was alwaies something in his heart that will not suffer his soule to breake out with all that strength of the spirit of wickednesse as it did when it was carnall and the reason of that is because of that speech Gal 5.17 there is flesh and spirit in that soule so as neither can the spirit doe what it would nor the flesh what it would take a Christian when he is most strong and he cannot so glorifie God nor so edifie his brethren as hee would by reason of the body of sinne there is alwaies in the best of a Christian something like the spots in the Moone some darknesse in it not a Christian man but when he is most lively in grace but he hath some darknesse in his best performances so when corruption is most strong and grace most feeble and weake as in the former corruption will weaken the best performances so here corruption cannot carry a Christian man to doe all that wickednesse which else he would breake forth into nor with that strength and vigour which else he would put forth in it though he doe rejoyce in his wickednesse Note this and beare it out yea out-face his very conscience and out-stare the very light of the graces of God within him and goe on pleasing himselfe in the hardnesse of his owne heart yet there is something in the bottome that keeps possession for God and makes him goe about it bunglingly it becomes him not he cannot set it forth with a grace David in his worst comes not off with full power of wickednesse which else his corrupt heart would willingly break forth into were it not for the Spirit of grace that moves slowly in such cases as these be so that still the case stands cleare how much life so much warmth and that warmth will expresse it selfe if any life be there at all So that take a survey of your owne estates by this meanes you would know whether you have Christ or no whether you have life or no If you have the life of grace there is some spirituall warmth in thy soule some heat in thy soule doe but consider then the knowledge that is within thee Is thy knowledge such
CHRIST THE Fountaine of LIFE OR Sundry Choyce SERMONS on part of the fift Chapter of the first Epistle of St. JOHN PREACHED By that Learned judicious Divine and faithfull Minister of Jesus Christ Mr. JOHN COTTON B. D now Preacher at Boston in New-England Christus Vita Via est Scriptura Christi Published according to Order LONDON Printed by Robert Ibbitson and are to be sold by George Calvert at the signe of the half Moone in Watling street neer Pauls Stump MDCLI The Contents CReatures broken Cisters without Christ Pag. 2 Men cannot redeeme themselves ibid First part of the worship of Christ viz. in the minde and judgement p. 6 To prize Christ is to worship him p. 7 Christians worship Christ in their mindes p. 8 Moses honours the reproaches of Christ ib Naturally men desire to know the worth of blessings p. 9 He that hath Christ is inquisitive to know all the vertue that is in Christ ib Two parts of the worship of Christ is in the will and affections ib Deep measure of worshipping of Christ p. 10 Christ when more truly worshipped p. 11 Sweetest frame of spirit ib Third part of worshipping of Christ p. 12 Universall obedience ib If we cannot enjoy the liberty of the Ordinances but with sin against our soules in this case the Ordinances of God are to be neglected and omitted p. 22 The life of Christianity is not a life of wisdome and graces but of faith p. 29 A third way of having Christ is by Covenant p. 31 Extent of the Covenant on Gods part p. 33 God a Fountaine of goodnesse to his servants ib Extent of the Covenant on our part p. 34 Covenant three-fold ib Covenant of Salt p. 35 A fourth way of having of Christ p. 39 Christ received as into a temple three wayes p. 40 Second way of receiving of Christ p. 44 The third way of receiving Christ ib How to know whether you have truly embraced Christ p. 45 First thing considered in having Christ as a Son p. 46 True love to Christ wherein it is p. 53 Christ united to us and we to him by a three-fold spirit p. 59 A three-fold conformity between Christ and his p. 60 The first conformity wherein it consisteth ib The second conformity p. 61. The third conformity p. 63 The second worke of the Spirits liberty p. 65 Liberty from feare of sinne ib Naturall property of a Son p. 66 Liberty from power of sinne p. 67 Freedome from sins service p. 68 A Servants care in perseverance of Christian duties brings priviledge of peace to his soule p. 69 The third signe he that hath the Sonne hath him for his Prince pag. 74 To have Christ for a Saviour requires two things p. 75 Christ a Saviour from sin as well as from distresse p. 79 An hard matter to be willing to be saved by Christ p. 80 Christ saveth as a Prince p. 81 Christ our Prince in two things p. 82 Rebellious thoughts p. 83 Christians differenced by their thoughts ib Good thoughts continue for ever p. 85 Summe of all laid downe p. 88 Three sorts of signes of Spirituall life p. 92 First cause of Spirituall life ib John the first and the thirteenth opened p. 93 The second cause of Spirituall life p. 94 That the Promises belong to every true Christian p. 95 Ground of the point p. 96 A third cause of Spirituall life p. 98 Signes of Spirituall life from the effects of it p. 101 Life of Justification ib Inward peace flowes from pardon of sin ib That every sinner as soone as his sin is pardoned hath an unconceiveable peace in his soule p. 102 Second effect of the life of Justification ib Property of Spirituall life p. 105 Love of God a signe of Spirituall life ib Life of Sanctification p. 109 Joy and griefe in the soule sanctified at once p. 110 Joy and feare p. 111 Joy in affliction p. 113 Patience without forbearance ib Meeknesse and strictnesse at once p. 114 Modesty mixed with magnanimity p. 115 Psalme the 24. the 7. verse opened p. 116 Psalme 149. verse 6. expounded p. 118 The seventh combination of graces p. 119 Diligence in worldly businesse and yet dead to the world ib Love of Enemies p. 102 Effects of Sanctification signes of spirituall life p. 127 First effect motion ib Lightnesse of spirit p. 128 What is required to a Spirituall duty p. 129 Of common gifts p. 130 Causes of deadnesse of heart p. 132 Remedies against deadnesse p. 133 Second signe of spirituall life ib John 6.35 explained p. 134 First a soule longs after Christ in the Ordinance ib Strength and sweetnesse in the Ordinance p. 135 Third particular applying of the Word p. 136 Fourth conformity to the Word in every thing ib Growth in grace p. 138 Repentance the best purge p. 140 Fourth effect of the life of Sanctification ib Fifth signe life propagates it like p. 142 Three properties of life first warmth p. 144 Knowledge warme p. 145 John 5.32 expounded ib 2. Where there is life there is breath p. 146 3. Spiritual warmth digesteth Gods Ordinances p. 148 4. Spiritual warmth heateth others ib Power of sinne p. 153 Plyablenesse of spirit p. 158 James 3.17 expounded ib So much sweetnesse so much life p. 159 Danger of being out of Christ p. 161 Jer. 13. last opened p. 162 Esa 44.11 explained p. 165 Procure Christ for our selves and others p. 172 Motives to get Christ p. 172 Meanes of having Christ p. 174 What help Johns Epistles yeelds to beleevers p. 179 The bane of Congregations that have no means of preaching p. 184 Note the miserable case of Congregations that have but bare reading p. 186. Carnal men have benefit by the Word p. 187 Three reasons or signes of grace p. 189 Knowledge what p. 190 Rome an Harlot ib Mighty power in the Scriptures preached p. 199 Reading the Word p. 200 Examination of things heard ib Repetition of the word blessed p. 201 Meditation on the Word p. 202 Property of a faithfull Minister p. 203 Faith profitable to all things p. 205 Infidell practice of Papists ib Mighty power in meditating upon the Word p. 206 Kings must read the Word of God daily p. 207 To pray according to Gods will in two things 1. Aske things lawfull 2. aske in Christs name 1. To aske in Christs name requireth humility p. 211 212 First second third fourth acts of humility p. 212 213 First second third fourth acts of faith in prayer p. 213 214 First to pray in the spirit is to pray feelingly 2. Fervently 3. Perseverance p. 218 219 Advocate what p. 228 Partiall eye Censorious eye Malicious eye wanton eye p 243 244 245 Mantle of wisdome p. 248 Mantle of of faithfulnesse ib Mantle of compassion p. 249 CHRIST the FOUNTAIN of LIFE SERMON I. 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life THese words containe the Third part of the record that God bare of
short Paul knew nothing wherein he had dealt unfaithfully and yet was he not thereby justified 1 Cor. 4.4 but he that justifies me is the Lord and therefore if you trust upon a gift and thereby to be justified and accepted you declare your graces to be but common and such as are but found among Hypocrites and in this the Papists have cause to groane under the burthen that lyes upon their religion they by looking for salvation and acceptance by common graces doe plainly shew that Christ profits them nothing And further as you are not to trust upon them for justification so neither are you to trust upon them for the life of your sanctification for though they be truly parts of sanctification faith hope love patience humility and every other grace of God which flowes from our fellowship with the death of Christ because these are parts of our sanctification you may looke at them as precious tallents received from God yet if you trust in these in preaching or praying or edefying your selves or families or neighbours and that in the strength of these you shall doe valiantly and bring mighty things to passe and be a fruitfull Christian you have truth of grace sound hearted saving grace and you doubt not but God will carry you an end in a comfortable Christian course if so you wil finde this to be true that you wil want Christ in the quickning and inlarging and thriving power of the life of your sanctification it cannot be but that where saving grace is there is Christ but you may have Christ and yet have but a dead Christ of him he may be so dead in your spirit that you shall cry out O what a dead heart and a dead spirit have I and yet I doubt not but Christ is in my heart true it may be thou hast received him but Christ can tell how to lye dead and to worke but little there where saving grace is layed up and therefore the life of Christ is not a life of grace but a life of faith I live not by all my zeale and humility and gifts of grace for I might have all these and make but dead work of them all How then By the faith of the Sonne of God Gal. 2.20 It is one of the chiefest points that concernes our Christian practise and therefore I pray you consider it Note this the life of Christianity is not a life of wisdome and graces but of faith if you would have Christ live in you and live so that he may shew his life in you you must then live by faith that is not only looke for your justification by faith in Christ but looke for your sanctification and consolation from Christ by faith that if you goe about any duty goe not about it in the strength of grace received preach not or pray not in the strength of your knowledge and love and zeale and humility but go about them all in faith in Jesus Christ that is by comming to him and being inwardly sensible that unlesse he put new life into us and make new worke in our soules we may have but a dead businesse of it all the graces of Gods Spirit in us but dead and herein it is wonder to see sometimes how Gods servants are straitned all for want of the life of faith in their soules if God cut short with us it is because we doe not live in Christ but in the spirit of grace and think to walke by the strength of grace received we loose by it and spend of the stock of grace and therefore remember that speech Esa 40.30 31. They that waite on the Lord shall renew their strength to shew you your duty it is a borrowed speech from young men going out to warre they goe out in the name of the Lord of Hosts as David went out against Goliah 1 Sam. 17. If we waite upon the Lord and be sensible of our owne Insufficiency and unworthinesse of doing any Christian duty and not depend upon our owne sufficiency then we shall finde God lifting us up farre beyond all our owne apprehensions and gifts God wil put a new life into us and in this case even the weakest gifts of Gods servants are sometimes much enlarged and the same Christians gifts farre more enlarged at some time above what they are at another only by waiting upon the Lord and that puts life into our duties therefore if you would finde Christ to be the life of your sanctification then you must put away all confidence in saving graces they are not able to make you bring forth any one lively fruit of Sanctification I mean in your owne estimation and you wil have little comfort in it There is in this case much difference between one Christian and another and between the same Christian and himselfe at one time and another according to his waiting on the Lord for the renewall of his strength therefore trust not in any grace if you doe you wil want it when you stand in most need of it SERMON III. 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life WE now come to speake of the third way of having Christ A third way of having Christ is by Covenant and that is by way of Covenant Esa 49.8 I will give thee for a Covenant of the people to establish the earth to cause to inherit the desolate heritages Psal 50.5 Gather my Saints together unto me those that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice so that would you know to whom God is a God and to whom it may be said He is my God Any of us that have made a Covenant with God by Sacrifice no man hath him unlesse by way of covenant for all these wayes though divers in explication yet all co-incident to this having of Christ And such as have made a covenant with God by Sacrifice they are his people of them it is said I am thy God vers 7. according to the tenour of the Covenant Gen. 17.7 Behold I make a Covenant with thee this day to be a God unto thee and to thy seed God becomes a God to me and to my seed by way of covenant so Deut. 29.10 to 13. both your Children of understanding and your little ones of no understanding you are all here before God this day to enter into a Covenant with him to keep his Commandements for ever you and yours enter into a Covenant with God and this is the way of having him for our God Deut. 26.17.18 This day thou hast avouched the Lord to be thy God and he hath avouched thee to be his people Junius translates the word Thou hast required by way of Covenant and he hath promised that he will be thy God in the originall it is he hath made thee to speake thou hast made God to speake this as men that make promises one to another so that when people give up themselves
Heaven and wil acquaint his deare Christian friends with it and say I am troubled with such thoughts of malice and pride and vanity that I know not in the world what to doe they lye downe with me and they rise up with me and therefore intreat their help and as they looke to Christian friends so wil they especially call to the Prince of their salvation to save them from their vaine thoughts and much more from these wicked speeches from these things they are most carefull to be delivered and therefore they stand not devising Plots against their Prince but he wil tell him that such wicked rebellious thoughts devise mischiefe against him and therefore he craves helpe against them so did David in the like case Psal 139.33 Search me and know my heart and see if there be any way of wickednesse in me As if he had sent to heaven for a privy search he would not have any one thought within him but he would that God should know it and therefore desires that God would try and search and know his thoughts he was not like them of whom you read Esa 29.15 That digge deepe to hide their counsells from the Lord but a child of God would have God to be well acquainted with his thoughts see if there be any way of wickednesse in me any wicked thought or vain affection in my heart I have laboured to find and to cast them out what I can but there may be many more that I know not but search and try thou me and lead me in the way that I shall goe Good thoughts are of everlasting use Good thoughts continue ever and of everlasting durance and they will continue to everlasting life Gods wayes are everlasting wayes lead mee in the way everlasting thus a man hath every thought brought into subjection though evill thoughts may come rushing in yet he will not give them entertainment but complaines of them to Christ and such a man hath the Lord Jesus for his Prince for hee is not a Prince that onely Governs the outward man as earthly Princes do who can take no hold of what we think but God takes notice of our thoughts And you may apply what I say of thoughts to words and actions and so make use of it to all There be many men that never think good thought but le ts wicked thoughts rest in them can be wanton and uncleane c. what ever it be that makes a thorow-fare in the heart let it there lodge let it come and go as it will and that is part of the meaning of the high-way-side ground it keeps and is a thorow-fare to all beasts to all sorts of Travailers to Theeves and Robbers takes no notice of them lets them come and goe and stay as they list then we have not Christ for our Governour we do not put the Government of our thoughts and actions upon his shoulders and are not in subjection to him but casts his cords from us Psalm 2.3 and say we will not have this man to reigne over us Lu. 19.22 what is not our thoughts free and are not our tongues our owne Psalm 12.4 David takes them for Atheists that say their tongues are their owne He prayes that God would keepe his lips Psalm 119. onely Gods people would have all that is in them bowed to the obedience of Gods will Some men there be that will not have God to rule over them so marvellous is the prophainnesse of our hearts while we are carnal that we that should be servants to God we are not ashamed to make him a Servant to us we were never subjet to any man nor doe we mean so to bee Pharoah-like Who is the Lord I know not who he is Notable is that you read Esa 43.34 besides that I had no service from you thou hast made me to serve with or under thy sins see the desperate spirits of the hearts of the sinful sons of men they draw in God to serve them and he complains that he is pressed under their sins as a Cart is pressed under sheaves men load the patience of God and lay upon him one bundell of wickednesse after another they lay so much wickednesse upon him till the patience of God will beare no longer as long as ever hee will beare and suffer us to live in this world we will load him with sheaves upon sheaves load the very majesty of God and his long sufferance and make use of his Providence many times to serve our owne lusts we will do that which is wicked in Godssight because we can doe it and because God hath given us means to do it we can maintain our pride and covetousnesse and God gives us these gifts and these liberties and we will make God to serve with them and here is a double service put upon God First we load his patience and forbearance by our continuance in sin but besides that we abuse the very gifts of God as our wealth and good parts of nature and our common graces And by your leave the very saving graces of Gods spirit wee will not stick to abuse them against God And is not this much rebellion that we should make God to serve such a wearisome service he is provoked every day and weary to suffer us in a sinfull course one day to an end but when day after day and year after yeare we lay load upon Gods patience and if he will suffer us long so he may and if we do set God at liberty from his drudgery it must be at the last gaspe and he shall be our Ruler then if hee will Wonder not therefore if sometime God say Rebellion is as the sinne of witch-craft 1 Sam. 15.23 And that is in a double respect First As you see a Witch gives her soule to the Devill that she may have her mind fulfilled for her life time so a Rebell deales with the devill to have his owne lusts fulfilled he makes a Covenant with Hell and with the Devill he is at an agreement he knowes he doth wickedly but to serve his owne turne hee is content to doe it But secondly As a Witch will have the Devill to wait upon her so at last she will wait upon the Devill so it is in this case The Devill must serve a Witch all her life time and she will serve the Devill at her death Far more monstruous is this wickednesse in this kind we will have God to serve us all our life time and when death comes wee will doe God this favour wee will serve him then As a Witch deales with the Devill so do we with God he shal supply our occasions and we will make use of his bounty to serve our selves but at last gaspe God shall rule us to doe him all the service we can and give him all good words there is great and plenteous mercy to be found in him and now we will doe him all the honour we can And will
of grace for the ground of all our spiritual life as if ever we would be able to say we are begotten to a new Inheritance we must be able and are able to say we have some word of Promise which hath wrought this in our soules which hath bowed us to looke to Christ and to cleave to him for strength and increase and groweth in grace For it is true indeed The Workes of the Law may indeed cut us off from some bad wayes but when it hath don so it leaves us there leaves us in an estate wherein we would not give offence and would not displease men that are grave and wise And this we may reach unto without respect to the glory of God or any inward regard of his holy feare but when as we are quickned to live by vertue of some Promise then the love of God constraineth us to live to obedience and good ends then our respects can reach heavenly and spiritual ends And therefore observe this as of necessary use for any man that as he would be loath to be deceived in a counterfeit peece of money so much more let him be carefull in the main points of his everlasting estate on this depends our having or not having of life And therefore it behooves us to bee sure that we be not disappointed in this great mystery of godlinesse and consider seriously upon what your hopes and confidence was bred and whence it was grounded Quest You will say But is it not ordinary that the Word of the Law doth humble and cast downe the heart and spirit before God and cut them off from all confidence in the flesh before they come to lay hold of the promise of grace in Christ Answ True it is so indeed That ordinarily some word of the Law some word of conviction prevailes with the heart and makes him in sence of sinne say to his Christian friends what shall I doe to be saved this is true but yet this is not it that makes him a new man in Gods sight it may reach to the reformation of his outward man and to the alteration of sundry of his former courses which no meanes else could have reclaimed but yet this makes him not live a spiritual life until he be not onely humbled by the Law but in some measure brought on to look after the promise of grace in Christ and to long after them and to say and desire oh that I had but my part in this or that promise what a mercy of God would that be to me could I but lay hold upon them but thereupon the soule of a Christian doth stand poring and plodding and wistly gazeing upon them till in the end the very sight of a promise hath so seasoned us with a spirit of faith that we begin not only to long after that promise but to cleave to it and in time come to receive it into our hearts and come to imbrace it to rejoyce in it to acknowledge it and finde our happinesse and life and comfort to bee wrapped up in it A third cause of our spiritual life A third cause of Spirituall life Is the Spirit of grace that which is borne of the spirit is spirit whatever is borne of the flesh and no more is but carnall but that which is borne of the spirit is spirit Joh. 3.6 there is a shedding abroad the spirit of Gods grace in the heart of man that makes him of another spirit he is not the same man that he was before his spirit was changed his inclination and disposition is changed For Spirit is nothing else but the inclination and disposition the habit of it the spirit of wisdome is an habit or inclination to Wisdome the Spirit of grace is an habit of Grace the Spirit of prayer is an inclination or an habit of Prayer they are severall words but all meane the same thing Be renewed in the spirit of your mindes that is bee renewed in the inclination and disposition of your minde Epb. 4.23 And not only be renewed in the mind or judgement or understanding of a man but there must be a renewall of the whole soule of a man the disposition and inclination of the whole must be changed and altered Caleb and Ioshua was of another spirit they could judge of things otherwise then other men could doe other men not renewed in the spirit of their mind have no alteration but the truly regenerate they see a great change they never saw the danger of their sinnes before nor ever before judged themselves for their sinnes but now their spirit and soule and affection is changed and now a spirit of feare and love and care and every affection is altered now a man is turned quite off from earthly things so farre as they hinder him in the enjoyment of his Spirituall life and now we are set upon the things of God so as that he that is borne of God to a Spirituall life is become a new Creature and old things are past away 2 Cor. 5.17 He hath a new mind and a new heart new affections new Language and new employments that he was never wont to doe before now he can read Gods Word and conferre with Gods people about the things of God and can instruct others and fashion himselfe to a new mould and all upon the renewall of the spirit of his minde so that if you see that God hath put another spirit into you then ever you had before so as not only this or that part but the whole man is changed and put into another frame that though there be still a taste of the Old man yet the frame both of the body and soule is of another mould and all things are become new in some measure then you live a new life indeed else it is not a perfect change though this and that alteration bee wrought in you By these causes you may clearly discerne whether God hath given you a new life or no consider it therefore I beseech you how doe you now finde your hearts apt to speak when you speak of that estate you are in Are you in your Closets wont to say That time was when you have been thus and thus led in the vanitie of your minde and the hardnesse of your heart and custome of sinne but when it pleased God who called you by his grace when it pleased God then it tooke place you had been in good company before and had used many meanes but never any thing would worke but when it pleased God then it wrought and from that day to this it hath been so and so with me It is a good signe to you if withall you can recall that such or such a word of promise it pleased God to pitch your soules upon you have long looked and waited for salvation but in the end it pleased God to wrap up your soules in life by such a promise and if you can call to minde that such a promise
distemper with boyling in heat of wrath against his enemies he is all upon it to doe him any harme his heart is full of hot and bitter wrath so as that love which was as heat and fire to thaw and warme cold and hard hearts when it comes to the fire of wrath it is as it were cold water and allayes that heat and bitternesse and harshnesse which else our hearts are subject to This is the nature of love as it is the nature of water to coole hot distempers and as it is the nature of fire to thaw and soften hard frozen spirits so though it be but as one intire grace Yet in the act it puts forth a kind of variety of worke whereby one would thinke it did crosse it selfe but it doth not but doth all by the life of Christ thus you see what the effects of the life of sanctification is in the heart of a man after that God hath begun to roote the life of justification in us and hee discernes that God hath wrought a change in him and then these severall graces though in themselves and worke one opposite to another yet in a Christian heart they can meet and joyne together And therefore now doe but lay this to heart he that hath the Sonne hath life Will a Christian say how shal I know that I have that life in having of which I may know I have Christ Why do but consider with thine owne soule not now of the life of thy justification but hast thou found that ever God did fill thy heart with joy so as thy soule hath said the Lord hath done great things for my soule whereof he hath made me to rejoyce and hast thou found that when thou hast most rejoyced in the wonderfull mercy of God then hath thy heart most melted before the Lord thy God And thou hast been ashamed and confounded within thy selfe and never open thy mouth against God any more Doest thou see that the more God reveales Christ to thee who was crucified for thy sake the more bitterly thou moanest for thy wickednesse then it is a strong evidence of life and peace in thy soule were it not the mighty power of the life of Christ in thee thou couldest have had neither of both these graces much lesse combined together to worke the same thing at one and the same time if therefore God hath helped you to looke at the great mercy of God with joy and yet with shame and bitter mourning that ever thou shouldest dishonour such a God certainly God hath vouchsafed thee life and such a life as in which thou shalt live You shall have many a soule that is marvellously comforted in hearing the word rejoyce exceedingly in what they heare and goe home and say such a word was good and very comfortable and never man spake like that man and he never thought before that there was so much to be found in the word as now he conceives there is But now if this were the joy of Gods Elect if it were such a joy as would not vanish away like lightning in the aire a flash of joy it would sinke downe into the heart and leave so much the more deeper impression mourning by how much the more it hath had joy I grant that sometimes the joy of Gods owne servants may soone vanish away but it was never knowne that the joy of a living Christian did so soone vanish and depart away but that when it did most abound in the heart it did cause inward mourning and if not weeping yet an affection of greife and sorrow of soule that ever we have so displeased God the more God hath been mercifull to us the more are we shamed of ourselves inwardly grieve for our shamelesse carriages If therefore you only finde joy in hearing that may deceive you it is not the shortnesse of the continuance that argues the unsoundnesse of the joy but the want of this combination that will argue the falshood of it if God yoake not spirituall joy with spirituall mourning then suspect your joy for it doth not accompany salvation unto life And in very deed this you shall find to be true the joy of living soules in Christ though that oftentimes bee soon gone yet it leaves this spirit of mourning which keeps possession for it and that many times for a long time and you may read your comfort in the sorrow that it hath left behind for there is as much cause of comfort in this sorrow as in the joy when you had it when you see your soules can mourne unfeignedly for that you see so good a God to such a wretch this very comfortable sorrow that is left in thy heart is an undoubted pledge that it is not a vanishing joy the power and work of it lasts long and wil abide in the soule for ever a man will in such a case mourne for his sin while he lives If you have therefore found your joy mixed with sorrow it is right else it is but a fading hypocriticall and false joy Againe further how doe you finde your heart affected with the duties of Gods worship Doe you come to duties marvellous unwillingly that if you could avoyd it you would not keep such duties in your house and if it must needs be you put it upon any body rather then upon your selfe you may be a living Christian but your heart is in a dead frame at that time and if it be alwayes so with you you never did truly live but if you finde your spirits at least your hearts comming on most willingly to Christian duties that you performe them like Free-will offerings not free so as without warrant from Gods Word but free in respect of grace Doe but observe thus much it may be you may come off freely before God because hee hath given you spirituall gifts and you can quit your selves well in the performance of them and that makes you come the more boldly but consider if the more willingly you come to Christian duties the more trembling your heart goes about them the more the soule is prepared the more it feares before the Lord and the more lowly the spirit is and awfull in the sight of God if a man can serve the Lord with joy and trembling together then the service you perform to God is heavenly and spirituall and lively and such as in which you live they come from a living heart and the sacrifice is lively and acceptable and argues you have life and therein you have Christ the God of peace but if a man have only feare in a duty but no joy or joy but no feare his heart is not in a good frame we must bring a better frame of heart before God then so before we can say that we have the life of sanctification Againe for another signe How doe you finde your selves in your tribulations are they altogether matter of burden and wearinesse to your hearts Have you no
joy in them Have you many afflictions in inward or in outward man and no comfort in them It is an uncomfortable signe to you the life of sanctification is not so shed abroad in your hearts that you may gather you have life but if you finde that in the multitude of your thoughts within you Gods comforts delight your soule Psal 94.19 20. In the midst of sorrow you finde some comfort if your life in Christ makes your saddest times joyfull and comfortable to you and so in outward afflictions though afflictions may seeme to be grievous yet waite a while and you shall see the more weight and burthen that lyes upon thee and the more thy afflictions for Christ hath abounded so hath thy consolation abounded much more 2 Cor. 1.6 Againe observe your carriage with men it is good to be patient when you meet with evill doers 2 Tim. 2. last yet notwithstanding not so patiently as to beare with them in every thing that is evil to allow them in any sin no if God give you place and opportunity shew some kinde of zeal to cleanse them from their evils and this may well stand with your patience be patient in things that concerne your selfe but beare not with them that are evil in their evil deeds Againe doe but observe the frame of your spirit in the things that you suffer Are you meeke and gentle and flexible that is a good vertue but how are you in the things of God Are you stiffe and unmoveable there 1 Cor. 15. last that though they may perswade you very farre in any reasonable thing concerning man Note but in things concerning God you will not baite any thing of the peace of your Conscience for any mans pleasure are you unmoveable in such a case both these together doe very well stedfast and yet soone perswaded such an heart as is thus mixed and knowes how to temper and frame his spirit according to God he is a living soule and hath life and Christ the Prince of life Againe thou art a modest Creature and thinkest meanly of thy selfe and art weaned from this world it is a vertue but how is it coupled for God couples every grace with another grace that they may poyse one another as Christ sent out his Disciples by two and two together so all the graces of the Spirit joyne one with another they ballance one another that he may not be too high on the one side nor too low on the other but that all things may be carried according to God and therefore thou art modest it is well but hast thou withall an high and a lofty spirit that if it be heavenly matters thou art to be exercised in they cannot be too high for thee Let a man tell thee of State matters comming before Princes and tell thee of nobility thou art ashamed and knowest not how to set about such things as those be but tell thee of an inheritance in the Kingdome of glory and the making it sure to thee in a way of Gods grace Tell thee of pardon of sinne and of the Spirit of grace and the riches of the precious promises of God and thy heart can looke at these highly then thou art of a magnanimous spirit then is thy modesty in outward things well coupled but he whose spirit is most lofty should be most humble couple them together and they well suit one another when they goe hand in hand righteousnesse and peace goe together modesty and magnanimity humility and courage goe together they make an amiable set of grace where-ever they are so coupled if it be of things concerning thy selfe thou hast not an heart to stand out against any man of place but he may bow thee round about but if they wrong thee so farre as Gods honour is interested in the thing thou canst then stand upon thy lawfull rights and if therein thou be impeached thou canst come off with this thou art not inferiour to the chiefe Apostles and yet art nothing nor art able to doe any thing Againe looke at thy worldly businesse art thou diligent in thy Calling it is well and you say Cursed is he that doth the worke of the Lord negligently and the work of his Calling is the worke of the Lord. But how stands thy heart affected in the midst of thy businesse Is thy heart dead to the world goe not about it with a worldly heart goe not about it for profit sake but because God sets thee about it And you are more free to the service of God and to doe more good this is the life of sanctification And lastly if God give us hearts so abundant in love that it both thawes our cold and stiffe hearts towards our poore Brethren and also puts a watery temper to coole the wilde-fire of our wrath towards our enemies it is a mighty power of the Spirit of grace to turne it selfe so many wayes for the right ordering and framing of a Christian in the course of his sanctification these be comfortable signes of our life of sanctification SERMON IX 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life NOw we come to speake of such effects of the life of Sanctification Effects of Sanctification signes of spiritual life as shew themselves in the lives of Christians by observing of which in our selves we may know we have Christ and life in him Now these effects are suitable to the effects of naturall life and they are principally five The first is motion 1 Effect motion when a creature is able to move it self unto the duties of its place it is an effect of naturall life when it is able to move it selfe in its place then it is said to live such or such a life if you see a Creature stirres and moves not further then by the help of another then you say it lives not but if it stirre of it selfe then you say it lives Nor is it strait way alive if it move unlesse it be in its place for you see earthly things will move downward if they be upward and light things will move upward but these are out of their places they are rather moved then themselves doe move when they are out of their place and it is not so much from a power of moving but rather an affection to rest then a power to move themselves And further suppose they should move themselves meet it is they should move themselves to such actions as argues as argue this and that life which they expresse suppose a Tree moves it selfe and nourish it selfe and grow and that in its place yet it doth not move it selfe to see nor heare and beasts that doe move themselves to see and heare yet they cannot move themselves to acts of Reason and men that can move to acts of Reason yet cannot move themselves to any spirituall duty and work of grace so that that motion which argues the life
feeding containes in it a conversion of the meat into the thing nourished so as that which we feed upon it becomes our selves it is all one with our selves in time it is so digested and turned into our nature that every part hath sucked in its owne nourishment every part hath received something of that which was inwardly received This hath been anciently observed this is somewhat more then receiving Christ by faith for when we apply every word to our selves and make Christ ours that is receiving him to be ours yet it is a further worke to be conformable to the Lord Jesus Christ in every thing to be confirmed and established in the Promises and to be quickned by them to be terrified by threatnings and to stand in awe of every word of God and to be bowed to an inward subjection to Christ day by day by the word we receive this is a further mighty worke of grace If therefore hee be a Christian that by the Word and Ordinances he receives he is fashioned and made conformable to Christ meek and righteous and lowly and holy as he is and willing to do any good Office for the Church of God and goe up and down doing good and needs no further motion this way but as Christ moves him it is a signe that he feeds upon Christ Christ is turned into his nature or which is more his nature is rather turned into the nature of Christ the nourishment being so strong makes us become such as he is in this world Now when we are conformable to the Lord Jesus Christ by the Ordinances that we partake in it is an evident sign that we there feed upon him And therefore try your selves by this signe of sanctification if you live you feed on Christ and except you so doe you have no life in you so then consider do I feed upon the flesh of Christ and drinke his blood and do I finde a spirituall appetite to the Lord Jesus raised up in my soule and do I find any spiritual refreshment and strength by that which I do partake in and that which I so find sweetnesse in I apply it to my own estate and convey it into the inward part of my heart that I may be able to drink it up as my lot and portion And do I by this strength of grace grow like to Christ and do I more adorn the Gospell of Christ this is an evident signe you live for you feed upon spirituall food which is an argument of spiritual life no man can feed upon spirituall food but he that lives and such a life as hee lives in Christ Let a man come to the Word without an appetite to it and when he comes find no nourishment nor refreshment in it and applyes nothing as is said to him but let such and such looke to it he never hears profitably that doth not particularly apply that which he heares and if he apply it he rather stormes at it it is an evident argument that such a man hath no life in him at all Not that you should here look at the naturall body and blood of Christ for that were a Canaball eating and drinking That which the Church of Rome puts upon the Church of God at this day but our Saviour tells you the meaning of this place It is the spirit that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing had a company of Roman Souldiers fallen upon Christ and either out of wrath against him or love to themselves had pulled him in peeces and eaten him goblet by goblet it had profitted them nothing had men eaten the reall body of Christ and drunk up his blood and joyned with others in so doing and left none of him al this had profited them nothing nay it profits nothing for the Capernites aske the question How can this man give us his flesh to eat it is an hard saying they thought it incredible v. 5.2 they would think it a savage bruitishnesse to fal upon him in that manner and therefore our Saviour so confesseth that it is no part of his meaning that they should eate and drinke his reall body and blood but hee meanes the breathing of the spirit in the Ordinances if you can rellish Note this and feed upon that and grow to be such as Christ was in this world that was the meate and drinke of his soule if you grow humble and meek and be transformed into the spirit of Christ if you see your spirits conformable to the will of Christ it is a signe of the life of holinesse in your soules which God hath given you through Christ A third effect of the life of sanctification 3 Signe is growth for that which lives growes till it come to its full perfection so in all naturall Growth in grace vegitative or sensitive life if it live it growes till it come to its full maturity when it comes to its full vigour and strength it may decay and stand at a stay but a Christians life never comes to that till it come to the life of glory to the full measure of the stature of Christ In this life we cannot come to that but therefore it is that we grow to the end of our dayes and then are forthwith translated to immortallity ye desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby 1 Pet. 2.2 and 2 Pet. 3.18 grow in grace and God hath given us Ministers to teach and instruct us till we all grow to be perfect in Christ Jesus Eph. 4.11 12 13. Col. 2.19 Increase with the increasings of God with divine and inlarged and spirituall increasing so doth the body of Christ grow and all the members of it they grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ So that this is a third effect of life if a man can find his heart to grow Quest But doth not many a Christian stand at a stay and sometimes grow backward and fall from their first love fall from the fruitfullnesse and goodnesse and rootednesse in Christ though not wholly cut off yet falling from the firmenesse in grace and the power of grace and from fruitfullnesse and the abundance of the worke of righteousnesse Answ It is true many a soule doth so for a while but if so bee that God doe give a Christian man not to grow we must not say therefore he doth not live not but that a man for a time may be weake as a living man in sicknesse may be very weake his spirit faile and his strength faile and his worke and imployment fails him and he can do nothing neither eate nor drink no not so much as leane upon a staffe but may lye bed-rid but yet such a man feeles a sensible distemper of his body and he ceaseth not to use the best means he can and so in the end he comes to grow and recovers his first love againe in some measure some also there are that by sinfull lusts waste instead of
though at the first it may be weake yet it growes to that temper by which it may propagate and the life of grace is most strong in this regard it no sooner moves and feeds or growes in any measure or begins to expell any ill matter but it will have a minde to be fruitfull begetting its kinde and that is above naturall life a Christian is most apt and ready to draw on others to be like himselfe As soone as ever the woman of Samaria saw that Jesus was indeed the Messiah and found true sweetnesse in him the very same houre she runs into the Towne and tells her neighbours Come see a man that hath told me all that ever I did Joh. 4.29 Is not he the Christ and when they came and saw it they said We beleeve not because of thy Word but because we have heard him our selves and we know that this is indeed the Christ This is the proper nature of true life as soone as they are truly begotten they beget others of their owne kinde not but that sometimes a Christian soule hides himselfe long before he be well setled but when he truly discernes that he lives and is conscious to himselfe that God will be gracious to his soule then he desires to propagate the like grace unto others Joh. 1.41 to 46. when one had found Christ they call others to come and see Psal 51.10 Then shall I teach transgressors thy wayes and sinners shall be converted to thee to shew you that if God will but worke a cleane heart in David and renew a right spirit within him and his broken bones may be recovered and if God shall be pleased to establish him with his free spirit and he may be once againe assured of the pardon his sins then will he teach others the wayes of God if he be once converted himselfe he will draw on as many others as he can Thus you have five signes of spirituall life SERMON X. 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life WE are now in the next place to see how we may discerne life by the properties and adjuncts of it you heard before of the effects of life now of the properties and qualities of this life by discerning of which we may know that we have life There be three properties or qualities of life Three properties of life 1. Warmth First where ever there is life there is some warmth 2 King 9.34 when the Prophet had laine upon the childe and had done so seven times at length the breath of the childe began to wax warme a signe that life was a restoring and thereby the Prophet discerned that life began to returne into the body of the childe because warmth returned and so is the presence of the Spirit of grace and the union of it with the soule and body of a man it makes a man fervent and warme Fervent in spirit Rom. 12.11 and therefore it is that it is resembled unto fire Matth. 3.11 The Holy Ghost shall come downe upon you as it were with fiery tongues and shall warme and heate you with whatever duties God shall call you to 1 Thes 5.19 Quench not the Spirit now quenching belongs to fire a signe therefore that the spirit is of a fervent nature so farre forth as it is capable of any quenching and destroying by the Sons of men and 2 Tim. 1.6 Stirre up the gifts of grace in you as if yee stirred up the embers of the fire so stirre up and kindle the gifts of God which is in you blow them up into a kindling flame so that all these things expresse thus much That since the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus and from him communicated to his Members is a spirit of heat therefore wheresoever there is warmth there is life if no warmth nor heat there is no life and as our spirits begin to wax warme so we grow to life in Christianity Notable is that expression in Luke 24.22 Did not our hearts burne within us while he talked with us of the Scriptures to shew you that there is a power in the Word to convey such a measure of the Spirit of grace to the Hearers as that their hearts begin to glow within them and to convey some heat and warmth into them when the Word is powerfully applyed to the soule For the further opening of this point you shall see it in some things principally which are ever found in some measure in the spirits of Christian men that have any life in Christ First that which is wonderfull and is indeed no where found but in them their very knowledge is warme Knowledge warme which in all other men is cold knowledge is but an empty speculation brings forth no great matter of heat but in a Christian his knowledge is full of heat Zeale must be according to knowledge knowledge is no knowledge without zeal and zeale is but a wilde-fire without knowledge Rom. 10.2 So if Christians have a knowledge of God but no zeale there is no saving life in that knowledge it is not the knowledge of Gods people Notable is that speech of our Saviour Joh. 5.35 speaking of John He was a burning and a shining light not only a shining light to give cleare instruction in the knowledge of the Messiah and the true meaning of the Law but withall a burning light Joh. 5.3 expoundeâ— so as that he had a notable power when Hypocrites came before him to burne them up Mat. 3.12 And so where ever he came he did not only shew them what they should doe what shall we Publicans doe and what shal we Souldiers doe Luk. 3.3 to 15. but he did burne up not only those who were professed enemies to the wayes of grace but all those that he found in Hypocrisie he burnt them all up where ever he came and if he did not finde out their lusts he would kindle a fire in them he warmed Herod in such sort as that he was constrained to doe many things according to Johns Ministery Mark 6. and so shall you finde it in all the Servants of God that according to their life if there be true life there is true burning though sometimes their burning is not so strong as their life yet there is heat and fervency of spirit mixed with their knowledge that if they know the Will of God they are inflamed and their knowledge of Christ will not suffer them to be barren and unfruitfull 2 Pet. 3.18 So that the knowledge which a Christian man hath is such as by which he will doe what he ought to doe if he see sinne in his brother he will not suffer it to lye there Levit. 19.17 If he see any thing amisse in his brother that he sees not in himselfe he will be helpfull to him where the Spirit of grace is lively they will not suffer their brethren to rest in sinne much lesse
themselves and therefore this is the warmth of this knowledge it both burnes up their owne lusts like chaffe and all the sinfull distempers that we see in the lives and wayes of our Brethren this is one part of the heat of a Christian soule that his knowledge is a warme knowledge Look what he knowes he thinkes he must doe whereas another man knowes many things but he doth them not but a Christian if he know it to be the Will of God he must doe it And that is the reason why Gods servants are many times counted very busie as indeed the fire is ever very busily working no creature in the house so busie as the fire is and so the knowledge of Gods people makes them to be so busie in doing and therein they expresse the life of Christ Secondly 2. Where there is life there is breath where ever is true life there is this warmth a warmth in their breath both in the Naturall and Spirituall body in this Naturall body while we live it is warme and so long as we live we breath more or lesse it is but for a little time if at all breath be intercepted it may be in some suddaine fits but ordinarily if it tarry long it is a signe of death but if there be life there is breathing and that breathing is warme some warme breath comes from him that is alive And truely so shall you finde it in your spirituall life If there be any true life in the heart of a Christian soule there is alwayes some kind of warm breathing there is some measures of warmth in his prayers the prayers of an hypocrite ir alwayes but lip-labour and accordingly lust labor the words vanish away in the aire but there is ever more or lesse some kind of warmth-in the prayers of Gods servants according to what the Apostle speakes Rom. 8.26 even then when we know not what to pray for nor how to pray as we ought then the spirit helpes our infirmities that when we sometimes cannot bring out a word to God the heart is ful sometimes of anguish and discouragement in respect of inward desertions or temptations and outward afflictions but yet though in such a case we be not able to tel what to pray for yet there is ever in a Christian soule something that makes him seeke to God and the very sighs of such a soule come from ome warmeth of spirit within him The scalding sighs and deep groanes of the soule they come from a spirit of life and warmth in Christ Jesus Therefore though it be true there be many cold prayers that Gods servants do put up yet there is some kind of sighs and groans that springs from them which argues some heat and life in them And so is it As they breath thus to God-ward so doe they breath one to another so that if they speake of the things of God they speake not of God and his Word lightly and wantonly or loosely as those that have no affection to them but if they speak of the Word of God of his threatnings promises or of any of his commandements or any of the workes of his providence they speake not of them coldly as those that took no pleasure in them but if they speake of any of the things of God they speake with some reverence and desire after them and settling a confirmation in them they have love to the word and rejoyce in it and stand in awe and in feare of it and they exercise their hearts and wits about it when at any time they speak of the things of God so that there is some kind of warmth in the expression of a Chirstian in some savoury affection whereby he esteemes of the things of God above what is found in an hypocrite Thirdly Spiritual warmth digesteth Gods Ordinances There is a certaine kind of warmth by which the soule doth not only affect the Ordinances of God but by which it doth in some measure digest them there is no living man wanting some such measure of heat as makes him able to digest some kind of dyet though not alwayes strong meate especially if he be in any measure of health and that is no small measure of heate Psal 119.20 the very longing desire it alwayes hath to Gods Judgements was it that even made his soule to breake within him and so to pant after Gods Word and his presence in his Ordinances Psalm 42.1 there was a kind of panting and longing and eager desire after God by which it comes to passe that the soule of a Christian closes with God in his Ordinances and turnes them into nourishment within himselfe and so is more strongly and inwardly bent towards God in the ways of his grace whereas a dead spirit is flat and hath no affection to the word no affection to Gods presence no list to the things of this nature Fourthly things that are warm put them together and they are the more warm 4. Spiritual warmth heateth others but put cold clogs and peeces of wood together and they are never a whit the warmer but if you take but two or three of them things that are well kindled and they will set all a fire that comes nigh them though ready before to goe out for want of supply if you lay two or three warme brands together they will kindle one another And truly so it is among Christians take you a Christian that hath this spirituall warmth in him though almost benumbed for want of good company and good conference and breathing forth of Gods spirit and grace in the soule Yet if he meet with two or three like himselfe they presntly begin to kindle one another And the breath of such Christians is like bellows to blow up sparkes savoury and sweet expressions of their hearts and edifie themselves by their mutuall fellowship one with another Yea and sometimes they grow so warme by this means as that they are fit to admonish one another to exhort and to comfort and if need require to rebuke one another as occasion serves 1 Pet. 4.8 Have fervent love one to another above all things have fervent love among your selves this is a speciall thing love among Christians by which love they so kindle one another to such deep respects to God and the wayes of his grace and so burne one out of another much sinfull folly and frailety which will be in them that are so loose one to another and raiseth them up to that power of godlinesse which sometimes they had grown up unto and now almost lost for want of often joyning together for by so doing they do what they can to put out the fire when Satan means to put out the light and life of Religion out of both Church and Commonwealth hee layes one Christian in one corner and another in another that they shall when they list go to bed and sleep and then a lazy spirit shall come upon them and so they
thinke a dead man is able to feed upon Christ you know what God said of the Idolatrous people in old time Esa 44.11 12. Esa 44.11 explained The same saith 〈◊〉 to every naturall man He feedeth upon what upon Christ No no upon ashes why upon ashes ashes is farre from feeding upon the living God and yet truly a man feeds upon ashes every soule that feeds not upon Christ hath some Idol for his God and so falls downe to worship it some god of profit or pleasure and this is the estate of all wicked men they feed upon ashes upon ashes it seemes to me to be a borrowed speech or similitude taken from children or some women with childe that being sometimes taken with some ill humour and distemper of stomach they have an eager desire to feed upon ashes and such like dry unsavoury meat Children will be eating coales and ashes and so will sometimes women with childe so truly it is with every naturall man he is a naturall Idolater he worships something besides Gods he feeds upon ashes some dry and unsavoury and unwholsome meat which cannot profit him in the day of wrath which gives not his soule any nourishment for the soule of man is an immortall spirit and we only feed it with profit and pleasure and credit and these be but ashes bodily food The good things of this life are no more suitable to a mans soule then ashes be to a mans body and therefore Solomon so compares the estate of all the sonnes of Nature Eccles 3.21 Who knowes the spirit of a man that goes upward and the spirit of the beast that goes downeward to the earth his meaning is this he complaining of the vanity that lyes upon the sonnes of nature he speakes not in the person of an Epicure as some conceive but his meaning is Who knowes which of all the sonnes of men considers or takes it to heart that his soule goes up to any better place then the soule of a beast which of all the sons of Nature feeds his soule upon better food then the soule of a beast is fed upon Doe they not all feed as if they all went to one place and therefore upon the dust of the earth they feed turne me out the man that is in an estate of nature considers that his soule is to live for ever and therefore takes care to feed his soule to immortality this is the wofull distemper of all the sonnes of nature that we feed not upon Christ but upon the blessings of this world so long as we are without Christ all our food is upon earthly things here below there is not any power in a man by nature not any wisedome or strength in us to deliver our soules and then is not this a false course A lying vanity is not my heart deceived with this and that he is not able to aske his heart such a question am I such a foole to forget all good to my soule thus long it would deliver his soul if hee did but consider that there was a lye in the other way and he flatters himselfe in his good estate before God and considers not the truth of the thing he thinkes hee is as faire a dealing man as any of them all but his heart deceitfull and desperately wicked and so cannot see the falsehood of his way And for growing which is a third act of spiritual life a man is dead to any growth never comes to any growth in grace but he is apt to grow in evil and sin evill men and deceivers shall wax worse and worse 2 Tim. 3.13 take you any natural man and he is ever growing worse and worse ever growing of the worse hand he growes more and more unprofitable and more loose from God and estranged from the wayes of his grace and settled in the wayes of sin And this is that which the Prophet Jeremiah complaines of chap. 9.3 they proceeded from evill to worse and this is the estate of us all without Christ we grow from prodigality to covetousnesse and from wantonnes to voluptuousnes and so goe on til we come to take pleasure in all sinne though it be but for a season This is al the growth and progresse that such men make And in the fourth place for cleansing our selves from al superfluous and noysome lusts that we doe not neither can we be freed from them O Jerusalem wash thy heart from thy wickednesse how long shall thy vaine thoughts lodge within thee Jer. 4.14 Purge out all those sinful lusts God knowes the thoughts of the hearts of men are but vaine 1 Cor. 3.18 and they being vain God would have us to wash our hearts how long shal it be that we suffer these lusts to lodge within us we never cleanse our selves from these but such woful cleansing it is that if we goe about to purge them out by the motions of the spirit of grace that he casts into our hearts we think its a troublesome worke and doth crosse the tranquility and peace of our estates we thinke they are noysome and therefore if any good motion be darted into the heart in the Ministery of the Word or in the Counsell of Christian friends we are sick of it till we have cast out all those good motions againe and what ever good affection God hath been pleased to cast into us wee are not wel til we be shut of it as was the case of Ahab he comes sadly and mourning from Eliahs sharpe reproofe 1 King 21. two last verses but he could not be well at ease til he had cast it all off with putting Naboth to death and put it off with calling a Councel about going to War and so damped all the sorrow that was in his heart Let Caine have any good motion come in his heart and he wil put it off with building of Cities His sin and punishment is great Gen. 4.13 and would he not now seek to God for mercy that his soule might live no he goes out from the presence of God and from all good company and good councel and whither goes he then Into the land of Nod and there he builds Cities and calls them by such and such names and so takes off his thoughts from any good motion and extinguishes all the motions of grace And truly so stood the case with Foelix Act. 24.25 when he trembled at Pauls Sermon he would not indure to hear him any further but when he had convenient leasure he would hear him again but he never sent for him And so you shall ever find this frame in a naturall mans heart those motions which the spirit of God casts into his heart that might induce him and lead him on by the hand to better courses we are not wel til we have cast them all off Just as Paul complaines of the Jewes Act. 13.46 since you have put it away from you loe we turne to the Gentiles we purge and cast out the
motions of Gods spirit and cannot indure that any Ordinance should bring us nearer to Christ Act. 7.51 Yee have always resisted the holy ghost expelled the blessed of God that if the holy ghost but dart any good councel into their hearts they cannot indure to hear it nor entertain any motion of it but grieve and vex the holy Spirit of God and they are not well till they quench it 1 Thess 5.19 Esa 5.3 we are alive to nothing but to run away from God alive to sinne alive to doe evill but to doe well we have no understanding Jer. 4.22 Apt to purge and cleanse our selves from all good things but wholly undisposed to doe any thing that is well this is the true estate of us all Look at us as we are by nature all of us without Christ cannot put forth one act of spirituall life not one good motion to be found in such a condition And in the first place for begetting any unto grace we rather doe the quite contrary we addict our selves to beget men to become the children of Hell worse then our selves Matth. 23.15 two-fold more the children of Hell and because that may be more proper to corrupt teachers Jeremy speakes it of all the sonnes of nature and those especially that had lived a while under the meanes and were not thereby brought on to an estate of grace those whom God had kindled some fire in their hearts and whom he would have brought on to grace even these They are all grievously revolted walking with slanders they are brasse and Iron they are all corrupters Jer. 6.28 He doth not say they are all corrupted but all corrupters that is such as are not only naught themselves but they corrupt others also they make others worse for their sakes No man that sets his face to God-ward but if he come among them he is the worse for them every man is kept off the more from goodnesse by their meanes they doe not love that men should be too forward or too precise nor to keep such a puleing nor such a praying we are all by nature corrupters Gen. 6.11 All flesh had corrupted their way even every man had done it every one is the worse for us that hath to doe with us if we see but any good disposition in them to be comming on in the waies of grace we doe as much as in us lyes to quench and damp and smother them and never rest by our good wills till we make them as ill as our selves and harden their hearts from Gods feare this is the true carriage of all those who are out of Christ He that hath not the Son he hath no life no motion of spirituall life no growing up in Christ no purging out of sinfull uncleannesse and therefore now to apply this conceive thus much First It applyes it selfe against the Church of Rome Application first who maintaine that men in the state of nature have free will to lay hold upon Christ and they conceive it is upon very faire termes but I would only demand of you this question Whether when they doe lay hold on Christ as they conceive whether they have him or they have him not they will say They have not Christ till they have received him for what hast thou that thou hast not received 1 Cor. 4.7 And till they have received him how shall they lay hold upon him and if not receive him they are dead men and when a man is dead what can he have by any benefit that is offered him Offer him never so largely and he can receive no benefit by it and if that any doe lay hold upon Christ were they not living when they so layed hold upon him so that when they doe lay hold upon Christ whether is it an action of life or no If not how shall they lay hold on Christ and without Christ no life A man in the state of nature neither doth good nor can he doe any good nor is he willing to doe good and therefore well doth the Apostle say It is God that workes in you both the will and the deed Phil. 2.12 13. Any thing that we doe that is good is wholly from the grace of Christ and this is just against the Papists Secondly It serves to teach us all to bemoane our owne estates or the estates of any of ours that we yet see in the gall of bitternesse lying in an estate of nature is it thy selfe or thy father or mother or thy children or servants whatever he be be he never so good a natured man if he be yet without Christ there is no life in him I say looke upon him as thy dead friend If thou didst look upon thy father and mother or children and see them lye dead before thee thou wouldest mourne bitterly for them you know what is said Zach. 12.10 As a man mournes for his first borne if our first borne or any that is neare to us dye we mourne bitterly for them and refuse to be comforted as was the case of Rachels mourning for her children and would not be comforted because they were not Matth. 2.18 they were all dead and therefore caused a bitter mourning it was the wounding and rending of her soule And may not this be the case of many a fruitfull mother many children and yet all of them dead in Gods sight not a soule living in the sight of God And is it not a farre more bitter death to be dead in sinne then to be dead in the body when it is a living soule in Gods sight then blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord for even so saith the Spirit that never spake words of falshood Revel 14.13 I say therefore if that our children live to God and have the life of grace in their hearts there is no danger of their death then thy children shall come againe to thy hearing at the resurrection of the just and thou shalt imbrace them with comfort and fill thy soule with unspeakable joy and fulnesse of glory if they dye in the favour and grace of God they shall rise to glory but if they be spiritually dead no goodnesse in the world in them no spirituall life at all no life of righteousnesse or holinesse which are the first fruits of the Spirit and of glory in this world then weep for these children and those friends that husband or wife or brother or sister weep for every soule that is in an estate of sinne and death they are as so many dead Corps you may sometimes see a whole house-full of dead creatures not one of them living to God not one of thy acquaintance not one of all thy brothers and sisters weep and mourne bitterly for them that are thus wounded with sinne and bleed deadly and gaspe for their last breath and it may be shall never finde grace from God in this world their present condition is fearefull and mourne thou for them in a godly manner that
in the second place there is something in our prayers made according to the will of God as is exprest in the spirit of him that prayes for this you shall finde ordinarily in Scripture that men that pray pray in the spirit Jud. 20. Praying in the Holy Ghost and Eph. 6.18 Pray in the spirit And you know what the Apostle saith in that well knowne place Rom. 8.26 27. We know not what to pray for nor how to pray as we ought but the Spirit helpeth us c. God searcheth the heart especially in prayer he knowes the meaning of the Spirit for he maketh requests according to the will of God that is the words of the text so that if you would aske how we may pray according to the will of God looke what is revealed in the breathings of the Spirit which marvellously declares it selfe in the wrastling and longing desires that it puts up to God Psal 119. My soule longeth and breatheth after thee and it lets us know what the will of God is and for that the Spirit helps us to pray First to pray in the spirit is to pray feelingly Now to open this a little First you shall discerne the will of God by the breathing of the Spirit first when the Spirit helps us to pray feelingly and sensibly for those blessings that we stand in need of when the Spirit doth lift up our hearts and reach after those mercies we stand in need of in some feeling and sensible manner The will of God is revealed in the breathing of the Spirit that stretches forth it selfe in such an humble and faithfull manner as that the soule is very sensible of its need of it we poure out our soules before God for what we stand in need of in feeling desires and this good Hannah expressed in her prayers 1 Sam. 1.15 I am a woman of a sorrowfull spirit I have poured out my soule before the Lord. To shew you there was an inward sensible worke of the Spirit of God in her heart that did inlarge her not so much to poure out words as sighes and groanes this feeling power of the Spirit doth mightily expresse what the will of God is that we should aske this is according to the will of God according to what you read Esay 26.9 With my spirit within me will I seeke thee early my spirit within me that is to say he speakes as if there were a spirit within his spirit besides the inclination God had given and wrought in him to the wayes of grace and besides his soule that did animate his body the Spirit of God within him with that spirit will he seeke God early in prayer the spirit will inwardly be working and turning him towards God so then this is the first thing wherein God reveales his will to us and we pray in the spirit which we doe when we pray in the sence and feeling of our own wants of those blessings we want at Gods hand that is by a certaine strength greater then any of our owne spirits can reach forth themselves unto the Spirit of God comes and helps us to wrastle with God with sighes and groanes that cannot be expressed that we thinke more then we speake and we speake more then we thought of 2. Fervently Secondly besides this this spirit helps us to pray unto God with fervency and heate of spirit so much as that in such a case as this we strive with God in our prayers and wrastle with him The effectuall fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much Jam. 5.16 When the Spirit of God helps us to fervency to cry to God and to be earnest with him in that regard and not to give him over and comes from a sensible want of the blessings we stand in need of and that makes us goe out of our selves to God for the mercy that is according to the will of God and this in Scripture is called wrastling and striving with God Rom. 15.30 when you grow sensible of your owne danger and you strive with him for the blessing this is to expresse fervency of spirit and this was commended in Iacob that he wrastled with God Gen. 32.24 26. which is expounded Hos 12.4 that he prayed and wept his wrastling was chiefly in prayer with teares that God would be mercifull to him in this case Thirdly 3. Perseverance We pray then in the spirit when we also persevere in prayer for that is also requisite in all the Petitions we put up our Saviour put forth a Parable for this very end that men should pray constantly and never be weary Luk. 18.1 Pray upon all occasions for every thing that you stand in need of and never give over til you be heard and answered and the Parable teacheth thus much from the unjust Iudge Shall a sinfull mortall man be moved with importunity and shall not God arise and be moved for those poore soules that cry unto him night and day yes doubtlesse though you may thinke God is not sensible of your prayers but he rests himselfe quietly in heaven and remaines in fulnesse of glory who is blessed for ever in himselfe and will not trouble himselfe with such poore requests as yours is but let me tell you this woman did not so much trouble the Judge here nor could be more troublesome to him then a poore Christian is to God that wrastles with him in prayer God cannot be quiet in heaven for such a soule but in the end he must rise and satisfie its desire so you have the like Luk. 11.8 to 13. If you continue knocking he will rise and so will your heavenly Father doe for you much more so as that though God might seeme to be asleep and rest himself satisfied in that blessed estate he enjoys in another world and no more regard things below then men asleep yet if you continue knocking and begging you wil disturbe his peace till he arise and shew mercy to you and this he speakes after the manner of men to shew you that he doth as unfeignedly and as deeply take to heart the desires of your soules as any of you can doe one of another and therefore be constant and persevering in prayer and never give over when we have a good petition in hand never give over when we pray for pardon of sin or for peace of conscience or for strength of grace for our selves or for others when we pray for the healing of our soules or our bodies for the Church or Common-wealth whatsoever we have in hand if the Spirit of God doe but move us this way it is for us never to give over untill God shew mercy to us in some one kinde or other that we may see our requests was not neglected Ephes 6.18 Watch thereunto with perseverance vers 19. where you see what course God would have his Servants to take take this course ever follow God watch night and day and never give over till he blesse you and
yours untill he blesse Magistrates give Ministers a doore of utterance that they may speake savingly and powerfully to the soules of their Hearers so as that as it were you may weary God and prevaile with him to arise and give you your desire Wherefore is it thinke you that Christ calls prayer knocking but for this very end to manifest unto us that when we continue praying we continue knocking and we make as a loud noyse at Heaven gates as any man that knocks at your house doores and God so esteemes the nature of prayer Matth. 7.7 For to him that knocketh it shall bee opened So that if God doe but give us hearts to knock and to be instant and constant in prayer for that is knocking if we be fervent and persevering in prayer and spring from our feeling and sence of want of the blessing and what comfort it would be to us to obtaine it and give him no rest untill we receive at his hands what we aske of him to him that thus knocketh it shall be opened So did the Woman of Syrophenitia she knockt hard at our Saviours doore of mercy have pitty have mercy upon me and when at the first Christ answers her not a word she then cryes out againe Lord helpe me and when thereupon he tells her he was not sent to her but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel Did shee then leave off No she would not be put off when he then told her it was not meet to take the childrens bread and to cast it to doggs Shee said Truth Lord but yet the doggs eate the crumbs that fall from the table Why then saith our Saviour be it unto thee even as thou wilt Like as a man that is weary of a Petitioner As if he should say Why if thou beest so importunate that thou wilt have no deniall if it must be so why goe thy way and be it unto thee even as thou wilt And when God gives us so to pray as not to give over we may know for a certaine God intends to give us a gracious answer in all the desires of our soules and this is to pray according to Gods will Now to speake of the second part of the Doctrine and that is the reason why a prayer thus made is ever granted pray well and speed well Reas 1 First because in praying according to Gods will God doth but fulfill his owne will in fulfilling yours as this is the will of God that all those things that are lawfull for us to aske and expedient for us it is his will that wee should pray for them it is Gods will that we should pray with submission to Gods will that we should pray humbly and feelingly and constantly now if we have prayed according to the will of God then his will must needs be done and his will is that now our wills should be fulfilled This reason is taken from the faithfulnesse of God in the promise and from the suitablenesse of Gods will to ours when we so pray Reas 2 Secondly It is taken from the mighty power of the name of Christ whensoever we use his name in prayer not in lip labour but when we pray in sence of our owne unworthinesse and in some measure of Childe-like confidence the prayers that we now make is the prayer of Christ and him the Father heareth alwaies Jo. 11.42 Now if Christ give us to use his name looke whatever petition we put up and use his name in it it is now the prayer of Christ for looke as if any of you should send your childe or servant to any of your neighbours to desire such or such a favour from them you send them but the petition is yours they desire it in your name and if you send him and bid him use your name and then you are sure it will be granted and if he should deny your childe or servant of such a petition that he askes in your name in denying him he denies you so that God cannot deny the petition you aske in Christs name for him he heareth alwayes and all such petitions he hath promised to heare The word of promise you heard before and it is full to this purpose Joh. 16.23 Verily verily I say unto you He takes his owne truth to witnesse it as a solemne asseveration Whatsoever ye shall aske the Father in my name he will give it you And therefore Aske in my name that you may receive If therefore the Lord Jesus Christ doe but give us this encouragement that we faithfully give up our selves to become his and in sence of our owne unworthinesse to aske any thing at Gods hands And we come to the Father as being set a worke by Christ and beseech him to answer us in this and that mercy and cannot give over till he receive our prayers and reach us an answer of them then the promise stands good Aske and you shall receive Reas 3 Thirdly It is taken from Gods acceptance not only of Christ but of the Spirit the Holy Ghost also for that is much to be considered for there is no prayer that is so wrought in this sort nor any prayer thus put up in sence and feeling and breathing of the Spirit in the name of Christ but it is the prayer of the Holy Ghost himselfe and God that knowes the meaning of the Spirit he hearkens to all the requests of the Spirit Rom. 8.26 27. The Spirit it selfe makes intercession for us so that these prayers are not only received and gratified because they are put up in the name of Christ but also because the Spirit it selfe makes intercession for us according to the will of God and God knowes the meaning and voyce of his owne Spirit God knowes that without this we could never be fervent for any spirituall blessing according to the will of God our dead hearts would soone make dead worke of it if there were no spirit in our prayer but our owne if our flesh be weake we shall soone have done and therefore when God sees us pray thus feelingly are not willing to leave him til he answer us in our desires then God knowes there is a mighty power of a spirit that speaks in us and God cannot deny the intercession of his spirit And further to strengthen this point Christ himselfe tels us that he will pray in our behalves for us for the Lord Jesus Christ himselfe sits at Gods right hand making intercession for us John 16.26 At that day yee shall aske in my name and I say not unto you that I will pray the father for you for the father himselfe loveth you because you have loved me c. And the Apostle sweetly expresseth how the Lord Jesus prayes for us Rom. 8.34 Who is he that condemned it is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen againe who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us so that the Lord Jesus Christ takes
petitions and the having of them all fulfilled To open this point unto you And because John doth gather this from the end of his own writing for hee saith hee wrote these things onely to them that beleeve in the name of the Sonne of God for this end That they might beleeve on his name Therefore let me shew you first how these two great benefits confidence and certainty of hearing and having our petitions doth both spring and arise from what is here taught us First Which is the foundation of all the rest 1 John 3.1 speaking of Adoption saith he Behold what manner of love the Father hath shewed on us that we should be called the Sons of God he doth stand and wonder at the marvellous and incredible love of God that he should vouchsafe to stoop so low and honour us so much debase himself and lift us up not only stoop so low as to behold low things are on earth Psal 113. but so low as to take up such earth-worms as we be from the Dung-hill and set us among the Princes of the people ver 5 6 7 8. he not only beholds them with an eye of providence but his people with an eye of fatherly compassion and lifts us up to become sonnes and daughters to himselfe and helps us to beleeve it that we are so This is the first ground of the certainty and confidence of the hearing of our petitions if once we may come to be certaine that we are the sonnes of God upon which occasion a great part of this Epistle is spent this is the first ground and these the Apostle is wont to joyne together as the ground of all comfort in this kinde Gal. 4.5 6. Rom. 8.15 so that to be perswaded or to grow confident that we are the children of God will be a good foundation to the certainty of the hearing and granting of our Petitions To whom may a Son come for any blessing but to a Father and what makes him more confident of speaking and acceptance then this principle that he knowes he is the childe of such a Father as is willing and able to help him Secondly another principle in this Epistle tending to build up this certainty and confidence is not only our adoption but likewise Christs advocation 1 Io. 2.1 2. If any man sinne we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous Advocate what What is it to be an Advocate To be an Advocate is to plead on our behalves with the Father for the granting and answering of our Petitions for the pardoning and healing of all our transgressions and the performing to us and giving of us all the good things we stand in need of whether we aske them or aske them not but especially there is no Petition we put up but Christ takes it at our hands and puts it up in such forme to his heavenly Father as that by and through him it is accepted As a man retaines an Advocate in a Court he brings him his cause rudely drawne so as it would be rejected in the Court but his Advocate puts it into such a forme as is agreeable to the Law and sutable to the order of the Court so as it findes free acceptance So we put up our Petitions rudely and many times farre short of that frame which God especially lookes for from his servants hands but Christ takes them at our hands and puts them into forme and so preferres them to his heavenly Father and so as from thence we have good occasion and good ground of confidence and certainty that whatever we put up in any measure according to Gods will being presented to our Advocate to our heavenly Father shall be accepted Thirdly The Attonement or propitiation that our Saviour makes to our blessed Father spoken of in the same place 1 Ioh. 2.2 Attonement or propitiation the thing is this That whereas many a servant of God might feare his Petitions would never be granted because he hath been so sinfull before God and hath so many wayes dishonoured God that he knowes not however God should heare such an unworthy creature as he is Now the Apostle sets forth in this Epistle the Lord Jesus Christ as our Attonement that if we come to our Advocate and say We have such Suits and Petitions to put up to our heavenly Father but we have so displeased him that we thinke he will never regard us Why saith the Apostle If any man sinne we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins and therefore for our owne hearts though we have just cause of discouragement in regard of our sins yet we have a propitiation an attonement he makes intercession for us as an Advocate but you say God will not heare him for such sinners as we be Yes he makes propitiation or attonement that we perish not by our sins nor that they should hinder Gods acceptance of us or granting our desires ver 7. of the first chap. and so here is a third ground-worke of our confidence and certainty of our desires Fourthly There is another and that is the annoyntment that we have received from him by which we know all things 1 Joh. 2.20 implying that though we be dark in our owne mindes and dead and straight in our owne spirits and doe not know what the Lord or Christ hath done for us Why yet we have received an unction from the Lord Iesus who will tell us what he hath done for us As a mans Advocate will send his Clyent word of all things how they goe in the Court about his businesse that he may know how farre he hath proceeded and where they stick So the Lord Jesus Christ he is the holy one there spoken of You have received an unction from him he sends downe his holy Spirit into your hearts and lets you see and know all the petitions and requests that God grants you you shall no sooner have a petition granted but you shall have it certified to you by this unction of the holy one whereby you know you have them granted and for whose sake it is that they are granted by this unction you know all things pertinent to life and godlinesse And this is that which the Apostle Paul speakes 2 Cor. 2.12 God sends forth his owne Spirit into our hearts to let us know so much and this is a marvellous point that the Holy Ghost gives us to know all things that are done in Heaven for us and how farre God hath accepted us Further If you be inquisitive to know why the Spirit of God doth certifie the soule of this First the Spirit certifies us of this that surely our Petitions are heard and granted because he hath given us an heart to pray he hath helped us to pray we could never have prayed fervently and feelingly unlesse the Holy Ghost had helped us we know we have straight hearts and if we therefore come and
Arts and Sciences whence is their knowledge but from their observation of many experiences Phisitians know it and they therefore set it downe in their bookes they know it is so Things that we gather from sence and experience we are said to have the knowledge of now this experience doth not only give us confidence but knowledge for by the unction that we have received we doe know the love of God that passeth knowledge Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith we come to know the love of God towards us Eph. 3.17.19 There is not any thing that concernes the love of God towards us but the Spirit of God dwelling in our hearts by faith it comes to passe that we are able to comprehend the height and depth length and breadth of the love of God towards us This Spirit of God in our hearts gives us sensible experience and knowledge of Gods love to us of his attonement and grace to us our Consciences that had hels in them before all such darksome evils are now vanisht and scattered and we know that sensibly we had power given us to pray and to beleeve that our prayers are granted and can wait upon God and feare God and make conscience of obeying his will Now this Spirit of prayer that discovers these things plainly to our inward man the sence and experience of it makes a Christian able to know what God hath done for him and makes him able to beleeve what God hath promised him and thus now when we aske any thing according to Gods will he doth not only say It is well said but he takes a course to answer our requests we have certaine grounds to move us in what we aske and the ends of our requests are right Now God considers not alwaies so much the letter of our prayers as the grounds and ends of them the scope we ayme at and God will so accordingly answer us Vse 1. Let it be first a ground of encouragement to every Christian soule that beleeves in the name of Jesus Christ trust not in your owne good parts and good gifts if any such things increase set not your hearts upon them trust not in any worldly blessing but beleeve on the name of Christ And therefore that you may beleeve humble your soules before him in regard of your sins and pray heartily in the faith of Christ And why so The ground is in the text you shall not only be confident and assured of your salvation which is a great mercy of God to my soule and a greater then all the whole Church of Rome would grant they may goe to Rome and from thence to Jerusalem and from one place to another to have sought for pardon of sin and yet not so much comfort promised them that after all this they shall finde it but in the end to Purgatory they must goe and that is as ill as Hell fire say they save only in durance and this is all the helpe they have they might whip and scourge themselves and give all their goods away to the poore and themselves goe in sackcloth and ashes all their dayes and when all comes to all they must not be sure of any mercy or favour from God which to beleeve would be Hereticall presumption but they must notwithstanding all this rest in Hell fire till the day of Judgement unlesse they will be at cost to purchase freedome from it and which is strange though they would not suffer them to beleeve a release by Christs pardon yet upon the Popes pardon they might have hope and so they take more pains for an uncertainty then we for certainty and knowledge but you shall not only attaine certainty of salvation but certainty of the granting of all your requests no peace to the peace of a Beleever and therefore lay aside all your confidence in the world but be confident in the name of the Lord Jesus and be certaine of Gods favour and goodnesse to you in him and then here is such blessings as will keep a mans heart warme in the worst houres Vse 2. To teach such as beleeve on the name of the Lord Jesus how you may come to be confident and certaine of the hearing and granting your petitions How may wee come to that Hast thou good evidence to thy soule of thy Adoption that God is thy Father then meditate well upon this point that Christ is thy Advocate to make intercession and Attonement for thee in case thou hast displeased thy heavenly Father These two things will much prevaile they be strong helps to a weake faith and then consider what unction thou hast received and look up to God that he would give thee a spirit of prayer to pray feelingly and fervently and humbly before him and then labour for a spirit of faith which if God give thee so much faith as to perswade thee thy requests are heard and to wrastle against discouragements and that the spirit of faith doth worke in thee grace to hope and waite upon God and withall an holy feare of his name and obedience to walke obediently in doing his will and patiently to suffer his will under his hand and observe how the Spirit speakes evidently in this and that kinde and it will be a notable means to helpe thee to grow confident and certaine that all thy prayers are heard Now many a Christian soule falls short of this he considers not the Attonement of Christ in his prayer but many times thus stands the case with them there is much desolutenesse in their lives and loosenesse and fearlesnesse in their hearts before God rejoyce not with trembling God sees his Servants loose in their obedience and when disobedient they seek not to Christ for Attonement whence it is that many times they are so full of doubts Vse 3. Of much consolation to all those that beleeve on the name of the Lord Jesus and make use of these blessed meanes this is our confidence that whatsoever petitions we aske he heareth us and we know it See how comfortable a Christians estate is he growes certaine not only of his owne salvation but he is certaine of the hearing and granting of all his petitions if he can but pray well he makes account all is well let his distresses be what they will be SERMON XVI 1 JOHN 5.16 17. If any man see his brother sinne a sinne which is not unto death he shall aske and he shall give him life for them that sinne not unto death There is a sinne unto death I doe not say that he shall pray for it THese words containe a third motive to encourage us unto that duty which is the maine scope of this Epistle to wit to beleeve on the name of the Sonne of God whereto the Apostle exhorts us vers 13. and propounds first this motive to wit A blessed confidence of the hearing of all our petitions Secondly a certaine knowledge verified that he not only heares but grants our desires Now he
his Son to whom this eternall life is communicated and that is to all such as to whom the Son is communicated amplified by the contrary He that hath not the Son hath not life Doctrine According to or upon our having or not having of Christ depends our having or not having of life The note is of speciall weight in our Christian experience and therefore let us take so much the more care in opening of it He that findeth me which is all one with hee that hath me he hath life Prov. 8.34 but he that is estranged from me he loveth death ver 36. So that finde Christ and finde life Finde him not but be estranged from him and finde death So Eph. 2.12 In times past ye were without Christ being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel strangers from the Covenant of promise having no hope and without God in the world and Eph. 4.18.19 There he speakes of some that were alienated from the life of God but in ver 20. Ye have not so learned Christ if so be you have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus For further clearing of this point let me shew you first the Reasons upon which it depends and then the uses of it Creatures broken Sisterns without Christ Reason 1. For the first The first reason arises from the insufficiency of all the body of the creature to give us life without Christ Heb. 10.1.4 It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should cleanse the conscience from sinne They are not a valuable recompence to God for the transgressions we have done by our transgressions we had deserved death for which the death of the beasts cannot make recompence Men cannot redeem themselves And besides should we dye for our sinnes our selves our death would not free us from the punishment for we are not able to overcome death but should for ever sinke under it If there had been a Law that could have given us life then wee might have lived by it but there is no such Law as can give us spirituall life David speakes in the name of Christ Psal 22.29 It is the speech of our Saviour or of David in his name No Man can keepe alive his owne soule It is beyond the power of the creature to keep alive his own soule no not so much as naturall life Psal 49.7.9 No man can give a ransome for the soule of his brother no man is able to ransome or redeem his owne life or anothers yea which is much Adam in innocency was taught to looke for the preservation of his inocent nature out of himself for to that end did God give him the tree of life Gen. 2.9 the tree of life grows not in Adam but in the Garden Now he that was to eat of the tree called the tree of life he was taught from thence that the maintenance and continuance of that life which he then lived a life of grace and glory was not to be expected from his owne strength but from something without himselfe The tree of life was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ the second person in Trinity 1 Joh. 3.4 Now if Adam could not keep alive his own soule but by that tree how much lesse Adam falne and corrupted being now become unable to keep that Law which in innocency he might have kept But more clearly see the grounds of this insufficiency in the creature to helpe it selfe The first is taken from the preciousnesse of the price of our redemption The costlinesse of it the matter of our justification is the price of our redemption and without justification no spirituall life at all Now the price of our redemption is our justification the forme of that justification is Gods accepting of it and imputing it to us but the matter of it is the price of our redemption and that is the root of all our spirituall life the price of our redemption given to God is accepted of him and by him given to us Psal 49.8 Precious is the redemption of soules it is farre beyond the power of the creature that which may be fit matter to give to God by way of satisfaction for a soule that is very precious and this was onely the obedience of Christ to the death he by suffering death for us and rising from the dead declared himselfe mightily to be the Son of God and he by his obedience to the death offered to God the price of our redemption He gave himselfe a ransome for many And this shews that it had beene impossible for any under the Sonne of God to have given a sufficient price for our redemption neither man nor Angels could doe it but he in giving a sufficient price for us did thereby mightily declare himselfe to be the Sonne of God he onely by his death is the matter of our justification and his rising is our life the Father himselfe it could not stand with his justice to give a price for our redemption he being the person offended but the Sonne taking upon him our nature that nature which had offended God he by this meanes made atonement betweene the Father and us and in making atonement declared himselfe mightily to be the Sonne of God none but he alone was able to tender to God such a recompence as might be a satisfaction for our sins 2. And as this is ground why there is no sufficiency in the creature to give us the life of our justification so it is also taken from the root of our sanctification and consolation for they spring both from one fountaine and that is the Spirit of Gods grace John 16.7 he is the comforter that is our sanctifier and this springs in us to everlasting life Joh. 4.14 Now he that can give a spirit of sanctification and consolation is onely the Lord Jesus Christ unlesse he goe away and send the Comforter to us he never comes If you would know who it is that can give this water of life you shal read Joh. 4.10 that it is only the Lord Jesus he it is only that goes to the Father and sends his Spirit of grace into our hearts unlesse he go to heaven and send it downe from heaven to us it is not given So that he being the root of the Spirit of consolation of sanctification all this life of consolation sanctification springing from the Spirit as from a fountain and Christ being he that sets open this fountain Zac. 1.13 Therefore it is that there is an insufficiency in the creature to shed abroad such a thing as this into our hearts Act. 2 33. when he was to give a reason of the spirit of Tongues he fetches it fom the resurrection of Christ that he by his ascending into heaven did shed abroad this word which you now see and heare so that by his death he gave to God not onely the price of our redemption but prevailed with the Father to bestow upon him the Spirit to
give where and to whom he will 3 And for a third ground why eternall life cannot bee given by any but by Christ is taken from the invincible difficulty of the passage to eternall life from the hand of death and the grave there is no redemption What man is he that can deliver his soule from the hand of the grave Psal 49. And if the soule be severed from the body no man can quicken his owne soule that is beyond the power and reach of the creature death is the passage to eternall life and this passage is of invincible difficulty for a man to dye and then to translate himselfe from death to life is far beyond the capacity of the creature and therefore saith our Saviour I am the resurrection and the life Joh. 11.25 and hee speakes of it formally and properly as if he should say being risen from the dead my selfe I rise my selfe and therefore raise up others also so that if you looke at the invincible difficulty of it you shall see that it onely is the Lord Jesus that can give eternall life it is a signe of an hypocrite when with Simon Magus we thinke this gift may be bought with money Reas 2 It is taken from the good pleasure of the Father whom it hath pleased that in Christ all fulnesse of life should dwell Col. 1.19 And when he which is our life shall appeare wee shall appeare with him 1 Cor. 1.30 And therefore since God hath concluded and shut up all the springs of life in Christ and out of Christ there is nothing but death the good pleasure of the Father hath determined this point that he having given us this eternall life in his Son there is no deriving life from any fountaine but only from the Son Vse If upon our having or not having of Christ depends our having or not having of life then from hence you see an evident ground of triall of every one of our estates whether we be alive or dead would any man know whether he have or not have life consider then whether you have or not have Christ And from hence you may discerne three grounds of triall to discerne whether we have Christ or no. First consider what it is to have a Christ Secondly what it is to have the Son Thirdly what signes there be of life and hereby wee shall have direction whether we have Christ or no and by this we may informe our selves aright in this particular This point containes in it the pith and marrow of Christianity so far as any comfort of it may redound to us First then let us consider what signes the Holy Ghost hath given us of our having of Christ We are said to have Christ four wayes in Scripture First by the honour or service or worship of him Secondly in some sense wee are said to have Christ by purchase Thirdly by way of Covenant Fourthly by way of free acceptance when God offers him First a man is said to have God or to have Christ that worships him and the very worshipping of him is the having of him so you read Exod. 20.3 Thou shalt have no other gods but me it is the expresse words of the Commandement And by having of God there he meanes thus much Thou shalt worship no other gods but me worship me and thou hast me worship any other and thou hast another god and not me So have the Lord Jesus Christ by worshipping of him and you have him fully Psal 45.10 11. He is the Lord thy God and worship thou him implying that as God hath set over his Son to us to be our Lord so we must receive accept and worship him this is that which Moses and the people of Israel sung He is my God and is become my salvation Exod. 15.2 He is my God and he is my Fathers God and therefore I will exalt him So that to set up and exalt God in our hearts and lives and to worship him is all one this sets up the Lord to worship him is to be our God Now a little better to understand this point that you may conceive what this worship of Christ is you are to conceive that worship is performed to Christ in minde in heart in life both in our obedience that wee performe in our life in suffering and patience which wee yeeld to God in our lives by all this we worship Christ and so have him 1 Part of the worship of Christ viz. in the mind and judgement First in our mindes we then indeed worship Christ when we have him in high estimation The worship and honour that we owe to Christ is to have him in high esteem Cant. 5 10. She the Spouse there may well call him her beloved Christ is my Christ when he is to me the chiefest of ten thousand Psal 89.6 Who among the sonnes of the mighty can be likened to the Lord. And Exod. 15.11 Who is a God like unto thee When the soule of a man doth esteem of Christ above all other things in the world when there is nothing that the soule so prizes as the Lord Jesus Christ then the soul hath him and herin lies the difference between spiritual earthly things you have an high esteem of an earthly thing and yet have it not a man may highly prize a good bargain and yet have it not but no man sets an high price upon Christ but hee that hath him spirituall things we wholly neglect untill we have them and when we have them then there oisn-thing with us comparable to them untill a man have his portion in the word of God it is but a thing of small value to him and so the Spirit of Gods grace and the blood of Christ untill a man have it it is but a light vaine thing to him yea till he have the Lord Jesus himselfe no spirituall thing is of any value with him but so soone as ever the heart begins to prize Jesus Christ as the chiefest of all the blessings that ever God bestowed upon the sonnes of men and if the soule thinke To prize Christ is to worship him that had he but his part in Christ he were the happiest man in the world in thus prizing him he worships him and in worshipping him hee hath him Now you must conceive that all worship stands in advancing another with the debasing of our selves we humble our selves that we may advance another Now if our debasement to them be such as is not compatible to a creature as when we subject our heart and spirits to them this is divine honour Now that soule that exalts the Lord Jesus Christ as the highest in his owne esteem he debases himself to the dust in his spirit before him John 1.27 It is the speech of John Baptist speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ He that commeth after me is preferred before me whose shooe latchet I am not worthy to loose This is a true worshipping of Christ when in
glory of his name in the defence of his truth and from his owne hand it deares us not we sit downe quietly under the hand of Christ as knowing whose hand it is that is upon us it is a worship of Christ and we debase our selves to worship him when we acknowledge that it is no matter what becomes of us so the will of God be done this is true worship of Christ 1 Sam. 3.18 it was a good Testimony of Elies sincerity when he heard of the wofull Judgment that God would inflict upon his houshould when Samuel had made an end of expressing the whole Judgement saith he it is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good in his owne eyes wherein he fitly expresseth the poynt in hand It is the Lord let him therefore do what he will we have the Lord for our Lord and he is a Lord to us when we give him leave to rule us the Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away blessed be his name Job 1.20.21 this shewes the subjection of Jobs will to God If he see it good to take all away as he sometime saw it good to give it all this patient submission of the heart to God is an undoubted argument that we have the Lord for our God had we not him for our God the heart of man would so grudge at this that evill which befalls us and would bitterly fall upon Instruments and weary heaven and earth with our moanes and cryes But I held my peace and said nothing for thou Lord hast done it Psal 39.19 a signe we have him for our Lord when in all his providences we acknowledge his good hand in it and he is our Lord if we can so sit downe and not murmure nor grudge against him according to that you read Lam. 3.29 the church complaining of her misery he tells you the frame of her spirit in such a temper the soul now sits alone and keeps silence He hath learned to bear Gods yoake he is yoaked to the will of God to his Commandements to his providence and he puts his mouth in the dust if there may be any hope he is content to lye downe under the hand of God grudges not at it but in quietnesse and silence of heart bears Gods yoak and God is then the God of our Salvation when we keepe silence before him Psal 62.1 this is a solemne worship of God when in the midst of trouble we can quietly sit down when the soul can say I wil bear the indignation of the Lord Mica 7.8 9. when we see the Lords hand in all the punishments and Judgments that befall us and we bear it willingly this is solemnly to worship him and to be wrought upon as clay in the hand of the Potter and in thus doing we have him And if the case should be that we should come to suffer for the name of Christ it is so far off from being matter of murmuring to a Christian man as that he suffers not only patiently but joyfully and if any man suffer for the name of Christ as a Christian let him glorifie God on that behalfe for the spirit of Glory and of God shall rest upon him 1 Pet. 4.14.16 When a man thus worships God patiently submitting himselfe to him and gives up himselfe in his way to be quieted by him this is a true worshiping of Christ and whoever thus worships him hath him though we cannot yet tell whether we have faith or no whether repentance or no whether any true love to God or no yet if we can finde this in us that in our hearts we thus worship the Lord Jesus so highly prize him as the chiefest of ten thousand c. In so doing we worship Christ and in worshiping him we have him but on the other side if we so look at Christ as we can prefer ten thousand other things before him and can sit downe quietly without him if we looke at Christ as a refuse commodity no worth the cheapening and we looke at our selves as the great Omegaes of the world and we would not have our names blemished with seeking after Christ but have greater businesse then that to looke after and we wil be our owne carvers if so then we do not worship Christ and then we have him not and so no redemption by him SERMON II. 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life BEcause in Scripture phrase there are more wayes of having Christ requisite for the knowledge of every soul I thought it therefore not amisse to open those other wayes by which in Scripture we are said to have Christ Secondly as therefore we have him first by worshiping of him so secondly we have him by purchase this way of having Christ is expressed to us partly in the parable of the Merchant man Matth. 13.46 Who when he had found a pearle of precious price he sold all that he had and bought it that is one way of having Christ to purchase him to buy him you have the like also held out in Esa 55.1.2 every one that is a thirst come and buy without money or without price wherein the Holy Ghost calleth upon us to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in his ordinances and he makes a solemne proclamation to all to come to these waters and buy without mony Without mony why without mony or how without mony It is true should a man offer his house full of Treasure for Christ it would be despised Cant. 8.7 and when Simon Magus offered to buy the gifts of the Holy Ghost for mony it was rejected with a curse Act. 9.8 9 10 and if the gift of the Holy Ghost cannot be bought for mony how can the Lord Jesus Christ be bought for mony And yet thus much I say that many times without laying out of mony he cannot be had without parting with money we cannot get him the case so stands that sometimes the holding fast a mans mony le ts go the Lord Jesus Christ you have a famous example in the young man Matth. 19.21 to 24. Where our Saviour shewes how hard a thing it is for a rich man to enter into the Kingdome of Heaven because it is hard for a rich man to part with all that he hath when God calls for it at his hands so that without mony sometimes Christ cannot be had And yet for mony he cannot be had it was upon the point of mony that the Lord Jesus parted with the Pharisees Luke 16.11.12 If you be unfaithfull with the mammon of iniquity who will trust you with true treasure if you use not outward things well who will give you saving grace in Jesus Christ so that sometimes for want of spending of money in a right way many a man looses the Lord Jesus so that though Christ cannot be had for money yet sometimes without expence of mony he cannot be had For opening of
Phil. 1.23 Though the other be a lawfull desire but chiefly his desire is that he might see Christ whom from his first conversion he hath most loved and in whom he hath lived all his life and now to be wholly possessed of him and wholly acted and swayed by him not that he might have his heart filled with joy but that he might be with Christ not only as chiefest of ten thousand persons but as the chiefest of ten thousands benefits of God that should God give us pardon of sinne his Word and Sacrament and victory over all our lusts strength of every grace of God and everlasting life and therewith fellowship with all the blessed Saints and Angels yet to us Christ is the chiefest of them all none greater then the gift of Christ and this is the sincerity of a Christians soule he desires more any benefit for Christs sake then Christ for any of his benefits sake for he whose heart is set upon Christ more then upon the pardon of sinne or salvation that soule hath Christ and life in him he that hath Christ in his eye and heart above all blessings he indeed is a true Christian and hath Christ Reas Christ must so be had and we must so receive him as God gives him now God gives us first Christ in all his Ordinances and then in Christ all other things all benefits in and through Christ Act. 8.35 We preach to you Jesus we offer you him all lusts layed aside all sinfull corruptions put away whatever separates between God and us that being done away We now offer you Christ and in Christ plentious redemption but if we be without Christ we are without true life As in the Sacrament first you have the body and blood of Christ set before you Matth. 26.26 and then sealed up and confirmed to you in the Sacrament and together with that justification and further degrees of the sanctifying spirit and further pledges of everlasting life and glory No benefit but it s conveyed through him Christ first and then the benefit It is true Herod received joy but Foelix trembling and Jehu zeale but none of these received Christ they received the huske but wanted Christ they had the shell but not the marrow and kernell within they received the benefit but Christ they did not receive and for want of him they had no life at all Simon Magus hee beleeved Acts 8.13 but he had no lively faith because he would receive the benefit but Christ he minded not to receive Unlesse the heart be knit to Christ and the soule more seek Christ then pardon of sinne or subduing of lusts he hath no life in truth he that hath the Son he hath life not so he that hath the gifts and benefits of the son But Christ first and in having Christ we have all Christ must be received as God gives him we must acknowledge there is no life in any grace but in Christ Hos 14.8 On me is your fruit found and without me can you do nothing John 15.5 Now then carry this truth home with you and gather from hence a true estimate of your own estates whether you may judge of your selves as living or dead Christians Upon our having or not having of Christ depends our having or not having of life How will you know whether you have life or no you say you have Christ how know you that Whether is your hearts more set upon Christ then the gifts of Christ Whether do you labour more for gifts or for Christ himselfe And if you finde this that in the truth of your hearts you come not to the Ordinances but to find your beloved there not out of unclean and wanton spirits but to seeke him whom your soule most desires whose favour and countenance you would rather behold then to hear the voyce of a pleasant singer and you are not satisfied with any thing unlesse you find him then shal you find life in so coming to the Ordinances Can. 3.1 2 3. By night in my bed I sought him whom my soule loved c. The bed was the Temple wherein God did reveale himselfe in his Ordinances and disperse himselfe to his people in the bed of his love Shee came to the Temple not to seek any of the Preists and Levites there She goes indeed to the Watch-men and makes her moane and complaint to them that she could not finde Christ in his Ordinances and she durst not rest upon their opinions but saith have you not seen him whom my soul loveth can you tel me any newes or give me any intelligence of my beloved Saviour Thus she inquires of the Watch-men And from them she goes to the Daughters of Jerusalem to her Christian friends and chargeth them to tell him that she is sick of love Now if thus to desire him is to find Christ then there is no more to be doubted of in such a case as this But the heart thus seeking him in his Ordinances and the affections gon after him there more then after any of his benefits then in truth we have the Sonne he could not have our hearts if we first had not him And therefore it is a strong evidence we have him because our hearts are set upon him We search for nothing so much as for him This is part of the meaning of that place in Psal 73.25 Whom have I in heaven but thee or in earth in comparison of thee he desires nothing more then him neither peace of conscience nor joy in the Holy ghost nor any thing so cheifly and principally as God but if wee have a longing affection after pardon of sinne and peace of conscience and assurance of salvation after subduing of lusts and growth in grace these be blessed desires and usually upright and sincere but there may be hypocrisie even in these very desires and in using the meanes to attaine these for sometimes by this meanes we seek Christ and him in his Ordinances not so much for himself as for the benefits we have by him which is a spirit of harlotry As in a woman that it may bee hath a strong affection to match with such a man but it is but that hee might pay her debts and that she might be well provided for for the world and that he might be availe and a protector to her these be lawfull ends to aime at but if it be only and cheifly for these ends it is not true conjugal affection for if another man could do this for her as well as he she could make choyce of another as well as of him and she desires him not for his but for her own ends And just so it is alike in this case If a man desire the Lord Jesus Christ to this end that he may have his sinne pardoned and be furnished with grace though these be spirituall ends yet so much as wee prize the benefit above Christ so much are we halting in the truth of our affection to him If
a woman in true conjugall affection looke at no more but at the very bare man True love to Christ wherein it is if there be true love in her towards him she is content to have him though she have nothing else but his person so if our hearts be truly set upon Christ we are content to have him though wee should never see good day with him though wee should never see peace of conscience with him though no comfort of grace in him yet would the soule say that is truely affected to Christ give me Christ and I have enough who or what is there besides Christ What is there Why there is variety of excellent graces But whom have I in earth but thee As if ye should put all other things in comparison against or with Christ they are nothing to him then surely you have Christ But how much will this discord from the fellowship of Christ the Sonnes and Daughters of men who when they see the costlinesse of the wayes of Christ they will neither seeke after Christ nor his benefits But as for pardon of sin as it passeth all understanding so it passeth their desires And for peace of conscience they hope they have a good conscience or if not they doe not search to know it and as for the graces of the spirit and subduing of lusts they have a good hope and beleive as well as the best And for the Kingdome of glory they hope if God grant them mercy they shall come to heaven at the last These men are far from having the Lord Jesus and life in him they are so far off from seeking the Sonne as that they do not so much as seek those mercies and benefits which in Christ are conveyed to their soules they neither have him nor none of his They say to the Almighty depart from us for we desire not the knowledg of thy law Job 21.14 of such God saith They would have none of me Psal 81.11 not only have him but none of him that is nothing that was his not any saving benefit of his the world we would have but none of those choyce and heavenly blessings of Christ no pardon of sin no peace of conscience no care of Christianity or faithfull Ministery no feare of God nor keeping of his Commandements deare hearts for us how shall we ever conceive that ever we should have life in Christ when we doe not so much as desire the very benefits of Christ which yet a man may desire and loose all too and when a man hath not so much as an affection to the things of Christ it is very dangerous But secondly when a man is in this case that there is a desire in a man after the benefits of Christ more then after Christ himselfe all this while you want that sincerity upon which Christ wil give us a comfortable meeting and speake peace to our soules we are not yet come to that condition as in which he wil say My wel-beloved thou art all faire and there is no spot in thee he yet sees not a true conjugall affection in us towards him so as that though we should never finde grace nor glory by him yet he is the chiefe desire of our soules Suppose a woman should see a man that hath a desire after her but he chiefly aimes at her estate to provide for himselfe and looks no further wonder not if she should say to him You seek not me but mine she may wel rid her hands of him in such a case and truly so is the case here between us the Lord Jesus so long as he findes that we come to him and seek and pray and wrastle and what would we have Oh pardon of sinne and peace of conscience and power of grace to be but as other Christians are that we could pray and beleeve as they doe and finde such comfort as they have and this is the thing that the soule is chiefly set upon now all this while that we come thus to Christ we must not think that Christ is to blame if he tarry a little longer then we expect for we may seek him and not finde him because we seeke not so much him as his benefits and the rich treasures of grace and mercy and peace that are layed up in him without measure the greatest part of the world doe not love their soules nor the Lord Jesus so wel as to love him for his grace and goodnesse sake but yet among better men there is a world of selfe love many a man would have his sinne pardoned because he would have his conscience at quiet we may thanke our selves for such affections as these not but that such affections may spring from the grace of God for men by nature never dreame of such things as these be but yet though such affections may spring from the grace of God yet you shall ever finde such soules to detaine the grace of God in unrighteousnesse and out of selfe love use them all to their owne ends and looke not that God may be glorified in and by them nor that his wil be done but oh that the soule might have peace and that sinne might be pardoned and there it rests When our desires is chiefly set upon spirituall gifts if wee loose much comfort and fellowship with Christ that else we might have had we must not marvell at it for our desires are set not chiefly upon Christ but upon the things of Christ our desire is not after the person but after the goods and benefits of Christ Observe the Apostles expression Rom. 8.32 He hath given us his owne Sonne he doth not say he that hath given us peace and pardon of sinne will not he give all other things also Or wil not he give us Christ He reasons not from Christs benefits to Christ but thus he reasons He that hath given us his owne Sonne will with his Sonne and after his Sonne give us all other things At the second hand comes in all these benefits of pardon of sinne and strength of grace and power against our lusts c. these things come in as attendants upon the former and therefore if God give us first to looke at Christ that in him we have life of justification and sanctification and consolation eternall glory peace and grace and all then we have him and life in him else we may have the outward comforts but stand long enough at Christs Bed-chamber doore before he let us in Let it therefore be a word of direction and exhortation to every soul that desires to have that truth of life and peace and grace wrought in his heart that wil never dye have you respect chiefly to the Lord Jesus Christ and long and seeke more after him then after all Spirituall blessings and much more above all worldly blessings If you shall therefore refuse Christ because you thinke he is but a melancholly person you wil never have him if you stand upon
such terms if you wil not have him unlesse he be thus and thus qualified then let him alone never talke of him rest not in looking after any of his benefits it is a good thing to looke for such benefits as accompany Christ but rest not there content not your selves in such wrastlings never thinke you are of a right spirit and that you have a lively life and such as by which you shall maintaine constant fellowship with God unlesse you finde your hearts longing after Christ My soule is a thirst for the living God Psal 42.1 2. Let your hearts be chiefly set upon him for his owne sake you can tell what it is to set your affections more upon a person then upon their estate and you must know that your affections are more set upon Christ then upon any benefit he hath unlesse you finde Christ more then his gifts you shall finde little peace in your way you must see that all even the worst of his things are beautifull and comly and is more to be desired then Gold is sweeter then the Honey or the Honey-combe he that thus hath the Sonne he hath life the Sonne of God God and Man as he is our Son and our Saviour let the desire of your soule be unto him and your affections run out after him be you for him and then he wil be for you Hos 3.2 3 4. Stand not so much upon this what Christ wil be for you but be sure that you be for him let friends and all goe and be sure you be only for him Though Christ love us first yet he wil make us no assurance of his love to us till he see us love him and if we chuse him first before and above all his benefits then we shall have him make him then your assurance and your Kingdome shall not be shaken thinke not that he wil make you a feoffement before you be married to him but we must be content to come to him and take him as he is and stand upon no conditions with him You must not looke for assurance of Christs benefits till you have himselfe and if you chuse him then you shall have assurance to your soules that he hath chosen you first you cannot aske more then hee wil give but first you must have himselfe he wil give you a kingdome but you must first be a little flocke all is yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods Thus chuse him above all his benefits and you shall have him and life in him SERMON V. 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life FRom the second part of the words He that hath the Sonne there are three sorts of Heads of notes drawne One is already handled to wit That such as have the Sonne they have not so much nor doe so much stand upon nor so much desire the benefits of the Sonne as the Sonne himselfe This is the Spirituall life of a Christian while some men labour more for Spirituall gifts then for Christ himselfe the true Christian is only for him and let his gifts goe we now come to the second head of notes from the word SONNE A man is said to have the Sonne when he hath the spirit of the Son A man is said to have Christ when he hath the Spirit and therefore you may read 2 Cor. 3.17 Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty and the Lord is that Spirit viz. He had spoken before of a Spirit of righteousnesse and of the Spirit of grace dispensed in the Ministery of the Gospel now the Lord is the Spirit not only so called because he is the Giver of that Spirit and Grace but also as there is a secret fellowship between Christ and the Spirit so that have one and you have both have not the Spirit of Christ and you have none of Christ Rom. 8.9 If a man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his And notable to this purpose is that in Gal. 4.6 Because ye are sonnes God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Sonne into your hearts and verse â— He redeemed them which were under the Law that we might receive the adoption of sonnes Implying that to whomsoever Christ came for into the World to save and redeeme all those have fellowship with the Son and into all their hearts he hath shed abroad the spirit of the Son So that look how Christ is and was in this world so are we in the world hee that hath the Sonne hath the spirit of the Son Now that I may the better open this point unto you because it is of speciall use for our direction in a Christian course There is a Threefold spirit of a Son A threefold spirit dispensing himself three wayes and bestowing a threefold gift upon us which gives us the Lord Jesus Christ to be ours and us to him to be his First A spirit that doth knit us to the Lord Jesus Christ and him to us Secondly A spirit of liberty Thirdly A spirit of prayer These three the Holy Ghost takes special notice of in this case First The spirit of God wheresoever it is shed abroad in any member of Christ it doth make us one with the Lord Jesus it unites us into one fellowship of nature a likenesse in affection and disposition and a likenesse in all the graces of God as John 17.21 our Saviour prayes the Father that all those whom he had given him might bee one with him as thou and I art one thou in me by thy spirit and I in thee by the same spirit and this spirit is such as makes not onely mee one with thee but them also one with mee and they also in like sort one with another it makes us and Christ us it were one Hence it is that as soone as we receive him we of his fullnesse receive grace for grace Joh. 1.16 There is a conformity between Christ and us one and the same Image stamped upon us both Rom. 8.29 a like in grace a like in affection and in continuance of affection a like in every thing For a little further clearing of the point The same spirit of Christ being shed abroad into the heart of every one that hath Christ doth worke a threefold conformity or likenesse betweene Christ and us First A threefold conformity between Christ and his A likenesse in Nature Secondly A likenesse in Offices Thirdly In Estate both of humiliation and exaltation And all this is done by the mighty power of the spirit of Christ First For the Nature of Christ by the precious promises of God which are made unto us The first Conformity and which the Holy Ghost doth apply to us We are made partakers of the divine nature 2 Pet. 1.4 There is a likenesse and a participation of the divine nature and we are made partakers of the like grace in Christ Jesus and that grace for grace
a spirit of liberty to have the heart set free from all feares it is the summe of all security he hath redeemed us That we might serve him without feare all the dayes of our lives Luk. 1.74 75.78 We are free from feare of Death and Hell and of the World and we doe not feare what flesh can doe unto us Psal 3.5 6. his meaning is That the feares of men should not breake his sleep but he would walke in a child-like confidence before God and man and he would lye him downe quietly and sleepe securely though ten thousand had compassed him round about and the like you read Psal 56.3 What time I am afraid I will trust in thee And vers 11. In God will I put my trust I will not be afraid what man can doe unto me It is an usuall phrase with David and the usuall frame of the spirits of Gods people and this kinde of holy tranquillity of heart and liberty to walk with even nesse and comfort of soule against all the feares of this and another world this kinde of inward liberty from all feare Naturall property of a son is the naturall property of a Sonne a sonne never greatly feares ill measures from his Father all his care is to approve himselfe to his Fathers will and then he knowes his Fathers care is more for his owne provision and protection then his owne can be and if at any time he fall short of doing his Fathers will he makes his peace with his father upon as good termes as he can and there he rests but this is his fathers will and you need not possesse him of that and if he be a sonne he will looke for protection from his father A childe of God knowes his heavenly Father will support him and he feares not what sinne and Hell and the Grave and Death can doe unto him he feares not persecution nor sword nor famine the Lord is with him and he feares none of them I am perswaded saith Paul that in all these we are more then conquerours Rom. 8.37 38. this is the liberty of the spirit of a sonne Now as there is by the Spirit in the heart of the Childe of God liberty from all feare of sinne Liberty from power of sin so he hath liberty from all the power and dominion of sinne he is not subject to the dominion and bondage of sinne sinne hath not that power over him as to carry him captive to it but he walkes at liberty Psal 119. and therefore at liberty because he is not under the law but under grace Rom. 6.14 And notable is that speech in Chap. 8.2 The law of the spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the law of sinne and of death The spirit of life viz. That spirit of life which hath a legall power in it a power like a law and hath a ruling power over me as the law hath and in both these respects called A Law of God A kinde of spirituall life because there is a lively spirit in him And this law of the Spirituall life of Grace hath freed me set me at liberty from the law and trade of sinne and of death sinne and death set him a course and trade which this Law of the Spirit of life hath set him free from so as that he is but a bungler in sin now not now learned in the law of sinne as sometimes he hath been but the Law of the Spirit of life hath freed him from the skill of sinne and from the command of sinne the law of sinne hath had a soveraigne power over him but now he is freed from the act and trade of sinne and now he walkes at liberty even from the dominion and usurpation of sinne time hath been when nothing would withhold him and he could have followed evil company and unlawfull games they were as lawfull to him as to any and he had no power to resist them but now the Law of the Spirit of life hath helped him against them all this is another part of the spirit of liberty a liberty from the bondage and dominion of sinne and it is a marvellous comfortable liberty indeed many a vallourous spirited man hath so little feare of death that he rushes upon the Pikes as the Horse into the Battell as if it were their meat and drinke but yet he wants this liberty he is not at liberty from feare of danger by the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ but as Aristotle saith valiant because ignorant of the danger And besides such a naturall man though he be of a magnanimous spirit in respect of fear of danger yet such a man is often captivated of many base lusts and sinfull courses and is not able to resist ill counsell nor ill company whereas a godly man is free from all these free from the bondage and dominion of sinne and all the law of sinne he looks at it as a cobweb-law which hee may easily breake through and accordingly doth so and overcomes all his former sinfull lusts Freedome from sins Service Thirdly There is another frame of this spirit of liberty as it is the Spirit of the Sonne it frees us from the service of men 1 Cor. 7.23 Not that it forbids civill subjection not so to make men free but if God have called you a servant live as a servant 1 Cor. 7.12 to 20. but use your liberty the rather if you can but if you must needs be a servant then know that he that is a servant is the Lords free man but be not ye the servants of men that is though you owe and doe your bodily service to men yet towards God walk at liberty and if thy labour be great and thy reward little yet doe thy service and looke for more wages at the hand of Christ Col. 3.23 then from men in serving men serve Christ and therefore goe about your Masters service not with eye service but in singlenesse of heart serving the Lord and not men in serving of men they do faithfull and diligent service to the Lord and therefore they do it willingly and not grudgingly but in much quietnesse of spirit and are more free for Christian duties and have more quiet time for seeking God then ever after 1 Cor. 7.22 He that is married careth for the things of the world And it is true he that is most free is but a servant to Christ but a free servant though But he that is a servant is the Lords free-man the meaning is not only to doe the worke of his owne service with a free spirit but he is not onely a free man when he is most bound but then hee goes about the service of God with much more liberty of spirit then when he is his own man It is oft times wonder to see servants being called what care they will have of Christian dutyes what time they will steal to call upon God and to examin
themselves Note this and what a grief it is to them to see this and that duty neglected in the family and they are very free to God But afterwards when they come to be Free men and are for themselves that they may now have as much liberty as they will pray when they will and take what time they will to instruct those that are about them which time they wanted when they were servants and which they then mourned under And yet whereas then they would serve God with much freedome and liberty of spirit were then free from the law of sinne and free for any duty There is now a secret kind of bondage come upon them their hearts is more imbondaged and insnared and imcombred and intangled and so dutyes come not to be performed either with that constancy and care or not with that inlargement of heart as they were when they were servants And therefore that is the reason why the Apostle bids them not bee over-ready to challenge freedom But this shewes you that there is a marvellous liberty even in those that are servants they are free from the service of men in their hearts and consciences and then most at liberty to serve God when they are most bound to serve men yet in their hearts and consciences they are free from their service they are not bound in conscience to doe any thing but what is the will of God and this is a marvellous great freedom that a man is not bound to become a slave to other mens wil and to do as other men do he is not bound to do any thing that is unlawfull and this is a spirit of liberty that makes even a servant to have a spirit of freedome he is a Free-man his heart is free to Gods Service and this is from nothing else but from this spirit of a sonne a spirit of liberty Now on the contrary side as by this spirit of liberty a Childe of God is free from the feare of sinne so he hath a certaine kinde of priviledge of peace in his soule and of freenesse and readinesse to every Christian duty and also he hath a certaine priviledge of dominion over all the Creatures It is the nature and proper definition of liberty Freedome from evil and liberty unto the enjoyment of some good things it sets me free from sinne and gives me liberty and peace of conscience from the same Spirit of the Lord Jesus it sets me at liberty to run the way of Gods Commandements Psal 119.32 And Gods people are a willing people Psal 110.3 This is indeed a spirit of liberty it inlarges me to dominion over men no Creature in heaven or in earth but a Christian is able to rule him to his owne advantage a Christian servant wil turne his Masters government to his advantage and so all his enemies tyranny he will be sure to be better by them all and he wil grow and thrive in his spirit by all the dangers and evils that can befall him in this world I know not in what better to instance then in that of Gen. 25.23 The Oracle of God said to Rebecca the elder shall serve the younger And this is a thing in much dispute among Divines wherein this was ever made good and say That Esau was never a servant to Jacob for you shall finde in the 32. and 33. Chapters of Genesis that Jacob uses this word My Lord Esau and beseeches his Lordship to goe before and his servant would follow after and so it stood in their outward condition And Divines say Though the promise be true of the persons both seperate from the Wombe yet the service was not so But we need not straighten our selves for the explication of it for Esaus Lording and domineering over Jacob was as serviceable to Jacobs spirit as if he had layed aside his state and come and served Jacob and kept his Sheep the bitternesse of Esau against him did him more reall service then all the service of all Iacobs servants could reach him Whence was it that Iacob went a Pilgrimage from his Fathers house and that in a strange Country God so prospered him that whereas he went out but with his staffe in his hand he returned back againe with two bands or two droves And whence was it that Iacob made such a solemne Vow to God and kept it in so much faithfulnesse that if God would keepe him in that journey God should be his God for ever Did not all this come from the rage and wrath of Esau towards him Esau did him that good service and when he came back againe and heard newes that Esau came out with foure hundred men against him and thought to come to spoyle them all what a marvellous service was this to Iacob as you may read Chap. 32. from 9. to the end Esau by this meanes set him on wrastling with God by prayer and therefore wrastles with God all that night and so wrastles that God changes his name upon it Thou shalt not be called Jacob a wrastler but Israel a Prevailer thou hast prevailed with God and thou shalt prevaile with men And now he is past the worst with his Brother and when he meets him expresses much naturall affection and is marvellous glad to see him and offers to help him to drive his flocks to shew you that the very emulation and envie and cruelty and ragings of the enemies of Gods Servants even when they are most incensed against them and most tread them down and insult over them then they doe them the greatest service that is possible to be done through the mighty power of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ that turnes all into contraries that even when men doe most domineere over them then they doe them the best service Looke as it was with the Tyrants of Syria and Aegypt that made waste of Gods people It is a notable speech that in Dan. 11.35 36. It is to purge them and to cleanse them and make them white A Scullion in the Kitchin when he scoures his Pewter when he first takes it in hand you would thinke he would quite spoile it but he but scoures and cleares it up and makes it more bright then it was before the end of all is but to take away the filth and to make it cleare and bright And so an Huswife that takes her linning she Sopes it and bedawbs it and it may be defiles it with dung so as it neither looks nor smels wel and when she hath done she rubs it and buckes it and wrings it and in the end all this is but to make it cleane and white and truly so it is here when as Tyrants most of all insult over Gods people and scoure them and lay them in Lee or Dung so as the very name of them stinks yet what is this but to purge them and to make them white and it is a great service they doe to the people of God in so
doing and this is a great measure of liberty that a Childe of God can tell how to make an advantage of all the afflictions he meets with in this world these things doe but serve his turne and afterward he wil say he could have missed none of them so that this is a second worke of the spirit of the Sonne it is a spirit of liberty Onely take this word for a Conclusion And that is thus much Examine now and try whether you have the Son or no which you may know by your having or not having the spirit of the Son Say then have you the spirit of the Son viz. have you that spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ that makes you to be of one and the same nature with him of the same Offices and same Estate with him can you find this in truth and that with comfort and honesty you may reason this is the frame of my spirit such is the Spirit of Christ And such is the spirit of the godly and if in any thing you faile your spirit is against it do you find that you are in some measure invested with a royall spirit that you can over-come your selves and the temptations of this world and are you able to offer up spirituall sacrifice to God of prayer and praises And doe you finde a spirit of Prophesie shed abroad into you that makes you sensible of and privie to the secret paths of God Doe you finde that Christ was most glorious when he was most humbled and so are you and when you enjoy outward blessings your hearts are not puffed up with them these are not the goodly stones that your hearts and eyes are set upon but you have greater matters then these to minde then I say it is the very Spirit of Christ that makes you to dye with Christ as well as Christ to dye for you he may dye for many men but he only dyes with those that are brought on to the fellowship of his grace if a Spirit of Christ so knit you together that he is yours and you are his then you have the Sonne because you have the spirit of the Sonne because you are sonnes God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Sonne into your hearts but now if there be no proportion no conformity to Christ in holinesse and righteousnesse not patient and meek as he is And though we be not such yet we allow our selves in not being such and are ever and anon starting aside from him And if we have not his Offices nor rule over our lusts nor over the world and we can neither pray nor prophesie and shew forth no spirituall life in our lives cannot deny our selves that wee may shew forth the hidden man of the heart then consider that for the present we have not yet Christ because we have not the spirit of Christ And also if we be not yet free from the fear of death And take no care to be free from the dominion and power of sinne but sinne hath still a power over us like a law and are not yet free from the service of men but as our Masters and Governours say so it must be if we yet know not how to rule men for our own advantage we have not yet received the spirit of Christ wee cannot tell how to serve our Masters with liberty of spirit we know not how to make advantage of them SERMON VI. 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life IT now remaines that we come to shew what it is to have the Sonne by a spirit of prayer but of this we shal have further occasion to speak in the 14 15 and 16 verses and therefore we shall leave it now and speak to it then You may remember we said there was three notes to discern whether we had the Son no. The first was if we desired not Christ for his benefits but cheifly for himselfe The second was If we have received the spirit of the Sonne We now come to speake of a third signe a point more easie to be gathered then the former but though most common yet not to be neglected but being well applyed will bee of speciall use to the edification and salvation of the hearers for every truth in his place is divine and precious The third signe He that hath the Sonne hath him for his Prince And therefore the next note is this He that hath the Son he hath him not only for a Saviour but for his Lord and the Prince A point which upon sundry occasions hath been touched but now to speake of it more fully There is no man that hath the Son but as he hath him for his Saviour so he hath him for his Prince Acts 3 3â— Him hath God exalted with his right hand whom they slew a Prince and a Saviour so that he that hath Christ hath him not only as a Saviour but as a Prince to whomsoever he is a Saviour to them he is also become a Prince it were a wonderfull dishonour to him to save them whom he doth not rule to save them from the power of the grave and to leave them still in their sinnes and unbroken off from their evill wayes it were much dishonor to him It is a dishonour to parents to have children and to have them untaught and unmannerly And God hath given the life blood of his owne Son to purchase us unto himselfe and therefore he would not onely save us but rule us or else we shall never have him for our Saviour So that here is two points to be opened Point 1 First Hee that hath the Sonne hath him for his Saviour Point 2 Secondly Hee that hath the Sonne hath him also for his Lord. It is an usuall saying every man would have Christ for a Saviour but rare are those that will have him for their Ruler and Governour But though the saying be true in respect of the common conceit of men yet in truth I say they are but rare Christians that wil have him for a Saviour so far off are they from desiring him as their Lord. For two things there be that goe to the having of Christ for a Saviour To have Christ for a Savior requires two things First He that will have Christ for a Saviour must look up to him for salvation in all his wayes and distresses we have other Saviours but not him if we looke for salvation else-where Esa 40.22 Look unto me all ye ends of the earth and be ye saved there is no God nor Saviour besides me therefore look to me and be ye saved So that if a man wil have God for his Savior he must look to him from one end of the earth to the other we are at the utmost corner of the earth and if we will be saved we must looke up to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation as David looked towards the Temple at Jerusalem for salvation
your soules did cleave unto then are you indeed borne to a Spirituall life because you are right bred bred of a Promise and of the holy will and pleasure of God but if you finde your selves to be of another frame and you are bowed to walke with God and to reforme your course of life by outward bounds this is not so safe but if your whole man universally be bowed to a godly holy frame and all things are become new new friends new affections new desires if you finde such an universall change then you are right bred Christians and indeed no Christians are right bred but such Christians but if you make a great stirre about the great Reformation that is wrought in you and it is from the good inclination and disposition you have alwaies had you ever had a good minde and in the end you thanke God you have reformed such and such evils as you have been blamed for time was when you could have freely played at Cards and Dice but since then you see the vanity of it Note this and you take better courses and doe now consort your selves with wel ordered and stayed company you had alwaies a good minde to be better but you could not doe it suddenly and so in the conclusion your reformation is but a good inclination or disposition of your minde and if you see that much good hath been wrought upon you by the counsell of such and such friends and by the good example of such and such wise and discreet friends and if you find that there is some strange change in your carriage your course of life is much altered you are not so light and wanton as you were but you take a farre more grave and wise and stayed course and to much better purpose both for Church and Common-wealth wherein you live now I say if you shall goe on and looke for that Spirituall life which only springs from Christ Jesus and wil lead on to eternall glory and therefore rests not in any reformation of your selves till you finde there be such an inward and whole change wrought in you which the heart is wont to speake of to the praise of Gods grace it was Gods will else it could never have been wrought and you could not speak of it till now and you never rest satisfied in such a change as a word of reproofe or counsell that hath wrought such a change or reformation in you that stayed in the outward man or in some affections till you found your hearts to sanctifie the name of Gods grace in the acknowledgement of the word of Promise and of the Spirit of grace making you new that you may bee able to say that in very deed you have Christ and with Christ life and that life which will never decay but wil hold to all eternity And therefore now to speake something of the signes of the life of our Justification Therefore a second sort of signes Signes of spirituall life from the effects of it is taken from the effects of Spirituall life you see what is the causes of it as the good pleasure of God the word of promise and the Spirit of grace these be the first sort of signes Now a second sort of signes is from the effects and fruits of life and herein take notice of some fruits of your life of Justification Life of Justification it is a principall part of our Spirituall life to have our sins forgiven Blessed is the man whose iniquity is pardoned and to whom the Lord imputeth no sinne Psal 32.1 2. And therefore it is that forgivenesse of sinne is called justification then God accounts us righteous and this is called Justification of life Rom. 5.18 because in the pardon of our sins is our life As when a Malefactor by the Law is condemned he is by the Law a dead man and if his Pardon come his pardon is his life and it is so indeed So is it in this case the pardon of our sins is the very life of our soules and if God give us to finde that life there is no feare of the life of our Sanctification or Consolation c. The first effect then that flowes from the pardon of our sins is some inward peace of Conscience Inward peace flowes from pardon of sins some inward refreshment and satisfaction yeelded to the heart that it could never attaine to before for sinne may be pardoned in the sight of God and yet that pardon is not manifested and declared to my soule untill God vouchsafe me some measure of peace and a manifestation of the free pardon of my sins I can have little rest it is a notable saying Rom. 5.1 Being justified by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ A man justified is one that hath his sins pardoned for what was it that all our life time before made us afraid of Gods displeasure and we had much disquietnesse about our estates Oh the sinne of our soules that we had committed all our life long the sinne committed many a day agoe that now lay heavie upon our soules and the want of pardon lay as heavie as our sins but now if God come and say Thy sins are pardoned then followes a sweete tranquility of peace in the soule A matter that Philosophers have talked of to quiet the minde to lull men asleep and with applying remedies did stupisie for a while and take off the heavie burthen or the sence of the burthen rather then the burthen it selfe but so soone as ever God pardons sinne there is shed abroad a spirit of peace in our soules and sometimes in that unspeakable measure as that it passeth the understanding of a man to conceive Note this Phil. 4.7 But I doe not so conceive that every Christian as soone as ever his sinne is first pardoned hath such an unconceiveable peace in his soule but he findes a great deale of ease sometimes as if you had thrown a Milstone from off his body notable is that expression in Esa 32.17 The work of righteousnesse shall be peace and the effect of righteousnesse quietnesse and assurance for ever He speakes of that righteousnesse whereby we stand righteous before God and the imputation of Christs righteousnesse to our soules The worke of righteousnesse shall be peace from this worke and effect you may gather what the causes of it is blessed are such it is quietnesse and assurance for ever Not that there is an everlasting sence of that peace for the sence of it is sometimes obscured for want of watchfulnesse and want of experience in the wayes of godlinesse and sometimes through the buffetings of Sathan or desertions from the hand of God and so many times our peace may be over-clouded and the sence of it taken away but the worke of righteousnesse is peace if sinne be pardoned peace will follow upon it and the fruit of this righteousnesse is quietnesse and assurance for ever the heart
also The life of Justification you heard hath these three effects or fruits in the heart Peace Quietnesse and Assurance for ever Care to keepe our conscience pacified in some measure carefull to maintaine that peace we have had so much ado to get And also love of God according to the abundance of sin that hath been pardoned to us We are now speaking of the effects of life and now to speake of the effects of the life of our sanctification Life of Sanctification Hee that hath the Son hath life not only in the pardon of his sin but he hath likewise the graces of Gods spirit which are the life of sanctification A frame of grace wrought in the soule which is the life of holinesse Now because Sanctification is found partly in the heart and partly in the life Let me now shew you some such effects of spirituall life as are found in the heart of a Christian And breathe forth themselves in his life by those habits and gifts which are principally within And the sum of what I shall now say is thus much There are certaine variety of the graces of God in themselves so different and opposite As that in nature they are seldome compatible to one person at one and the same time or least of all to be found in one and the same businesse And yet are found where ever the heart of a man is sanctified by the Spirit of grace where you have the life of sanctification in a Christian you shall finde variety of graces in them some of them of such diversity and opposition one to another that in nature the like temper is not to be found in one person at the same time and in the same businesse They are certaine kind of conjugations or companions of grace so fitted and joyned together in the heart of a man as that nature is not able to compact such sanctified affections unto such uses upon any occasion much lesse able to bring them forth upon any occasion they are so different in themselves to name some of them in particular First if you looke at the grace of God as it workes in the heart Ioy and griefe in the soule sanctified at once and exercises it selfe in the conversion of a sinner you shall finde that when the soule discernes any life of grace in its heart that sin is now pardoned and God is pleased to frame it anew and to give it a new life at that time the heart is taken up with these two contrary effects it is both inlarged with no small measure of joy that ever God should redeeme him from such a desperate condition as his soul lay in and yet withall full of grief of heart that ever he should have so much displeased that God that hath done so much for him and so plaine as that you shall evidently discerne the voyce of your own joy from the voyce of your owne griefe I know not better how to instance in it then to fetch a resemblance from the returne of the Children of Israel from captivity to Ierusalem read Psal 126.2 3 4. When God turned the captivity of his people this was their affection then was their mouth filled with laughter and their tongue with singing c. Now the same people that so rejoyce to see themselves redeemed by the Arme of the Lord when they doe rejoyce to see themselves set at liberty from the captivity they doe at the same time as sadly grieve and weepe to consider the unkindnesse they have put upon God and their unworthinesse of such a mercy from him as you may read Jer. 50. 4 5. speaking of the same people and of the same time their return from the captivity and he tels you They shall come going and weeping shall they goe and seek the Lord God and aske the way to Zion with their faces thitherward If the Psalmist speakes of it he saith they were out of and beyond themselves for joy as in a comfortable dreame the newes seemed to be too good to be true and they rejoyced with exceeding great joy and if the Prophet Jeremy speake of the very same people and the same time and the very same action he tells you They goe to Jerusalem weeping they goe to seek the Lord and aske the way to Zion they rejoyce at the greatnesse of the mercy and weep in sence of their unworthinesse of it And truly this kinde of combination shall you finde stirring in every soule that is converted to God when the pardon of its sin is sealed to its heart it breeds a certaine kind of inward joy and comfort in the Lord that hath thus graciously pardoned their iniquity and yet more abundantly mourning for the evils it hath so displeased God with nor is there any mourning so deeply woundeth the soule as that which ariseth from the sight of Christ crucified then the soule mournes full bitterly Zach. 12.10 He wil mourne exceedingly to thinke that he should deale so unworthily against that God that hath all this while had such wonderfull thoughts of peace towards him This is the first combination of graces that is found in the soule after sinne is pardoned and the heart restored to a new life for wee spake before of prizing Christ in our judgements by certaine preparative graces but now we speak of that kind of life of sanctification which puts forth it selfe after some sence of our justification this life of the mixture of joy and mourning beares witnesse to our life of sanctification Secondly in the worshipping of God in those duties of the life of sanctification 2. Joy and feare you shall finde another combination of mixed affections the like of which are not and cannot be found in nature and that is joy and feare according to Psal 2.11 Serve the Lord with feare and rejoyce with trembling A Christian man when he is in a good frame and the life of grace most stirres in his spirit he never comes to an holy duty but with some holy fear and trembling before God before whom he then stands and yet there is no duties he goes about with more comfort and joy then those when his heart is not dead It is true a dead hearted Christian comes to good duties like a Beare to a stake while they are in such a temper if they can shun duties they wil but take the heart of a Christian when it is alive and then they are a willing people Psal 110.3 they come with some inward gladnesse of heart it is the joy of their spirits to heare of an opportunity when they may heare the Word and pray or performe any duty acceptable to God but how when their hearts are most joyful and they goe about duties most willingly yet then most awfully for take you a Christian when he comes unwillingly his heart is not much affected with feare and trembling but then he is most awfull when his heart is in the best frame towards holy duties these
about such duties meerly for themselves they are wanting of this spirituall life So then doe but lay these things together doe you finde a man that is desirous to be doing good duties but is it to please others or is it out of the bonds of authority that lyes upon him Doe you see them have affection to duties but out of their place and calling or in their calling they doe such duties but rather out of their own strength then from the strength of Christ and not out of a conscionable respect to all the Commandements of God or if it be from outward principles and to wrong ends the glory of God not sought after nor tending to the building up themselves nor others in grace all these are such as men may be carried to doe from outward respects they may doe something that one would thinke would argue life but all the duties they doe by their owne strength is like a Spider that weaves a webbe out of her owne bowels we follow not the rule of the Word exactly but are ever wheeling about to our owne ends and to those respects that concerne our selves rather then to the glory of God and the Churches good it is true no man that hath common graces men that have gifts of preaching and gifts of praying may love to act and move them or any other zealous gift but yet notwithstanding you shal finde this to be true that till the heart be sanctified by the life of Christ we ever detaine all the graces of God in unrighteousnesse as the Romans and Gentiles did detaine the truth of God in unrighteousnesse Rom. 1.18 So we by a spirit of ypocrisie detaine all the graces of God in unrighteousnesse and in Hypocrisie whereas God hath given us every grace and the manifestation thereof to edifie himselfe and to glorifie God withall We wonderfully magnifie our selves withall and make our selves goodly in the eyes of men we are full of our selves and thinke we have this and that in us that will serve our turne and reach our owne ends this is not a life of grace but is indeed a dead worke all that we doe and therefore rest not in any such kinde of life and motion But if you finde an inward inclination of soule to Spirituall duties and to those duties in speciall that are pertinent to your place and if they be not within the compasse of your calling you dare not reach unto them and in your calling you do them not out of desire to be seen of men but you are doing good duties out of a sence of your owne inability to reach any duty in your calling much lesse of Gods service and in them all you observe every commandement of God and the ends you aime at are singly that God may be glorifyed and that God may see you and not man that good may be done by you in your places in Church and Family and Commonwealth and that thereby others might be brought on to God and his Kingdome increased this very motion and inclination of your hearts is an argument that you have a stirring spirit to spiritual duties and this is spirituall life in Christ And therefore by how much the more God shall give you an heart to bee doing your works and duties in this order so much the more comfort you shal gather to your souls that undoubtedly Christ hath shed abroad his spirit in you by which you are able to doe that which else you could not have reached unto Quest You say unto me may not a good Christian man have his heart so dead that he is unfit to pray or preach or to instruct his Family or for the duties of his calling fit and good for nothing And is a soule in such a case as this altogether void of spirituall life and sanctification is there not sometimes a kind of a coath come upon a Christian that so benumbs his spirit that he performes no duties at all but if he might have his owne mind he would not pray at all nor receive Sacraments Is not this sometimes the case of Christian and will you say that such an one is a dead soule because he is altogether listlesse and dead-hearted to move to any spirituall duty Answ It is true there may fall such a deadnesse upon the heart of Christian men that they are both unable and unwilling to any spiritual duty Which commonly God leaves his servants unto when he hath found them acting and moving in their own strength and upon their detaining of the graces of God in unrighteousnesse Causes of deadnes of heart and diverting them rather to their own praise in the world then the edifying of the people of God or the glorifying of his own name when God sees we are much of our selves and thinke we can doe much by the strength of grace we have received then God is wont to leave us cold and dead so as we know not in the world what to doe nor are we willing to do any thing The very presence of a duty and the thoughts of it is an horror to such soules in such cases we have been too busie in our own strength and too mighty in the grace we have received and rather aimed at our selves then at him and then no marvaile if God leave us to a world of deadnesse But when God hath thus by this meanes let us see that all our life is in him and that we are dead hearted further then we have life from him then God is wont not to faile but to help us thus farre at the least to looke with a wist and a sad eye upon the forlornnes of our estates and to cry out of our selves O what dead hearted Creatures and dull spirited things are we and bemoane our selves as Paul did Rom. 7.18 I see that in me that is in my flesh Remedies against deadnesse dwels no good thing Sometimes I have a minde to doe good duties but I finde that I have no strength to performe Paul comes to Macedonia and he had an open doore a faire calling to preach but he had no heart to it because he found not Titus his brother there Now when this is the case of a Christian man that he is strait and dead hearted he groanes under the burthen of it and he lookes at it with sad countenance and sees he is not well but is ready to complaine of it now this sence and complaint of deadnesse and using the best meanes to raise himselfe up out of this deadnesse this is an action of Spirituall life It is an act of Spirituall life for a man to be sensible of his owne deadnesse which in time workes the soule of a Christian to a more constant dependance upon Christ for life and makes him more observeable of the Word and more ingenuous and sincere in looking at the glory of God and the Churches good more then his owne and by how much the more we come to this passe and
lye till they be dead in trespasses and sins But above all things have fervent love among your selves forsake not the fellowship you have one with another as the manner of some is Heb. 10.25 26. Love covereth a multitude of sins So as that though there was much evill in Christians before yet their very lying together doth burn out all that superfluity of naughty stuffe that hangs about the servants of God 1 Pet. 1.22 see that ye love one another with a pure heart and fervency of spirit This warmth in Christians it is found in these foure things And thus you see the properties of this life Quest You say but if this were always found in Christian men how comes it to passe then that the servants of God do many times finde their hearts so cold in their prayers and appetite so little to the word and so unprofitable under it How should a man heare so much and profit so little if a man aid digest the word and is it not a common complaint of Christians how much they hear and how little they profit Yea and will not some Christians say he profits nothing at all no not any thing And is it so many times that Christians come together and they are little edification one to another very little profit sit together and talke of matters that little edifie but rather corrupt the spirits one of another how is it then that you say where ever there is life there is heat so such as makes them more lively in Christian duties And it might be objected that Luke 24.32 Did not our hearts burn within us c. A sign that till he came to them and came into conference with them and did rub them up they were very cold hearted and dull spirited and went on their way with much darknesse of soule without life and strength of soule until he came to put life into their spirits Answ It is true many times Gods servants are very cold and benumbed and a cold spirit growes upon them exceedingly so as that they scarce feele any life breathing in their knowledge or prayers or appetites to the Word or love to their Brethren little warmth in any of these partly through want of supplying the life of Gods grace with fit nourishment whereby the heart should grow warme As naturall fire if it be not supplyed with new fewell it will goe out and partly sometimes by pouring cold water upon it which is as much as in us lyes to dampe the fire And we doe power cold water upon this life of grace when we admit of any sinfull lusts in our soules those do marvellously eate out all that life and heate of spirit that sometimes we had in our hearts and sometimes by an excessive use of worldly things which without a very spiritual mind doth clog the soule as much as if you should throw cold water upon a fire it will damp it very much so is this case men sometimes walke in worldly businesses with worldly affections and sometimes give leave to distempered lusts and sometimes neglect to put any fewell to the fire of grace but as soone as ever they find the heart well warmed with some good Sermon or a good Prayer or Conference or the like they thinke this fire wil never goe out and so they begin to neglect it and so either the fire goes quit out or else is so damped as that you can discerne no life no savour or power of Religion there And therefore such a thing may befall Gods servants they may grow dul hearted one way or other as you have heard But yet thus much let me say though this sometimes do befal the spirits of Gods people yet even then when they want burning and chafeing and stirring up there is something in them that argues some life and where is some life there is some heat so much life as there is so much heat is there so much as you take away of your Christian heat so much life you take away And therefore for these two Disciples that went to Emaius It is said when they were talking one with another they were talking of Jesus Christ and upon all the things that befell him in his passion And said Christ to them ver 17. What manner of communication is this and what is the matter that you are thus sad what was it that made them sad was it not an affection of griefe for all the evills done to their Saviour that was life of grace and some heate there was in them that their spirits should be so troubled to see their Elders and Princes and all the people to cry out so bitterly against the Lord Jesus Christ and not to leave him till they had crucified him there was some sad expression came from them upon that occasion And so though it left the outward man sad yet there was something in the heart though full of doubting through unbeleife what this Christ was and what this would come to we hoped this was he that should redeem Israel c. then Christ began to put a little warmth into them by saying ought not Christ to suffer these things v. 24 25. and so he opens to them the Scriptures spoken of himselfe and these words put new life into them and did blow up the spirit and heat of that decaying life which was overwhelmed with griefe and care their hearts was heated yet So that take you a Christian man when he is even in the most disordered framelook how much he hath lost of his spiritual heat so much of his true life if he have left to be warm so much life hath he lost and if his warmth be smoothered his life is smoothered for the present And even as life will shew it selfe in the very sad face of the heart and dejection of spirit that they fall into and sometimes in the deepe sighs and groans of the heart which in such a case it sometimes will breake forth into So a Christian soule when his heate is most damped there is a sad face in his spirit that he discerns all is not well with him his spirit is benumbed his heart in his own thoughts is frozen within him It is a burden to him and a matter of sadnesse to his spirit and therefore hee doth expresse himselfe sometimes with many sad and deep sighs and groanes about his forlorne and lost estate and yet sometimes you shall have his heart even then when his heart is most cold which is worse then the former for you shall sometimes have a Christian soule not onely not affected with sadnesse 〈◊〉 this when his life is smothered within him but vanish away in much empty carnall delights and contentments and rejoycing in those comforts which have no life at all in them A Christian man that hath his life so deaded may come not onely to have nothing left but sadnesse of heart to behold it but hee may loose his sadnesse too and even
as lets thee alone and only puffes thee up and makes thee to thinke goodly of thy selfe if that be all the worke of thy knowledge thou art a dead-hearted Christian if it cause thee to vanish away in empty contemplation and thou therefore talkest that thou mayest let others see thou hast knowledge as well as others and if it be dead and cold and empty and vanish away in empty notion and speculation and dead conference then thy knowledge is barren in goodnesse and that is an argument of no life in thy soule but if there be any truth of life in thy soule thy knowledge is warme and lively thy knowledge that is in thee hath some zeale and that sets an edge upon it and makes it serviceable to God and thy brethren I know not better how to expresse it then from Revel 1.14 15. in the description of our blessed Saviour His eyes were as a flame of fire It is true the eye is lightsome but it doth not burne they are not hot but the eyes of Christ is as a flaming heat and the meaning is Christ is described just according to the state of the Church to whom Iohn was to write as he had feet of brasse when he writes to a Church that though burned in the fire yet the more you burne it the lesse it wasts and the more pure it is and by degrees the more bright so where he speakes to a Church in persecution and it is not consumed then Christ hath feet like brasse but if he write to a Church of Thyatira a Church of a warme spirit then thus faith he that hath eyes like a flame of fire Revel 2.9 meaning the knowledge that that Church had which was full of zeale as wel as of light and according to the measure of its knowledge so it grew more in grace and therefore the workes were more at the last then at the first As their knowledge growes so growes their zeal so that if thou hast that life in Christ which accompanies salvation thy eyes are like a flame of fire full of burning light as well as brightsome knowledge Is thy knowledge such as suffers thee to sit downe barren and though thou knowest that thou oughtest to doe this and that yet thou doest it not then there is no heate and warmth in thy knowledge but if there be true life and warmth in thy spirit thy knowledge stirres thee up to be doing and stirres up others to be doing also and thy knowledge will not suffer thee to let them alone just as Peter and Iohn sometimes said to the high Priests We cannot but speake that which we know and have seene and heard Acts 4.18 19 20. And therefore though they threatned them is perrill of life to speake no more in Christs name yet say they that which we know to be the Truth of God that we must needs speake as Ieremie speakes chap. 20. I could not forbeare The light that was in him was a glowing and warme heate and the Word of God in him was as a mighty fire and it will not suffer him to rest and he must also stir up others So then examine whether there be any heate in thy knowledge if thy knowledge be not according to zeale it will but aggravate thy condemnation Againe examine thy breath whether doest thou breath or no Doest thou smell a good savour in Gods Word when thou doest read or heare it And doest thou smell a sweet savour in the conference of Christian men or doth it stinke in thy nostrils if it be sweet to thee it is well Doest thou pray to God with some kinde of panting after him and thy spirit is fit to faint within thee and thou canst sit downe and bemoane thy selfe to God that thou hast so lost thy selfe then there is breath in thee or canst thou bring out a word to edifie thy brethren it is well but if there be no breath in thee it is an evident signe thou art dead or at least in a deep sleep if thou hast no ability to pray and can relish no ordinance of God and have no kinde of aptnesse to edifie another then either there is no life in thee or else it is much benumbed and therefore either no life or none that is extant in thee And so how dost thou find thy warm affections stand to the Word hast thou a stomach to the Word And hast thou not so much profit by it as to see thou doest not profit and art ashamed of it but if not there is no life in thee And if thou lovest to be disjoyned from thy brethren you are never better then when you are falling off and sitting loose from your brethren if you love to be asunder there is no life in you no life of Religion there for Religion desires to preserve it selfe and love is a principall worke of Religion above all things have fervent love among your selves A man had rather cover a multitude of wicked practises then loose the fervency of his love one towards another And if therefore the Devill throw brands among you and you fal asunder one Christian hangs here and another there in the end while you lye so a sunder the fire goes out and men may bid one another good night and then may you all take your pleasure in sin the truth is then all the life of Religion goes out and every businesse in the Family drawes away and so rests till all the life be lost And therefore if you see men are willing to sit loose and fall off one from another then there is an end of the life and power of godlinesse a bidding of Religion good night And no more profit to be had while such distempers of soule doth last But if you see that men come together as in that ancient famous Vision Ezek. 37. every bone finds out his fellow and joynes with him and then there was a noise and a shaking if you see bones gather bone to his bone then at the next prophecying flesh will come and sinewes and the next prophesie will breath life into them so if men begin to annex themselves one unto another as living brands If one begin to seek out another and to draw together and to lye close together if bone begin to gather to his bone then there is hope of an Host of armed men to stand up for God in good ways then there wil be life and strength and power of godlinesse else make account of it that in very truth there is no life no power of Religion where there is no relishing no closing one with another if therefore you see men closing together and warming one another in the wayes of Gods grace and there is some sence of your owne unprofitablenesse under the Word and if you can digest it turne it into edification of your selfe and others then there is true life in you and having life you have Christ and in him you have life in
of earthly blessings what will they advantage you but chiefly labour to get Christ and then He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life SERMON XII 1 John 5.13 These things have I written unto you that beleeve on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternall life and that ye may beleeve on the name of the Son of God WEE are now come to enter upon the beginning of the conclusion of this whole Epistle wherein the Apostle rehearseth the intention and scope of the whole fore-past Epistle the persons and subjects to whom he writes and the end and scope of his writing These things have I written unto you To whom To you that beleeve on the name of the Sonne of God And he intends a double end First That you may know that you have eternall life Secondly That you may beleeve on the Name of the Sonne of God Now to encourage to this latter end that John aimes at beleeving on the name of the Sonne of God he propounds three motives in the 15 16 17. verses amongst which the last of them is a promise of prevailing with God for pardon and a prevention of falling into the great sinne and so propoundeth certaine incouragements to the end of the Chapter Now at this time we shall treat of the first part of this conclusion which is an expression that John here makes or a description of the persons here spoken to to them that beleeve on the name of the Son of God from the persons to whom John dedicates this Epistle to them that beleeve on the name of the Son of God observe Doct. This Epistle of John was written or directed to beleevers on the name of Iesus Christ This is evident in the text which may be gathered from the beginning of the Epistle in Chapter 1.4 he writes to such who by reading this Epistle might attaine to fulnesse of joy and those are only beleevers who are capable of that mercy and blessing you may gather the same from the three sorts of Christians to whom he writes in particular vers 12. in chap. 2. I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven you and these little children are divided into three sorts vers 13. Fathers young men and babes so that looke at all that Iohn writes to they are such as make a faithfull acknowledgement of God the Father as chap. 4. vers 4. And looke at his second Epistle and that is to the Elect Lady and looke at his third Epistle and that is first to the beloved Gaius and he shewes you what a notable Christian he was he wishes no further prosperity to his body and outward estate then his soule had attained unto his soule was in great prosperity only his body and estate was weake for he was the Host of the whole Church of God so that looke at all Iohns writings and they are all written to them that beleeve on the name of the Son of God And in very deed looke at all the Epistles of all the rest of the Apostles and they are all written to Beleevers if you summe them all up from first to last looke at the Prothesis of every Epistle in the first second and third verses of every Epistle and they are written sometimes to Saints by calling sometimes to faithfull brethren sometimes to the Churches of Christ naturall Sons partakers of the common salvation in a word only to those that were faithfull beleevers in Christ Iesus And when our blessed Saviour himselfe writes he writes to the seven Churches of Asia all of them such as sometime had been eminent and glorious and gracious and amongst the weakest he had a few names even in Sardis that had not defiled their garments chap. 4.3 Now when a man shall consider that all the Apostles doe dedicate all their writings to beleevers and Saints it gives us just occasion of inquiry Quest Wherefore hee writes to these and to these only Answ Now for Answer to which To these he writes in regardof the speciall benefit and helpe that these writings might yeeld to beleevers both to those that then lived What help Johns Epistle yeilds to beleevers and to all other beleevers that should succeed them to the end of the world And those benefits are many and divers As first Teaching Teaching that is one benefit the Churches receive by these Epistles 2 Thes 2.15 brethren stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught whither by Word or by our Epistle This was one end of the Apostles writing their Epistles to the intent they might teach the Church of God sundry things which else they had not known Admonition 2 Another benefit the Churches received from these Epistles was Admonition and putting them in remembrance of the things they had heard things which they did know before and which happily they had forgotten 2 Pet. 1.12 13. I thought it necessary to put you in remembrance Practise 3 And in verse 13. there is a third benefit of them To stir them up to do such things which though they wel knew should be done yet they were dul and slow of heart and stood in need to be stirred up to them 4 Another end of their writings was this Humiliation That sometimes they might Humble and bring low the spirits of those that wer puffed up had not repented of the sin which they had committed 2 Cor. 7.8 I was sorry at the first that I made you sorry but now I am not sorry for it was a godly sorrow so that it seemes the writings of the Apostles did much prevaile with the faithfull people of God and wrought in them such godly sorrow that it was a comfort to the Apostle that he had sometimes grieved them Confirmation in the faith 5 Another end was that so by this meanes they might be strengthened in the faith according to what you read in the words of the Text to them that did beleeve he wrote that they might beleeve meaning that they might be confirmed and established in beleeving Consolation 6 Also to the intent that they might fil the hearts of Gods people with joy in beleeving 1 Iohn 4. according to what you read was effected Act. 15.31 So that see how much help the Church of God hath had by these writings so that they have found much comfort in them And these writings have been the foundation of the faith of Gods people from that time to the worlds end they have ever yeelded matter to the Ministers of the Gospel to preach and expound to the people that by preaching they might bring on men to salvation so that the holy ghost would not have Ministers nor any other to be wise above what is written 2 Tim. 4 16 17. That when these are put into the hand of a faithful Scribe taught unto the Kingdome of God he may be able to
use this two-edged sword of the spirit to all those ends by which we come to be made perfect unto salvation and this is the scope of the spirit of God in Scripture Reason 1. Why they are written to such as beleeve As they serve for those benefits so also for those ends It is taken from the little use which unbeleevers will make of these writings till they come on to beleeving so little that were it not for some beleevers among them whom God had respect unto none of all the Apostles would have vouchsafed to have written any one Epistle to any unbeleever of any Town or Assembly none of them all writes to any but to such as beleeve on the name of the son of God had there been any benefit likely to be expected from unbeleeving Nations some or other would have written to them but from first to last look over them all and observe them whether they be written to particular persons or to particular Congregations or to Churches or Nations they are all written to such as beleeve on the name of the Lord Jesus For it is with the Apostles writings as the Apostle sometimes speakes of prophesie or miracles miracles are for them that beleeve not but prophesie for them that beleeve he doth not deny but prophesie is for them that beleeve not but he speaks by way of opposition to miracles miracles are rather for them that beleeve not and he would have beleevers know it is rather for them to attend unto prophesie then unto miracles so that this is the poynt Observe it as a just ground of the Apostles dealing in these writings Because of the little use that unbeleevers will make of them Take you men that beleeve not and let them read the Word of God over again and againe and yet they receive little instruction from what they read little admonition little stirred up to any goodnesse And you shal not at all find any blessing no saving gift of God can be wrought in the heart without faith and because faith comes not by reading but by hearing therefore the Apostle writes not to them that beleeve not but to such as are beleevers If ever God had intended that the reading of these writings had been effectual to the begetting of faith surely he would have followed them with mighty works as he blessed the preaching of the Gospel in the primitive times with miraculous workes but you shal not read in any Scripture that ever God so farre blessed the Word read to any man or that he ever wrought a miracle to confirme the Word read where the word hath been taught God magnified it much in the first publishers of it til the whole world was convicted And had God been pleased at any time to thinke that these writings should be effectual to convert men to grace surely it had been a notable meanes for the Apostles to have sent sundry Epistles to many Churches to whom they should never personally come But this was their care to goe all over the world to preach here and there all the world over round about the world as much as in them lay which they needed not to have don in case the sending of an Epistle would have served the turne Notable is that speech and famous in this kind Rom. 10.14 to 17. Faith comes by hearing c. So that in very truth because the Apostles did not see of what use their writings might bee to any unbeleevers because all the work that reading could reach unto could not reach to beget and worke saving faith which is the principall scope of preaching therefore they did never addresse themselves to write any of their Epistles to any unbeleever but onely to such as beleeve on the name of the Lord Jesus Object You say But sometimes God hath been pleased to blesse in old time the reading of the Word to the conversion of soules and therefore why may we not expect the like blessing upon the reading of the Gospell in these dayes as well as the Law in former times in Deut. 31.11 12 13. A place much stood upon in this case it was commanded there that the people should come up to Jerusalem and there the Law should be read before them vers 11. that they may heare and learne and feare verse 12. and their children that knew not the Lord may learne to feare the Lord their God Where you see God blessed the reading of the Law not only for the benefit of them that knew it before but their children also that knew not any thing may learn to feare the Lord And if God did so blesse the reading of the Law in former times as a notable instrument to bring on them to beleeve that never knew any thing of Gods word before Surely one would expect that the Gospel which of the two is rather the ministration of the spirit then of the letter or then the Law that it should be as mighty this way for the begetting of Gods fear in men as ever the Law was Answ You shal not read that this was the benefit or blessing that God did accompany the Law withal in ordinary reading of the same But this was a solemn reading once in seven yeares and no oftener or once in fifty years It was a reading at the feast of Tabernacles in the yeare of solemnity as verse 10 11 to 13. In a time of solemne release that was once every seven yeares And what was the reason that then it should have such a more then ordinary blessing Why this year of Release was the acceptable year of the Lord which typed out to them the year of release by the Lord Jesus Christ For he was crucified in one of these seventh years Note this In the year of Jubilee And to make it a type and shadow of what benefit we should have by reading the Word when we should be released from our sinnes by faith in his blood In that solemne reading God gave a more then ordinary blessing to little children those poore ignorant things that usually come to the Congregation and heare much but learn little yet even they in the year of Release when the time comes that God would shadow out to them their release by Christ even then little children that know not any thing shal get some knowledge and fear of God by hearing of those words then read so that it was such a reading as was upon such a solemne year of release as typed out Christs Redemption to shew you that men that are come to a yeare of release from all their sins by Christ they shall heare and know and though they know nothing before now they shall never read but with some profit and some growth in Gods feare And another answer may be this That when he there speakes of reading he speakes not of bare reading reading is some times put for all that expounding and applying that did ordinarily accompany their reading at such a time
of knowledge Was there ever any soul so desperately ignorant think you as to take the place of a Minister and not have skil to read no but these had no knowledge to teach the people the meaning of the Law of God whose lips should preserve knowledge and at whose mouth the people should seek the Law Mal. 2.7 8. Vse 3. To teach all that beleeve on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ diligently to be conversant in the Writings of Iohn and of the Apostles Shall the Holy Ghost have a Pen to write unto us and shall not we have a hand to receive these Writings and by faith to behold and beleeve them Shall he take care to write us Letters from Heaven from the Lord Jesus Christ indicted by the blessed Spirit and written by the hands of faithfull Scribes who were carried to all truth and shall they write them to us to continue to the end of the world and shall not we attend to them These be written to every soule that beleeves in Christ for if written to them that beleeve in Christ then every beleever may say These writings are written to me to thee and to me and therefore let us carefully read and attend to them And therefore doe not neglect a Letter written by such precious Scribes and from the hand of a gracious God that directed them to us but if written to us and for our instruction and learning let us heare and read and obey and looke at them as the chiefest blessings and ornaments of God vouchsafed to us Among all the meanes of grace put up these writings as the Oracles of God for our instruction Rom. 15.4 Whatever was written aforetime was written for our instruction and edification as well as for them that lived in ancient times how much are the Church of Rome to blame that lock up these Epistles from the common people in strange Languages and if they understand not Latine they must not read unlesse with license or in a strange Tongue heavie will the curse of God fall upon them they may as well read a Fable to them as the Scripture yea many times the Priests themselves understood not the Latine that they read it was given to them as a clasped booke they were not able to expound it but say that ignorance in the people is the Mother of Devotion and therefore both fall into the ditch together Quest Vse 4. Serves to be some direction to every carnall man you say if these Scriptures be written but to beleevers will you not allow ignorant carnall men to read this part of the Word of God Ans Even they have thus much benefit by the Word first Carnall men have benefit by the Word whatever is expounded to them from this Word may be effectuall to bring them on to salvation but faith comes by hearing Secondly These Scriptures when they are read they are a profitable and helpfull meanes to get knowledge though that knowledge I beleeve reach not to salvation Thirdly it is a meanes to put people in remembrance of what they know though it be not to salvation And lastly it kindles in them some desires to know these things that they might understand them though that be rare I dare not reckon the Eunuch among the ignorant and unbeleevers Act. 8.30 31. and that were a blessed use if men shall read the Scripture and complaine for that they cannot understand them and shall be stirred up to desire a Guide to help them to see and understand what they before understood not and so be brought on to some knowledge it were a blessed use of the Scriptures And besides they are of this use they are of singular benefit to discover to people what sinne is and open to men what morall and common vertues be and so are a meanes to preserve people in a forme of godlinesse whereby they know that Magistrates are to be obeyed Ministers reverenced Parents honoured Murder not to be committed the Sabbath not to be prophained God only to be worshipped the body of these things they see are to be done and these evils eschewed they are a meanes to keep people in good order and to prepare them to a better understanding of the Ministery of the Gospell that shall at any time be blessed to them so that some profit there is hence to them that want faith but the principall thing the Apostle aymes at is this I write unto you that beleeve on the name of the Son of God But further I say to you that are not yet brought on to beleeve let this be your instruction diligently to attend to what you heare from these words for you may say and truly you may read every day a Chapter or two and read them over againe and againe and spend many houres about them and in prayer too and yet no nearer salvation then at the first I say not not nearer salvation for you are stirred up to many duties but when you see you have read much and prayed much and yet get little hold of the saving grace of Christ how should this provoke all that live without meanes of grace to give diligent heed to that Ordinance of God in which faith to salvation is wont to be conveyed and that is an use that may be of notable efficacy to stirre them up to heare diligently those who are destitute of the knowledge of God let them be the more diligent to seeke after more meanes in the Ordinances of God Vse last It is an use to all those that do indeed beleeve on the name of the Lord Jesus to be not only carefull to read but to read these Scriptures in hope of finding those very blessings for which these Scriptures were written and sent us Were they written that you might be taught truly you make an il use of reading if you know no more at last then at the first you may wel say you are unprofitable if you doe not observe something from your reading and if they were written to stir us up to be doing good you make an il use of reading if it bring not forth some profitable fruits yea if by reading these Epistles you might beleeve and be humbled comforted and your joy might be full in reading then truly you should not rest till by reading you finde some measure of faith strengthened in you to an holy feare of God in whose presence you stand and whose word you take in hand and finde your hearts take comfort from what you doe read since they were writen for your sakes that beleeve and for your sakes onely if you shall be negligent to read them shall you not take this blessed Ordinance of God in vaine and therefore read them and read them diligently and profitably for the blessed ends for which God hath written them that you may finde the blessed fruites of them Now we come to speake of the end for which he wrote them that you might beleeve on the name
as whereby a man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a heart and an heart he hath a minde to draw near to Christ and to become a servant of Christ and yet withal a mind to be hankering after some sinfull lust or other which takes up his minde and which his soule lusteth after and therefore he is unstable in all his wayes sometimes he is for God and sometimes for himselfe ever halting between God and the World but let such men thinke they shall not receive any thing at the hands of God this should have been in the second place Act. 4 Fourthly Faith hath respect unto this to beleeve that what we have asked according to Gods will he will undoubtedly give it us Mark 11.24 Beleeve that you shall receive and you shall receive it meaning so farre as you have commended your Petitions to God in the name of Christ with subjection to the will of your heavenly Father beleeve it that God hath respect to your poore estate and he will doe for you what you desire yea even in those things wherein he seemes to delay an answer but in the meane time for your part make account your prayers are heard in that very blessing you desire for God doth wisely ponder not onely the hearts of the sons of men but all the words of their lips and he knowes the meaning of the spirit in the hearts of his children And though wee must expresse our selves in words in our desire of this and that blessing yet God lookes principally at the grounds of our desires and wherefore we desire to obtain the blessing What it is that moves us to have a desire after such and such a mercy and observing well the byas of our hearts in such requests he doth in this respect constantly hearken to his servants and failes not to grant us the things we aske even when he seems to deny us Heb. 5.7 he speakes of the prayer of Christ he was heard in what he desired What was hee heard in why hee prayed that if it were possible the cup might passe from him And was he heard in this did not he drink it to the very dregs did he not taste of Gods deepest displeasure and how is he then said to be heard why the Father did consider what it was that his Sonne did desire which was principally that Gods will might be done and not his own And Gods will being done Christs desire being that Gods will might be done he was heard in the thing he desired And againe he was heard in the thing so far as it concerned himselfe as to be saved from that which hee feared that though he did drink of the cup yet he should be saved from being overwhelmed by those feares which his soule trembled at and groaned under and prest him heavily even unto the very death though not from tasting of them yet from being overwhelmed of them and he was supported in them so that Christs main end being the doing of his fathers wil and the redemption of mankind in these things he was graciously heard And so Moses he prayed that if it might be Gods will he might goe over Jordan and see that good land his end was to see that good land Well God said in displeasure he should not go over and yet in mercy he answers his request for his desire was to see that good land Now God could make him see that good land never carry him over Jordan and he shewes him all the land of Canaan all the coasts of Israel from the one end thereof to another God so strengthened his sight this way as one would not have thought it credible but that God was able to grant him his desire and strengthened him beyond what he desired so shall you observe Gods manner of dealing with his servants if we be content to pray according to the will of God and bow our spirits to aske nothing but what is lawfull and with submission to Gods will and run to God as our heavenly father in the name of Jesus Christ and look at him as one more ready to give then we to aske then make account God will ponder all the petitions of your soules and weigh well what you have said and he knowes what you aime at in asking this and that blessing and though he may seeme to deferre it he better knowes your need of it then your selves doe and when he seemes most to crosse it then doth he most abundantly answer it Moses said the Lord was angry with him and would not heare him and yet he did heare him he limited God to a means to shew him that good land but he need not appoint God a course Moses knew hot how he should see it unlesse he went over but God knew how he should see it So that even those prayers with which God seems to be angry in regard of some infirmity that God may see in our prayers yet this we are to make account of that even then when God is displeased with our poor petitions even then doth he answer them most graciously Deut. 3.23 25 26. God was wroth with me and would not heare me And he said speake no more to me of that matter It was a marvellous strange kind of expression of Gods fatherly counsell to Moses that when he is angry with some weaknesse in our prayers and some unworthinesse in us to desire or have this or that see his carriage Moses his words provoked God and therefore because he desires to go over Iordan to see that good land God was wroth and God would not have him goe and yet he should see it he should have as much as he desired but into the Land he should not goe so that come with that confidence in prayer that though our prayers be such as for which God may be angry with us yet many times God heares those prayers and answers them in mercy farre beyond what we could have thought for Moses saw as much of it as could be seene and he could not have seene so much of it if he had gone over Iordan as he did then see Consider therefore God markes the very bent of my soule and desire in every petition I put up and therefore observing what I desire he will accordingly grant either the thing I desire according to my desire or that which I ayme at in my desire and this is a glory to the name of Christ whatsoever we should aske in our owne names would be thrust out of heaven yet this magnifies the name of Christ that a Christian soule beleeving on his name and laying hold upon him and cleaving to him and shall come to God as beleeving that God is more ready and able and willing to grant then we to aske and that he will grant us the very petition that we desire this doth magnifie the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and this is to pray according to Gods will as expressed in his Word But now