Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself
Asser. 6. These being materially the same soul-troubles of deserted and tempted Saints, and of plagued and cursed Reprobates, do differ formally and essentially according to God's heart, his dispensation and intentions, his mercy and his justice regulating them: So I shall speak of the difference between Christ's troubled soul, and the Saints trouble. 2. Of some ways of God's dispensation, in the soul-trouble of the Saints. Touching the former; there was in Christ's soul-trouble, 1. No mis-judging of God ; but a strong faith, in that he st • ll named God his Father, and God. 2. In that as this trouble came to a height, and more fuel was added to the fire of divine wrath, Luk. 22.44. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he prayed with more extension of body and spirit: he extended himself in fervor of praying. And, Heb. 5.7. He offered prayers, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , humble supplications of the poor, or oppressed, that make their address to one who can help them: he put in to God an humble Petition, and a Bill to his Father, as an overwhelmed man, and he offered this Bill, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , with an hideous cry and tears. Revel. 14.18. The Angel cried with a loud voice. To cry with a full and lifted up voice, or with a shout; so is the Verb used, Joh. 18.40. When men cry. and cast away their clothes, and cast dust in the air. 3. His soul-trouble and death was satisfactory to divine justice, for our sins; he being free of sin himself: which can agree to no soul-trouble of the holiest Saint on earth. But touching the second: These Positions may speak somewhat, to clear the way of the soul-trouble of Saints.
1. Position. Conscience, being a mass of knowledge, and if there be any oil to give light, its here; its then likest itself, when it most bears witness of well and ill-doing. Now, we are more in sinning, then obeying God ; and because of the corruption of nature, the number of natural consciences that are awake to see sin, are but very few. And when the renewed conscience is on the work of feeling and discerning guiltiness, in its best temper, The more life the more sense: Sick ones in a swoon, or dying persons that do neither hear, see, nor speak, are half-gate amongst the dead. The conscience sick of over-feeling, and so under over-sense of sin, is in so far in a fever: for often a fever is from the exsuperancy of too much blood, and ranknesse of humors, the vessels being too full; and therefore its like a river that cannot choose but go over banks, the channel being a vessel too narrow to contain it all.
2. Pos. Therefore often the time of some extreme dissertion and soul-trouble is, when Christ hath been in the soul with a full, high spring-tide of divine manifestations of himself. And if we consider the efficient cause of dissertion, which is God's wise dispensation: when Paul hath been in the third heaven, on an hyperbole, a great excess of revelations, God thinketh then good to exercise him with a messenger of Satan ; which by the weakness and spiritual infirmity he was under, wanted not a dissertion, less or more, what ever the messenger was; as it seems to be fleshly lust, after a spiritual vision. Paul was ready to think himself an Angel, not flesh and blood ; and therefore, 2 Cor. 12.7. he saith twice in one Verse, This befell me, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , That I should not be lifted up above ordinary Comets, up among the stars. But if we consider the material cause, it may be, that extreme and high overflowing of Christ's love brake our weak and narrow vessels: Cant. 5.1. there is a rich and dainty feast of Christ, I am come into my garden, my Sister▪ my Spouse, I have gathered my myrrh with my spices, I have eaten my honey-comb with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends, drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved. Yet in that Song, the Spirit of God speaketh of a sad dissertion in the next words, I sleep, but mine heart waketh: it is the voice of my Beloved that knocketh, &c. There is not only impiety, but want of humanity, that the Church had rather that wearied Jesus Christ should fall down and die in the streets, in a rainy and snowie night, when his locks were wet with rain, then that he should come in and lodge in the soul. And let us not think that the thread and tract of the Scriptures coherence, one Verse following on another, as the Spirit of God hath ordered them, is but a cast of chance, or an human thing: When the Spouse rideth on the high places of Jacob, and saith, Isai. 49.13. Sing, O heaven, and be joyful, O earth, and break forth into singing, O mountains: for God hath comforted his people, and will have mercy on his afflicted. Yet this was nothing to the afflicted people; Verse 14. But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. When the Lord 's Disciples, Mat. 17. are in the sweetest life that ever they were in, at the transfiguration of Christ, when they saw his glory, and Peter said, Master, it is good for us to be here, even then, they must appear to be weak men; and Christ must forbid and rebuke their faithless fear, Vers. 6. They fell on their faces, and were sore afraid. I leave it to the experience of the godly, if Jeremiah his singing of praise in one Verse, Chap. 20.13. and his cursing of the day that he was borne on, in the next Verse, verse. 14. the order of Scripture being of divine inspiration, do not speak God's dispensation in this to be such, as to allay and temper the sweetness of the consolation of a feast of God's high manifestation, with a sad dissertion. So John his glorious soul-ravishing comforts, in seeing the seven golden Candlesticks, and the Son of man in such glory and majesty, Revel. 1.12, 13, 14, 15. Yet it appears to be a dissertion that he is under, when Christ forbiddeth him to fear, and when he must have the hand of Christ laid on his head, and when he falleth down at Christ's feet as dead, V. 17.18. And when Isaiah saw the glorious vision, Chap. 6. The Lord sitting on his throne, high and lifted up ; it must be a throne higher then the heaven of heavens, that he siteth on; and his train filling the Temple. It's a dissertion he falleth in. verse. 5. Then said I, woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts ; he was a pardoned man before. It's so with us, while the body of sin dwelleth in us, that we cannot, being old bottles, bear new wine; and therefore the fullness of God, breaketh crazy lumps of sinful flesh and blood: as a full tide, is preparatory to a low ebbing; and full vessels in the body, to a fever. Would Christ in his fullness of the irradiations of glory, break in upon us; he should break the bodily organs, and over-master the souls faculties, that all the banks of the soul, should be like broken walls, hedges, or clay channels; which the inundation of a river, has demolished, and carried away from the bottom. Flesh and blood is not in a capacity of over-joy, and can hold but little of heaven, no more then earth, cold bear such a glorious creature as the Sun: we must be both more capacious, and wider, and stronger vessels, before we be made fit to contain glory; we are leaking, and running-out vessels, to contain grace. Manifestations, and rays of Divine love; are too strong wine that grew up in the higher Canaan, for our weak heads.
Asser. 3. Dissertion cometh under these considerations: 1. As it's a cross, and a punishment of sin; 2. As a trial from mere Divine Dispensation: 3. As it's a sin on our part, full of sinful mis-representations of Christ.
In the first consideration; we are to submit to any penal over-clowding of Christ: 1. Because the eye cannot water to look on any Cross of Christ, where Faiths aspect goeth before, and saith, Though I sit in darkness, yet I shall see light. 2. There is required a sort of patience under sin, as 'its either a punishment of another sin, as David was submissive to the sinful railing of Shimei, and the wicked treasons, and incestuous pollutions of his Concubines, by his son Absalom. Or as sin dwelleth in us, and in Divine Dispensation must be our Cross, as well as our sin; we are to be grieved at our sins, as they cross God's holy will: but as they are our own crosses, and thwart our own desires, and now are committed by us, or dwell in us, we are not to bite at, and utter heart-railings against Divine providence, who might have prevented, and efficaciously hindered these sins; and yet did not hinder them. 3. This Dispensation should be adored, as a part of Divine wisdom; that broken souls are not wholly cured, till they be in heaven. Sin is a dis-union from God: Jesus doth not so completely solder the soul to God, but the seam hath holes and gapings in it, by reason of the in-dwellings of sin, Rom. 7.17.18.19.22.23. And since Libertines will confound Justification with Regeneration, we say, there Justification they speak off, is never perfected in this life. And because sin, as sin which remaineth in our flesh, must make God and the soul at a distance; there cannot be such perfect peace as excudeth all soul-trouble; the blew scar of the wound remaineth so, and the dregs of that domestic falling-ill, that we have of our first house of Adam, are so s • ated in us, that as some diseases recur, and some pain of the head, when an East-wind bloweth; so the disease we have in our head, the first Adam, sticketh to us all our life; and when temptations blow, we find the relicts of our disease working, and foaming out the smell of the lees, and sent that remaineth. Christ has need to perfume our ill odors, with his merits, for our begun Sanctification is so imperfect, as that yet our water smelles of the rotten vessel, the flesh; and we cannot but have our ill hours, and our sick days, and so a disposition to sinful dissertions. 4. Unbeliefe naturally stocked in the body of sin, is humerous and ill minded to Christ: there is a liar in our house, and a slanderer of Christ, that upon light occasions can raise an ill fame of Christ, That he is a hard man, and gathers where he did not sow: that Christ is nice and dainty of his love, that he is too fine, too excellent, and majestic to condescend to love me: and take this as the mother-seed, of all sinful desertions, to blame Christ's sweet inclination, to love us as well, as his love. I knew thou wast a hard man ; it's dangerous to have ill thoughts of Christ's nature, his constitution, actu primo. The next will be to censure his ways, his saveing, and his gathering ; which I take to be the currant objection of old Pelagians, and late Arminius. O, he must gather where he did never sow, if he command all to believe under the pain of damnation, and yet he judicially in Adam, removed all power of believing: so he putteth out the poor man's eyes, and cutteth off his two legs, and commandeth him to see with no eyes, and walk with no legs, under pain of damnation: men believe not they hate Christ by nature; and hatred hath an eye to see no color in Christ, but blackness; as the instance of the Pharisees doth clear; who saw but devilry in the fairest works of Christ, even in his casting out of Devils.
Asser. 4. Dissertions on the Lord's part, are so often mere trials; as we may not think they are greatest sinners who are most disserted. Dissertion smelleth more of Heaven, and of Christ disserted for our sins, then of any other thing; it's the disease that follows the Royal seed, and the Kings blood; it's incident to the most heavenly spirits; Moses, David, Heman, Asaph, Hezekiah, Job, Jeremiah, the Church, Psal. 102. Lament. chap. 1. chap. 2.3.4. it is oar that adhereth to the choicest gold. But how is it, say some, that you read of so little soul-dissertion in the Apostles, and Believers under the New-Testament, and so much of it under the Old-Testament? Is it not, because it belongeth to the Law and the Covenant of Works, and to the Spirit of the Old Testament, and nothing to the Gospel of Grace? So Antinomians dream. I answer, We read indeed of heavier and stronger external pressures laid on men, to chase them to Christ under the Law, then under the Gospel: Because the Gospel speaketh of curses and judgment in the by; and the Law more kindly, and more frequently, because of our disobedience; and of the preparing of an infant- Church, under none-age for Christ. But though the Gospel speak less of God's severity in external judgments, as in killing so many thousands, for looking into the Ark, for Idolatry; yet the Apostle saith, that these things were not merely Pedagogicall, and Jewish: so, as because the like are not written in the New-Testament, it followeth not, they belong not to us; for (saith he) 1 Cor. 10.6. Now these things were our examples verse. 11. Now all these things happened unto them for examples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Ergo, the like for the like sins do, and may befall men under the Gospel. Moreover, never greater plagues then were threatened, by Christ's own mouth; never wrath to the full came upon any, in such a measure, as upon the City of Jerusalem and the people of the Jews, for killing the Lord of glory. And though no such dissertions, be read of in the Apostles, as of Job (who yet was not a Jew, and yet more disserted then David, Heman, or any Prophet) Hezekiah, the Church, Lament. Chap. 2. and 3. Yet we are not hence to believe, that there were never such dissertions under the New-Testament. For as external judgments, so internal soul-trials, are common to both the Saints under the Old, and New-Testament : as is evident in Paul 2 Cor. 1.8, 9. 2 Cor. 5.11. 2 Cor. 7.4, 5, 6. 1 Pet. 1.6, 7. and as both were frequent under the Old-Testament, so were they written for our learning. And if it were to the Jews merely Pedagogicall, to have terrors without, and fears within, and to be pressed out of measure : or to afflict their souls for sin, were a work of the law; then to be afflicted in conscience, were a denying that Christ is come in the flesh. And simply unlawful, whereas the Lord's absence is a punishment of the Churches, not opening to Christ, Cant. 5.4, 5, 6. And God's act of with-drawing his lovely presence, is an act of mere free dispensation in God, not our sin. For this would be well considered, that the Lord's active dissertion, in either not co-operating with us, when we are tempted, or 2. his not calling, or the suspending of his active pulsation and knocking at the door of our soul, or 3. the not returning of a present comfortable answer, or 4. the with-drawing of his shining manifestations, his comforts, and the sense of the presence of Jesus Christ, cannot be formally our sins: indeed, our unbelief, our sinning which resulteth from the Lord's non-co-operating with us, when we are tempted, our mis-judging of Christ, (as if it were a fault to him to stand behind the wall) which are in our dissertions passive, are sins.
Asser. 5. Saddest dissertions are more incident to the godly, then to the wicked and natural men; as some moth is most ordinary in excellent timber, and a worm rather in a fair rose then in a thorn or thistle. And sure, though unbelief, fears, doubtings, be more proper to natural men, then to the Saints, yet unregenerate men are not capable of sinful jealousies of Christ 's love, nor of this unbelief, which is incident to dissertion we now speak of; even as marriage jealousy falleth not on the heart of a Whore, but of a lawful Spouse. 2. According to the measure and nature of love, so is the jealousy, and heart-suspicions for the want of the love, whence the jealousy is occasioned: The soul which never felt the love of Christ, can never be troubled, nor jealously displeased for the want of that love. And because Christ had the love of God in another measure, possibly of another nature, then any mortal man, his soul-trouble, for the want of the sense and actual influence of that love, must be more, and of an higher, and it may be of another nature, then can fall within the compass of our thoughts: never man in his imagination, except the man Christ, could weigh, or take a lift of the burden of Christ 's soul-trouble. The lightest corner or bit of Christ 's satisfactory Cross, should be too heavy for the shoulders of Angels and Men. You may then know how easy it is for many to stand on the shore, and censure David in the sea; and what an oven, and how hot a fire must cause the moisture of his body turn to the drought of summer. The Angels, Joh. 20. have but a theory and the hear-say of a stander-by, when they say, Woman, why weepest thou? She had slept little that night, and was up by the first glimmering of the dawning, and sought her Savior with tears, and an heavy heart, and found nothing but an empty grave; O they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. And the daughters of Jerusalem stood but at the sick Spouses bed side, and not so near when she complains, I am sick of love. To one whose wanton reason denied the fire to be hot, another said, Put your finger in the fire, and try if it be hot. Some have said, All this soul-trouble is but melancholy and imagination: Would you try whether the body of an healthy and vigorous man, turned as dry as chaff, or a withered half-burnt stick, through soul-pain, be a cold fire, or an imagination; and what physic one of the smallest beams of the irradiation of Christ 's smiling countenance is to such a soul, you would not speak so.
Asser. 6. Why some of the Saints are carried to Abraham 's bosom, and to heaven in Christ 's bosom, and for the most, feast upon sweet manifestations all the way, and others are oftener in the hell of soul-trouble, then in any other condition, is amongst the depths of holy Sovereignty. (1.) Some feed on honey, and are carried in Christ 's bosom to heaven; others are so quailed and kept under water, in the floods of wrath, that their first smile of joy is when the one foot is on the shore, and when the morning of eternities Sun dawnes in at the window of the soul. Some sing, and live on sense all the way; others sigh, and go in at heavens gates weeping, and Christ 's first kiss of glory dries the tears off their face. (2.) Christ walks in a path of unsearchable liberty, that some are in the suburbs of heaven, and feel the smell of the dainties of the Kings higher house, ere they be in heaven; and others, children of the same Father, passengers in the same journey, wade through hell, darkness of fears, thrones of doubtings, have few love-tokens till the marriage-day. (3.) There be not two sundry ways to heaven; but there are (I doubt not) in the latitude of Sovereignty, hundreds of various dispensations of God, in the same way. Jerusalem is a great City, and hath twelve, and many ports and angles and sides to enter at; but Christ is the one only way: he keeps in all, and brings in all; he keeps in Angels that they never came out, he brings in his many children to glory. But some go to heaven, and till the twelfth hour know nothing of sin, death, God, Christ, heaven and hell. Grace took a short cut, and a compendious way with the repenting Thief. Christ cannot only run, but fly post with some in few hours to heaven: Grace hath Eagles wings to some; and some wrestle with hell, fight with beasts, make war with lusts, and are dipt in and out, as the oars in the river, in floods of wrath from their youth, and a long time. Caleb and Joshua for two generations were in the Journey to Canaan ; many thousands not borne when they entered the Journey, yea new generations arose, and entered into that good land with them, and were there as soon as they
Asser. 7. In consideration of dissertions, as actively they come from God, and passively they are received in us, and consecutively, or by abused resultance are our sins, they have sundry and divers causes.
1. Sorrow for the with-drawing sense and influence of Christ 's love, as formally a dissertion passive in us, is not sinful; except sorrow, which is a luxuriant and too indulgent passion, exceed measure. For 1. Its a mark of a soul that liv • th and breatheth much on Christ 's love: now, if love be the life of some, it must be continued in sense, or some fruition of love, less or more. Now, as the irradiation of the sun's beams and light in the air yesterday, or the last year, cannot enlighten the air and earth this day; and the m • at I did eat a year ago, the sleep I slept the last month, cannot feed and refresh me now; but there must be a new application of new food, and new sleep: So the irradiation of the manifested love of Christ in the years of old, must go along with us; though as experiences of old favors, they may set faith on foot again, when its fallen; yet the soul that liveth by fruition of divine love, must have a continuated influence of that love: and to live on divine love, of it self, can be no sin. O its a life liable to many clouds, over-castings of sadness and jealousies, that lives on the manifestations of Christ 's love: Its sweet and comfortable, but has mixtures of hardest trials; for such set on no duties comfortably, without hire in hand, as it were: when Christ 's love-letter from heaven miscarries, and is intercepted, the soul swoons: its surer to live by faith.
2. To murmur, and impatiently to so sorrow, as if God had forgotten to be merciful, is sinful sorrow. 1. Because the object of it is materially blasphemous, The strength of Israel cannot lie, nor repent; nor can any change, or shadow of change fall on him. 2. Its most unjust to complain and quarrel with him, who hath jus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , right, law, full and unconstrained liberty to do with his own what he pleaseth ; but the heavenly irradiations and out-shinings of Christ 's love, and the influence of his free grace, are all his own, and most free; for if the Seaman have no just cause to quarrel with God, because the wind bloweth out of the East, when he desireth it may blow out of the West; and the Husbandman cannot in reason plead male-government in the Almighty, because he restrains the clouds, and bindeth up the womb of heaven, in extreme drought, when he crieth for rain and dew to his withered earth, and meadows, and valleys; so neither is there any just pleading (a sinless desire of the contrary is a far other thing) with the Lord, because he bindeth up the bowels of Christ ▪ from outing his love, or restraineth the winds and breathings of the Spirit from blowing. 3. We may desire the wind of the Lord to blow, because its an act of free grace in him, so to do; but to contend with the Lord, because he will not act himself in works of free grace, at our pleasure, is to complain that grace is grace; for if grace were obnoxious, in all its sweet spirations and motions, to my will, or to your desires, it should not be grace, but a work of my hireing and sweating. 4. This sorrowing must accuse the free, holy, and innocent love of Christ, as if his love were proud, nice, humorous, high, passionate; whereas infinite freedom, infinite majesty, and loveliness and meekness of tenderest love, do all three concur admirably in Jesus Christ. Love cannot be hired; Cant. 8.7. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. And for the strength of tenderness of love, the same place pleadeth; Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. And Paul asserteth, Ephes. 3.18. The breadth, and length, and de • th, and height of it. 5. There is required a submission under such a divine dispensation; else we upbraid grace, and will be wicked, because God will not be (actu secundo,) as gracious in his influence, as we are humorous in our sickly desires. 6. If we could understand the sense of divine dispensation, the Lord often intendeth grace, when he suspendeth grace; and his dissertions are wrapped up in more invisible love and free grace, then we are aware of: and why should not we, in faith, believe his way of dispensation to be mercy?
Asser. 8. Sometimes (2.) God's immediate lashes on the soul, is the occasion of our sinful mis-judging of God ; Psal. 38.2. Thine arrows stick fast in me, and thine hand presseth me sore. Hence cometh a sad reckoning, Vers. 4. Mine iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. And Psal. 77.4. Thou holdest mine eye waking▪ I am so troubled that I cannot speak. And what followeth from this? A great mis-judging of God. Vers. 7. Will the Lord cast off forever? will he be favorable no more? Vers. 8. Is his mercy clean gone forever? doth his promise fail for evermore? Vers. 9. Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Its but a poor ground of inferring that God hath forgotten to be merciful, and Christ is changed, because there is night and winter on your soul: Is the God of Nature changed, because its not ever summer, and day-light? because a rose withereth, and a flower casteth its bloome, and the sun is over-clouded, therefore God hath forgotten himself? Dispensations of God are no rules to his good pleasure; but his good pleasure regulates all his dispensations. If the Soldiers of Christ quarter in the dry wilderness, not in the suburbs of heaven, their Leader is wise.
3. Darkness and night are blind judges of colors; in dissertion, it's night on the soul; and imaginations are strongest and biggest in the darkness; the species of terrible things plow deep furrows of strong impressions on the phancie in the sleep, when the man walketh in darkness, and hath no light, either of sound judgment, or soul-comfort: it's night with the soul, and then a bush moved with the wind, is an armed man; every conviction of conscience is condemnation. 2 Cor. 1.8. We were pressed out of measure, above strength, in so much that we dispaired even of our life, Ver. 9. But we had the sentence of death, there were loads and weights laid on us above strength: darkened souls put on Christ's deep representations of wrath, and blackness of indignation; and change him in their apprehensions, in another Christ.
4. Satan can drink up at one draught, a grieving and sorrowing spirit, 2 Cor. 2.7. and he hath access to the phancie, and out-works of the soul of the child of God, so he can enlarge the species to a double bigness; let it be considered, if the Grammar of Heman, be not a little swelled, in more then ordinary Rhetoric, Psal. 88.4. I am counted as these that go down to the pit, as a man that hath no strength. Vers. 5. free amongst the dead, like the wounded that lie in grave, whom thou rememberest no more; and they are cut off by thy hand. Ver. 7. Thy wrath lieth hard on me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. If God forgot him as a buried man, and not a wave of God's wrath, but was gone over his soul, what could God do more? And Jobs words are a little beyond the line, Chap. 1 • .24. Wherefore hidest thou thy face from me, and takest me for thine enemy? Words arise up to Mountains. Job was not holden of God to be an enemy: Satan can make every pin in the Cross an hell, and put a new sense on God's dealing, other then ever he meaned. When Christ opens a vein, to blood a conscience, Satan if he may have leave, shall shut in his Lyon-teeth to tear the vein, and make the hole of the wound as wide as heart and life may come out; and therefore he raiseth up apprehensions, and sows strife, and pleas with Christ, and waters his own seed. Can love kill thee? Were it Christ that doth all this, would he not once come to the bed-side of a sick Son? Can Christ's love throw a poor friend into hell, and leave him there? He hath forgotten thee. Satan can argue from dispensation and trials to the state. Which is false Logic. This thou sufferest: ergo thou art not in the state of adoption. It's not good that such a Mineon as Satan, have the ear of a disserted soul; he can carry tales between Christ and the soul, to separate between friends. Never believe ill of Christ; Love thinks no ill. If ye love Christ, two Hells may cast water on your fire of love, but cannot quench it. Christ will believe no ill of you, let Satan speak his will.
5. Even the love of a Saint to Christ, under an hard dispensation is sick with jealousy, and travelleth in birth with phancied suspicions of Christ's love. Our love is swayed with misgivings; it's full of cares, and fears, and doubtings; because it's not always edged with heavenly wisdom. It takes life from sense, and felt embracings, from presence, and reciprocation of warmenesse from Christ's bowels: and when face answereth not face, and Christ's love doth not echo and resound to our love, then it fainteth: we too often measure Christ's love by our foot; we calculate Christ's love by our own elevation, not by his: and Christ's mysterious dispensation, should not point the hour; nor is the full Moon, nor the noon-day Sun of Christ's love, the compass that our affections and love, should sails by. Yea, having not seen Christ, 1 Pet, 1.8. nor felt him, yet we love him, and believe in him; and this is most spiritual love, and has most of love in it; the more jealousy without ground, the less love of Christ, at least, the less solid constancy of love.
6. Unbeliefe is a special cause of Soul-trouble. 1. In bodily diseases pain doth not create it self; but sinful passive dissertion does create it self. Christ cannot own unbelief, [unspec 1] as coming within the compass of his creation; though by him all things were created. Unbeliefe spinning out new calumnies of Christ, addeth oil to the fire, and maketh desertion a thousand talent weight heavier then it would be. This may be evidenced in all the complaints of the Saints under dissertion; in which more is laid on Christ's name, then is true. Unbeliefe is a querulous thing. Isai. 49.14. But Zion said, unbelieving Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me ; this was an untruth, and is confuted in the next verses. Mary Magd • len, thought they had taken away her Lord, and he was as near her, as the turning about of her body; and she within speaking to him face to face; and when unbelief doth raise such thoughts, as Christ hath forgotten to be merciful; Christ is changed, he loveth not to the end. What pain must be at the souls bottom, where such mis-judging of Christ, and his love is in the brim? and yet there is a coal of the love of Christ, smoking in the bottom of the soul? A loving opinion of Christ is hardly expelled. Especially, one particular mis-report should not make me receive a mis-understanding of Christ, I never heard ill of Christ before, but much of his excellency and sweetness, and why should I admit an untried impression, that the Sun that giveth light to all, is dark; that fire is cold, it's not true-like; that Christ is an enemy, if once a friend▪ Had we a storehouse, and a high-bended habit of honorable, sublime, and high thoughts of Jesus Christ, his excellency, the weight of his preciousness, eminency, we should the more hardly give way to the lies that our unbelieving heart raiseth against him.
2. Our second misgiving from unbelief, is in believing our state. Psal. 31.22. I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes. I am none of Christ's, is a too ordinary mimistake; as (he is changed, and not mine) often goeth before. [unspec 2] We often find more fault, and first blame in Christ, if not only, ere we see our own provocations. Hence the complaints of Job, chap. 6. chap. 13. chap. 16. chap. 19. and of Jeremiah, chap. 20. chap. 15. of Hezekiah, Isaiah. 38. of Asaph, Psalm. 77. of Heman, Psal. 88. of the Church, Isaiah 49.14, 15. Isaiah 63. chap. 64. Psal 102. Psal. 6. Psal. 42. Psalm. 31. run more on the strain of complaning of God, and his unkind dispensation, then of the Plaintiffes sins, and provocations; and where there is one mistake of ourselves under dissertion, the reader may find out ten mistakes of Christ, and when the disserted soul mis-judgeth his own state; it issueth from, and reflecteth on the mis-judged apprehension of Christ.
3. From unbelief issueth the mis-judging of our own actions: [unspec 3] I do no good; or if I do, its not been, on the right motives, and for the right end, the good that I do. The antecedent is true, but not the consequence: There is a cloud in our fairest sun, and clay in our water; but because good works are not our Savior's, its no good ground to say, they have no influence in the way of our salvation; and they are not way-marks in our journey; because they are no part of the ransom that bought heaven. We have a grand opinion of our own righteousness, and when we miss it, we think we miss Christ himself; which is a great mis-judging, and argueth a believing in ourselves, not in Christ. And often soul-trouble ariseth from defects, omissions, and sins in ourselves. If simple grief for sin as offensive to love arise, that's good soul-trouble; but such soul-trouble as shaketh the bottom of faith, and turneth the soul off Christ, to seek righteousness in itself, is damnable: as it's hard for an unregenerate man to see sin in it's dreadfullest colors, and not despair: so it's hard for a regenerate person to see sin, as sin, and not to fall on unbelief, and doubting of Christ's love. Antinomians think any anxiety for sin, which expelleth actual rejoicing in Christ, our turning off Christ, and our casting of the conscience again under the Spirit of bondage, and work of the Law. Which is contrary to truth, and the command of James, to be afflicted and mourn ; and Christ's saying, Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted ; and Peter, who saith, there may be need, that the Saints be in heaviness for a season.
It's a great point of wisdom, 1. to know how far forth our spiritual walking may be a seed of comfort, we may easily err on either hands. 2. The Logic would be humble; Lord I am not haughty, Ergo, I am comforted in thee. Paul saith, well, I know nothing by myself, yet am I not hereby justified ; we would not build a Tower on a Moale-hill. 3. From our sinful walking, we may draw grounds of godly sorrow, yet not grounds of unbelief; Faith and Godly sorrow are consistent together. 4. It's not safe to argue that we are not in Christ, from the wants adhering to our sincere performances. While we slander ourselves, we may slander the Spirit of God. 5. The measure of our obedience, cannot be a warrant to counter-argue Christ, as want is no warrant to stand far off from Christ: no more then it's good Logic; to flee from the fire, because you are cold; or to be at odds with gold, because you are needy, and poor; poverty may conclude a sailing with low sails, and humility, but not unbelief; your want of all things, should not empty rich Jesus Christ.
7. Absence of Christ mis-apprehended through unbelief, occasioneth soul-trouble. In which there is something which evidenceth saving grace in the troubled soul, as is afore said. For the want of the thing loved, cannot but here be a gracious torment to the lover. The Spouse is sick, and dieth, when she wanterh him whom her soul loveth, Cant. 2.5. chap. 5. verse. 6, 8. David so expresseth himself, Psalm. 84.2. My soul longeth, yea even fainteth, or dieth, or is at an end, for the Courts of the Lord, my flesh and my heart crieth out for the living God. The word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is to desire, or to be consumed, or to make an end of anything. David's desire of enjoying God, was such, as it was his death to want God ; it may hold forth, as Pagnine observeth, that David's soul, either extremely desired the Lord, or died upon the absence of God. But to be anxiously troubled in an unbelieving manner, is the sinful soul-trouble. Why doth the soul doubt of Christ's Winter, more then of his Summer? Absence and presence, his coming, and his departing, are both his own works. God hath liberty in the one, as in the other; as it is God's liberty to make fair weather and storms, to make a fair day, and a cloudy day; To make David a King, and his brethren shepherds and common soldiers, so hath he his own freedom in the breathings of his own Spirit, and the blowing of his own wind, or of the drawing a curtain over his own face, and hiding himself: and neither in this, nor in any of his ways of freedom, can we challenge the Lord, or plead against him. And if we think we do well to be angry, even to the death, at the motions and breathings of Christ's free love, then may we compel Christ to be kind, and visit us, as we think good. What ever ye be, Christ is Lord of his own presence and visits, and it's good the Kings Chamber of presence be a Dainty; and Christ's wine be not so common as water: nor can we here force kindness, or acts of heavenly manifestations on him; he hides himself. Why, he is as reasonable and wise, in his going, as in his coming.
2. We should take on us to steward and husband the kisses [unspec 2] and embracements of Christ, better then he can do himself; and should quarrel, because the Lord hath not thought fit to make Heirs and Minors, that are yet under Non-age, Masters and Lord's of their own young heaven; this were not a good world for us. Christ's love is better then wine, Cant. 1. Neither our head, nor our heart could endure to drink, at our own will, of this new wine of the higher Kingdom. Better for us it is that Christ bear the key of the Well of life, then children have it; and if the Government of the higher and lower family [unspec 3] be upon the shoulders of Christ, the leading of this or that single person to heaven, is worthy Christ's care.
3. And consider, that Christ goeth not behind the mountain, or hideth himself upon mere hazard, but so weighty reasons, that love may be sharpened through absence; that the [unspec 1] house may be adorned with new Hangings, and Christ's bed [unspec 2] made green ; that care may be had, when he resteth in his [unspec 3] love, not to stir up, nor awake the beloved, until he please ; that the high Tydes and rich Feasts of Christ's love, after sad and heavy desertions, may heighten the worth and esteem of [unspec 4] Christ ; that faith and love, may with more of the violence of ven, lay hold on Christ, after long seeking, and not part with [unspec 5] him, on so easy terms, Cant. 3.1, 2, 3, 4. that we may know, what weakness is in our own clay legs, under desertion, and [unspec 6] how we are to walk on Christ's legs, which are pillars of marble set on sockets of gold ; that absence and presence, the frownings and smilings of Christ, may be to the Saints the little images of hell and heaven, and broken men may read their [unspec 7] deb • s in Christ's count-book of free grace, with tears in their eyes, and songs of praise in their mouth. That we may be in high love, and sick for absent Christ ; and may be at the pains [unspec 8] through thick and thin to seek him. And l • arne to live less [unspec 9] by sense, and more by faith, and resolve to die believing; and [unspec 10] be charitable of Christ absent, and kiss his veil, when we can [unspec 11] see no more; and be upon our watch-tower, and know what [unspec 12] of the night, and observe a soul-communion with God; which [unspec 13] the Spirit of the world cannot do.
4. No thing doth more allowd cry the softness and baseness of our nature, then our impatiency under sad dispensations, when we are positively resolved upon this, that God loveth us; yet because of a cloud over our Sun, and one scruple of Gall in our joy, to lodge a new opinion, that Christ is changed in another God, and that his love doth plot, and contrive our destruction, argueth a weak, and soon shaken Faith. It speaketh lightness of love to Christ, that it's loosed at the root, with the scratch of a pin; he hides himself, and you say, oh, it's not Christ, but some other like him; for Christ would not so go, and come. Well rooted friendship can scarce suffer you to believe so much of a brother, or a companion. But when ye thus mis-judge Christ, we may gather, if he should appear in the garments of vengeance, as he doth to the damned; it's to be feared, this would drink up our faith and love, if Christ were not more gracious, then we are constant; Lord, lead us not into temptation.
5. I deny not but seeming wrath, and Christ 's intercepting of messengers of love, and flamings of hell 's fury on the soul, are prodigious-like Comets, glimmering over a trembling conscience; and that its much to keep orthodox, sound, and precious thoughts of Christ, when the Christian is not himself; yet when the child myleth about in a round, to say, the earth runneth about in a circle, or to think the shore or the rock saileth from the ship that carrieth you, when the ship moveth, and the shore standeth still, are but signs of a weak-headed and green Sailer: So because you are deeply affected with a sad absence, to believe Christ 's love runneth a circle, and that you stand still as a rock, and the change is in Christ, argueth a green, raw wit, and instability of faith; and that the s • a-sands can no more easily drink-up a gallon of water, then that temptation would swallow-up the poor man's faith thus fainting, if the invisible strength of the Advocate, who intercedeth for the Saints, did not uphold him.
2. The second circumstance in the Text, is the time, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Now is my soul troubled. There is an Emphasis in this Now: Christ had a troubled soul before, and was sensible of afflictions; but now he saw more in this cross, then in all afflictions; he saw the curse of the Law, and the wrath of God stamped on this cross. Christ had never any Now, or juncture of time, before or after, comparable to this Now. Observe that, Christ and his followers must look for growing and swelling crosses. Mat. 26.37. Jesus began to be sorrowful, and very heavy. He had all his life, Isai. 53. sorrow; verse. 3. he was a man of sorrows; [unspec 1] as if every piece of Christ had been sorrow, and had acquaintance with grief: Hebr. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and was known and noted to all, marked out to all, by his griefs ; but now he wadeth deeper in troubles. Let all Christ 's followers look for a growing cross, and a sadder and sadder Now. Psal. 3. • . Lord, how are they increased that trouble me? Psal. 25.17. The troubles of my heart are enlarged. Hebr. become most broad. Psal. 42.7. Deep calleth unto deep, at the noise of thy water-spouts, all thy waves and thy floods are gone over me. One cross calleth to another, God raineth them down, as one wave of the sea calleth another. So Job 's afflictions came on him in a growing way. David, Psal. 69.2. I sink in the deep mire, where there is no standing. I wade on deeper and deeper, till I lose ground and bottom. I am come into the deep waters, where the floods over-flow me. (2.) Christ 's sufferings [unspec 2] are called a Cup; it behooved to be filled to the brim, and Christ weigheth out in ounces and drams, so much gall in the Cup, and yet some more; and because that worketh not the cure, yet an ounce more. (3.) Christ can appoint clothes for [unspec 3] us, as we have cold; and a burden answerable to the bones and strength of the back. Its a doubt if David 's faith would reach so far, as that he should bear it well, that another should sacrifice a wicked son Absalom to God 's justice; O how did David mourn that he was killed! Yet the Lord measured out to Abraham a Cup of deeper gall, to kill with his own hand his one son, a believing son, an heir of the promise. (4.) What if twelve years bloody issue be little enough [unspec 4] for to work a woman to a necessity of seeking to Christ ; yet another must be eighteen years; and a sick-man thirty and eight years. Our Physician knoweth us well. Let us study for a growing faith to growing crosses: and if a cross as broad and large as all Britain, and a sword as public as three Kingdoms, yea as all the bounds of Christendom come; so that there be no peace to him that goeth out, or cometh in, we are to be armed for it. Nor 2. is it enough after pestilence & the sword to sit down, and say, Now I will die in my nest, and multiply my days as the sand. Stay, in heaven only there be neither widows, nor killed husbands, nor beggars, nor plundered houses; understand the sense of providence right; we have not yet resisted unto blood: we have yet seas and floods of blood to swim through, ere we come to shore. A private cross is too narrow a plaster to our sore; and therefore a public one, as broad as all Scotland, as all your Mother-Country and Church is little enough. It must be yet broader, and we must yet lose more blood.
3. The third circumstance in Christ 's soul-trouble, is his anxiety of mind, What shall I say: it is as much as, What shall I do? But what meaneth this anxiety of Christ? Its like a doubting of the event; but there is neither doubting nor despairing in it. There is fear, exceeding great heaviness and sorrow in it; and as an anxious man through extremity of suffering is put to his wits end, as destitute of counsel, to say, I know neither what to do, nor say ; so Christ had a sinless anxiety. Learned Divines acknowledge there was an innocent and sinless oblivion in the sensitive memory, in regard it was intent only upon the extreme agony, and not obliged in all [unspec 1] differences of time to remember every duty: And affirmative precepts oblige not in all, and every juncture of time.
2. Nor is faith actu • lly, always, without exception, to believe: [unspec 2] Its possible that faith in the act, and extreme fear in the same act, be physically inconsistent.
[unspec 3] 3. Neither were Christ 's sensitive affections, in their physical and natural operations, so restrained and awed by a divine Law, as that they may not put forth themselves to the utmost and highest degree of intension, when the light of reason showeth the object in the superlative degree of vehemency. Reason and light could never show to any suffering man, at one time, such a great death of evil of loss and positive evil of sense, as it did show to Christ, at this instant of time. To be suspended from an immediate, full, perfect, personal, intuitive fruition, and vision of God, is a greater eclipse, then if ten thousand sun’s were turned into pieces of sack-cloth of hair, and the light totally extinguished; or, then if all the Angels, all the glorified Saints that are, or shall be, in heaven, were utterly excluded from the comfortable vision of God 's face. You cannot imagine what a sad suspension of the actual shining of the immediately enjoyed majesty of God this was; and what a positive curse and wrath was inflicted on Christ, so as his anxiety could not exceed.
4. Christ was to suffer in his natural affections, of joy, sorrow, [unspec 4] confidence, fear, love, yet without sin; and though I could not show how this anxiety and faith could consist, yet it cannot be denied; for Grace doth not destroy Nature, nor could the vision of personal union hinder the exercise of all human affections and infirmities in Christ, in the state of his humiliation, as clothes of gold cannot allay the pain of the head and stomach: Grace is a garment of cloth of gold, and the union personal, the perfection of grace; yet it hindered not Christ from being plunged in extreme horror and anxiety.
5. There were in Christ at this time some acts of innocent and sinless darken • sse in the sensitive soul, that he actually thinking of the blackness and dreadful visage of the second death, was now like a man destitute of counsel. But 1. This was merely penal, and out of dispensation; for Christ 's soul-pain is an excellent screen and shadow, or a sconce between the soul-troubled believer and hell ; and Christ 's anxiety, and his, What shall I say? is a bank and a great high coast between a distressed conscience who is at, What shall I do? whither shall I go? where shall I have relief and help? and the extremity of his forlorn condition.
2. Christ 's anxiety was not opposite to any light of faith, or moral holiness; as the simple want of light is not night, an eclipse of the sun removeth no light, nay not at all one beam of light from the body of the sun; all is light that is on the other side of the covering, it removeth only light from us, who are on this side of the interposed covering which causeth the eclipse. This anxiety was only opposed to the actual happiness and natural fruition of God enjoyed in the personal union, not to any light of a moral duty required in Jesus Christ. But 2. We are not to conceive that Christ 's anxiety, fear and sorrow, were only imaginary, and supposed upon a mistake that had not any fundamentum in re, ground in the thing itself; as Jacob mourned and would not be comforted, at the supposed death of his son Joseph, thinking he was torn with wild beasts, when the child was alive and safe; and as the believer will sorrow that God hath forsaken him, and hath forgotten to be merciful, and that he is turned of a friend an enemy, when its not so, but a great mistake; God hath not forgotten to be merciful, The Strength of Israel cannot repent and change. Christ 's darkness in this was negative, and naturally negative, he looking wholly on real sadness, death, wrath, the curse of the Law, but not privative, or morally and culpably privative ; for Christ h • d never a wrong thought of God, he did never bel • eve God to be changed; nor did he upon a mis-judging of God conceive God had forsaken him, when as he had not forsaken him, as if Christ 's spiritual sense were deceived, in taking up a mis-apprehension of God, or his dispensation. And therefore that complaint, Why 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 hast thou forsaken me? hath not this meaning, as it hath in many places of Scripture, There is no cause why thou shouldest forsake me ; for there were just causes why the Lord, at this time, should forsake his Son Christ. And therefore the forsaking of Christ was real; because grounded upon justice. The elect had forsaken God, Christ stood in their place, to bear their iniquities, Isai. 53. that is, the punishment which the elect should have suffered eternally in hell, for their own iniquities: And in justice God did for a time forsake his Son Christ, not only in sense and apprehension, but really. 2. Satan doth so myst and delude the weak believers, that because they will not mourn, nor be humbled, for real objects, sins, unbelief, mis-spending of time, which are true causes of sorrow and mourning, they waste sorrow needlessly and sinfully, the righteous dispensation of God intervening, for false and supposed causes, as through ignorance, for these things that are not sins, yet are falsely conceived to be sins; or through mis-apprehension, imagining that the Lord is changed, and become their utter enemy, when he cannot forget them, Isai. 49.14, 15. or through mis-judging their own state, conceiving they are reprobates, when there is no such matter. So when we will not duly object, place and time our affections, its righteousness with God that we lose our labor, and spill and feed away our affections prodigally, in a wood of thorns, for nothing; because we do not give them out for Christ: and so we must sow, and never reap. But Christ could not thus lavish away his fear, sorrow, sadness. I know there is a forsaking in God, joined with hatred: God neither in this sense forsook Christ, nor did Christ complain of this forsaking. God 's forsaking of him, was in regard of the influence of actual vision, 2. of the actual joy and comfort of union, 3. of the penal inflicting of the curse, wrath, sorrow, sadness, stripes, death, on the man Christ.
Use. If Christ was put to, What shall I say? what shall I do? what a sad and forlorn condition are sinners in? how shiftless are they? Isai. 10.3. When God asketh of them, What will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation that shall come upon you from far? to whom will ye flee for help? where will ye leave your glory? Jer. 5.31. What will ye do in the end? Guiltinesse is a shiftless and a forlorn thing. Take a man pained and tormented with the stone, he cannot lie on this side, he turneth to the other, he cannot lie, his couch cannot ease him; he casteth himself out of the bed to the floor of the house, he cannot rest there; no place, not Paradise, say a man were tortured up heaven before the throne, the place of glory, simply considered, should not ease him. What a desperate course do the damned take, to se • ke dens and rocks of the earth to hide themselves in? Canst thou lodge under the roof of the creature, when the Creator armed with red and fiery wrath pursueth thee? And when that faileth them, and they dare not pray to God, they petition hills and mountains to be graves above them, to bury such lumps of wrath quick, Revel. 6.
2. I defy any man, with all his art, to be an Hypocrite, and to play the Politician in hell, at the last judgment, in the hour of death, or when the conscience is wakened. A robber doth never mock the Law and Justice at the Gallows, what ever he do in the woods and mountains. Men do cry, and weep, and confess sins right down, and in sad earnests, when Conscience speaketh out wrath, there is no mind then of Fig-leave-coverings, or of colors, veils, masks, or excuses.
3. Conscience is a piece of eternity, a chip that f • ll from a Deity, and the nearest shadow of God, and endeth as it begins. At first, even by it's natural constitution, Conscience warreth against Concupiscence, and speaketh sadly out of Adam, while it is hot, and not cold-dead; I was afraid, hearing thy voice, I hid myself ; and this it doth, Rom. 1.19. chap. 2.15. While lusts buy and bribe conscience out of office, then it cooperateth with sin, and becometh dead, in the end, when God shaketh an eternal rod over conscience, then it gathereth warm blood again, as it had in Adams days; and hath a resurrection from death, and speaketh gravely, and terribly, without going about the bush; O how ponderous and heavy! How far from tergiversation, cloakings, and shifting, are the words that dying Atheists utter, of the deceitfulness of sin, the vanity of the World, the terrors of God? Was not Judas in sad earnest? did Saul speak policy, when he weepeth on the Witch, and saith, I am sore distressed? Did Spira dissemble and sport, when he roared like a Bear against divine wrath?
What shall I say?
This saith, that Christ answering for our sins had nothing to say; The sufferer of Satisfactory pain, has no words of Apology for sin. The friend that was to be cast in utter darkness, for coming to the Supper of the great King, without his wedding Garment, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , his mouth was muzzled, as the mouth of a mad dog; he was speechless and could not bark, when Divine justice speaketh out of God. Job chap. 40. answereth ver. 4. Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand on my mouth. When the Church findeth justice pleading against her; It's thus, Ezech. 16.63. That thou mayest remember (thy sins) and be confounded, and there may be no more an openining of a mouth, because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee, for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord. I grant, satisfactory justice doth not here put men to silence, but it proveth how little we can answer for sin. Even David remembering that Shimei, and other Instruments had deservedly afflicted him, in relation to Divine justice, saith, Psalm. 39.9. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it. There were three demands of justice given in against Christ, all which he answered: Justice put it home upon Christ. 1. All the elect have sinned, and by the law are under eternal wrath: To this claim, our Advocate and Surety could say nothing on the contrary. It's true Lord. Christ doth satisfy the Law, but not contradict it. The very word of the Gospel answereth all these. In this regard, Christ's silence was an answer; and to this, Christ said, What shall I say? I have nothing to say.
2. Thou art the sinner in Law; to this Christ answered, A body thou hast given me. The Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give himself a ransom for many. Matth. 20.28. The whole Gospel saith, Christ who knew no sin, was made sin for us.
3. Thou must die for sinners. This was the third demand; and Christ answereth it, Psal. 40. Hebr. 10. Thou hast given me a body, here am I to do thy will. To all these three Christ answered with silence: and though in regard of his patience to men, it be said, Isaiah 53.7. He was brought as a Lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before the shearer is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. Yet it was most true, in relation to Divine justice, and the Spirit of God hath a higher respect to Christ's silence (which was a wonder to Pilate ) before the bar of God's justice. O could we by faith see God giving in a black and sad claim, a bill written within, and without, in which are all the sins of all the elect, from Adam to the last man; and Christ with watery eyes receiving the claim, and saying, Lord, It's just debt, crave me, what shall I say on the contrary? We should be more bold, not barely to name our sins, and tell them over to God, but to confess them, and study more for the answer, of a good Conscience ; by faith to substitute an Advocate, to answer the demands of Justice for our sins; and if men believed that Christ, as surety satisfieing for their sins, could say nothing on the contrary, but granted all; they should not make excuses and shifts, either to wipe their mouth with the whore, and say, I have not sinned, nor be witty to make distinctions, and shifts, and excuses to cover, mince, and extenuate their sins.
The fourth part of this complaint, is an answer that Faith maketh to Christ's question. What shall I say? What shall I do? Say praying wise (saith Faith) Father, save me from this hour. A word of the Coherence, then of the words. We often dream, that in trouble, help is beyond Sea, and far off; as far as heaven is from earth. When help is at our elbow; and if the Spirit of Adoption be within, the prisoner hath the Key of his own Jail within, in his own hand. God was in Christ's bosom, when he was in a stormy Sea, and the light of Faith saith, behold, the shore at hand. Death taketh feet and power of motion from a man; but, Psal. 23.4. yet Faith maketh a supposition, that David may walk and live, breathe in the grave, in the valley of the shadow of death. It's the work of Faith to keep the heat of life in the warm blood, even among clods of clay, when the man is buried. This anxious condition Christ was in, as other straits are to the Saints, is a strait and narrow pass, there was no help for him on the right hand, nor on the left ; nor before, nor behind, nor below. Christ, as David his type, Psal. 141.4. Looked round about, but refuge failed him, no man cared for his soul ; but there was a way of escape above him, it was a fair easy way to heaven. The Church was in great danger and trouble of war and desolation, when she spake to God, Psalm. 46. Yet their faith seeing him to be very near them; God is our refuge and strength: true, he can save (saith sense) but that is a fowl flying in the woods, and over-Sea-hop, far off: Not far off (saith Faith) A very present help in trouble: or a help easily, or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Exceedingly found in troubl • . So Psalm. 44▪9. Thou hast cast us off. Hebr. Thou art far from us, thou hast put us to shame. What lower could the people be? Vers. 19. We are in the dungeon, in the place of dragons: We are in the cold grave, beside the worms and corruption; and thou hast covered us with the shadow of death, a cold bed. Yet then see what Faith saith, Vers. 20. We have not forgotten the name of our God. Our God is a word of great faith. And to come to Christ ; his Soul was troubled ; He was at, What shall I say? In a great perplexity. Yet he hath a strong faith, both of his Father, and of his own condition. He believed God to be his Father, and calleth him Father. Yea, in this hell, he applieth the relation of a Father to himself, Matth. 26.39. O my Father ; this is the warmest love-thought of God ; and when his comfort was ebbest, his confidence in the Covenant strongest. My God, my God, &c. Its much glory to our Lord, that Faith sparkle fire and be hot, when comfort is cold and low. O what an honor to God, the man is slain, and cold dead, yet he believes strongly the salvation of God. Christ kills the poor man, and the man's faith kisseth and hangeth about Christ's neck, and says, If I must die, let Christ's bosom be my death-bed. Then he must believe, if God was his Father, by good Logic, he must be the Son of God, and if God was his God, then the heir of all must claim the privileges of all the Sons of the house in Covenant. God (I may say) was more then Christ's God, and more then in covenant with God, as he was more then a servant, so more then a Son, then a common one, and Christ's faith is so rational, and so binding with strength of reason, that he will but use such a weapon, as we may use, even the light of Faith, and he will claim but the common benefit of all the Sons in covenant, when he saith, My God, my God. What ever Papists say, if ever Christ was in hell, it is now; but see, he hath heaven present with him in hell. If God could be apprehended by faith, in hell, as a God in covenant, then should hell become heaven to that believing soul. Christ took God, and his God, and his Father ; as Jonah, a type of him, down to the bowels of hell with him: and as we see some dying men, they lay hold on something dying, and die with that in their hand; which we call the dead-gripe: so Christ died with his Father, by faith, and his Spouse, in regard of love stronger then the grave, in his arms: this was Christ 's death embracings, his death-kiss; and Job professeth so much. Lower he could not be, then he complaineth he is, chap. 19. in all respects, of body, which was a clod of bones and skin; in regard of wife, servants, dear friends, of the hand of God in his soul. Yet verse. 25. I know that my goel, my kinsman, Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand the last man on the earth.
This leadeth us, in our forlorn perplexities, to follow Christ 's foot-steps, both under evils of punishment and sin. The people in their captivity in Babylon, Ezek. 37. were an host of dead and (which is more) dry bones ; the Churches in Germany, in Scotland, are dry bones, and in their graves▪ the Churches in England and Scotland, in regard of the sinful divisions, and blasphemous opinions in the worship of God, are in a worse captivity, and lower then dry bones, and our woes are not at an end; yet the faith of many seeth, that deliverance, and union there must be, and that our graves must be opened, and that the wind of the Lord must breathe upon the dry bones, that they may live. God hath in former times opened our graves, when strange lords had dominion over us, I would we were freed of them now also, but our yoke is heavier then it was; but God shall deliver his people from those that oppress them.
Again, as you see in great perplexity Christ believed God to be his Father, and that he himself was a Son; so are we under pressures of conscience, and doubtings because of sin, to keep precious, high, and excellent love-thoughts of Jesus Christ.
Object. 1. But what if a soul be brought to doubt of its conversion; because he findeth no good he either doth, or can do? true faith, is a working faith.
Answ. Some so cure this, as they prove Physicians of no value to poor souls, I mean, Antinomians: For, say they, This is the disease that you in doubting of your faith, because you find not such and such qualifications in you, therefore seek a righteousness in yourself, and not in Christ. I should easily grant that man's inherent righteousness is, in his carnal apprehension, his very Christ and Redeemer ; but in the mean time, These are two carnal and fleshly extremities, and faith walketh in the middle between them. 1. Its a fleshly way to say, that, because I find sin reigning in me, I have killed my brother, saith a Cain ; I have betrayed the Lord of glory, saith a Judas ; yet I am not (saith a Libertine ) to question whether I believe or no; for this putteth fleshly and profane men on a conceit, Be not solicitous what you are, take you no fear of serving sin and divers lusts, but believe, and never doubt, whether your faith be a dead, or a living faith, though you go on to walk after the flesh; but believe, and doubt not whether you believe or no. The other extremity is of some weak Christians, who because they find that in them, that is in their flesh, dwelleth no good, and they sin daily, find much untowardness and back-drawing in holy duties; therefore (say they) I have no faith, I am none of Christ 's: This is a false Conclusion, drawn from a true Antecedent, and springeth from a root of self-seeking, and righteousness which we naturally seek in ourselves; for I am not, being once justified, to seek my justification in my sanctification; but being not justified, I may well seek my non-justification in my non-sanctification: as Libertines say, this is the fault of all, when it is the fault only of some weak mis-judging souls; so do they take the Saints off from all disquietness and grief of mind for neglect of spiritual duties, as if all godly sorrow and displeasure for our sinful omissions, were nothing but a legal sorrow for want of self-righteousness, and a sinful unbelief: but its formally not any such thing, but lawful and necessary, to make the sinner go with a low sail, and esteem the more highly of Christ ; and its only sinful, when abused to such a legal inference, I omit this and this, I sin in this and this, ergo, God is not my Father, nor am I his son.
But I hold this Position, as evidently deducible out of the Text, In the roughest and most bloody dispensation of God toward Saints, neither soul-trouble, nor anxiety of spirit can be a sufficient ground to any, why they should not believe, or question their son-ship and relation to God, as their Father. Its clear that Christ in his saddest condition believed, and stood to it, that God was his Father : The only question will be, If sinful and fleshly walking be a good warrant. To which I answer, If any be a servant of sin, and walk after the flesh, and be given up to a reprobate mind to commit sin with greediness, such a one hath good warrant to believe that God is not his Father, and that he is not in Christ ; because, 2 Cor. 5.17. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. If any be risen with Christ, he seeketh the things that are above, where Christ is at the right hand of God. He is dead, and his life is hid with Christ in God. And, He mortifieth his members on earth. Col. 3.1, 2, 3, 4. He is redeemed from this present evil world, Gal. 1.4. He is dead to sins, and liveth to righteousness. 1 Pet. 2.24. He is redeemed from his vain conversation. 1 Pet. 1.18. He is the Temple of the Holy Ghost; he is not his own, but bought with a price ; and is, being washed in Christ 's blood, a King over his lusts, a Priest to offer himself to God, an holy, living, and acceptable sacrifice, 1 Cor. 6.19, 20. Revel. 1.5, 6. Rom. 12.1. But he that remaineth the servant of sin, and walketh after the flesh, and is given up to a reprobate mind, &c. is no such man; ergo, such a man hath no claim to God as his Father: and upon good grounds may, and ought to question his being in Christ. Only, let these cautions be observed. 1. It is not safe to argue from the quantity of holy walking; for many sound believers may find untowardness in well-doing, yet must not cast away themselves for that. A smoking flax is not quenched by Christ, for that it hath little heat, or little light; and therefore ought not by us. 2. Beware we lean not too much to the quality of walking holily, to infer, I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all I have ; then, God I thank him, I am not an hypocrite, as the Publican, and a wicked man. Sincerity is a sensible, speaking grace; its seldom in the soul without a witness. Lord, thou knowest that I love thee (saith Peter ;) he could answer for sincerity, but not for quantity: he durst not answer Christ, that he knew that he loved him more then these. Sincerity is humble, and walketh on positives, Lord, I love thee ; but dare not adventure on comparatives, Lord, I love thee more then others. 3. There be certain hours, when the believer cannot make strong conclusions, to infer, I am holy, therefore I am justified; because in darkness we see neither black nor white, and God's light hides our case from us, that we may be humbled, and believe. 4. Believing is surer then too frequent gathering warmness from our own hot skin.
Saltmarsh, and other Libertines make three Doubts that persons have, as sufficient grounds, to question their being in Christ: 1. Back-sliding. 2. The man's finding no change in the whole man. 3. Unbeleefe. Give me leave therefore in all meekness to offer my thoughts, in sifting and scanning this Doctrine.
This is then (saith he) your first doubt, that you are not therefore beloved of God, or in Christ, because you fell back again into your sin, so as you did. Suppose I prove to you, that no sin can make one less beloved of God, or less in Christ.
Answer.
Then I shall conclude, that sin cannot hinder the love of God to my soul.
Question.
This I prove▪ 1. The mercies of God are sure mercies, his love, his covenant everlasting: Paul was persuaded that neither life, nor death, &c. could separate him from the love of God. The Lord changeth not in loving sinners. 2. Whom the Lord loveth, he loveth in his Son, he accounts him as his Son; for he is made to us, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. But God loveth his Son always alike; for he is the same yesterday, and today, and forever: ergo, Nothing can make God love us less; because he loves us not for ourselves, or for anything in ourselves, &c. 3. God is not as man, or the son of man. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's chosen? The foundation of God standeth sure. God's love is as himself, ever the same.
Answer 1. The thing in question to resolve the sinner, whether he be loved of God, from eternity, as one chosen to glory, is never proved, because no sin can make one less beloved from eternity; and sin cannot hinder the love of God, (non concluditur negatum;) for its true, sin cannot hinder the flowings and emanation of the love of election, it being eternal; else not any of the race of mankind, God seeing them all as guilty sinners, could ever have been loved with an eternal love. But the consequence is naught, ergo, back-sliders in heart, and servants of sin, have no ground to question, whether they be loved with the love of eternal election, or not.
2. This Physician lays down the conclusion in question, which is to be proved, to the resolving of the man's conscience, that he may be cured; the thing to be proved to the sick man, say he were a Judas, wakened in conscience, is, that notwithstanding his betraying of Christ, yet God loved him with an everlasting love, and he is in Christ. Now he cureth Judas thus, God 's love is everlasting, his covenant everlasting, no sin can hinder God to love Judas, or separate a traitor to Christ, from the love of Christ. Seperation, supposeth an union; less loving, supposeth loving: so he healeth the man thus; no disease can overcome or hinder the Art of such a skilled Physician, to cure a dying man. But what if this skilled Physician will not undertake to cure the man, nor to move his tongue for advice, nor to stir one finger to feel the man's pulse: Ergo, The man must be cured. For if the man be a back-slider in heart and a servant of sin, Christ never touched his pulse. He hath as yet sure grounds to question, whether he be loved of God, or be in Christ, or no; for except you prove the man to be loved with an everlasting love, you can prove nothing: And your argument will not conclude anything for the man's peace, except you prove him to be chosen of God ; which is his only question. But say that he is loved from everlasting, and that he is in Christ, by faith, its easy to prove, that his sins cannot change everlasting love, nor make him less beloved of God, nor separate him from the love of God. You must then either remove the man's doubting, from signs inherent in the man, (and if he be a back-slider in heart, you fetch fire and water from beyond the Moon to cure him;) or you must fetch warrants to convince him, from the mind, eternal counsels of love and free grace within God ; and that is all the question between the poor man and you. You cannot prove God hath loved him from everlasting, because he hath loved him from everlasting. If Libertines in this Argument intend to prove, that a chosen convert in Christ hath no ground to question, that he is not beloved of God, and not in Christ ▪ 1. That is nothing to the Thesis of Antinomians, maintained by all, that sinners, as sinners, are to believe God's eternal love in Christ to them; and so all sinners, elect or reprobate, are to believe the same. 2. Its nothing to the universal commandment, that all and everyone in the visible Church, wearied and loaden with sin, or not wearied and loaden, are immediately to come to Christ and rest on him, as made of God to them their righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, without any inherent qualification in them. 3. Its nothing to the point of freeing all, and building a golden bridge to deliver all who are obliged to believe, elect or reprobate, from doubting whether they be in Christ or not, that they may easily come to Christ, and believe his eternal love and redemption in him, though they be in the gall of bitterness, and bonds of iniquity, and that immediately. Which golden Paradise to heaven and Christ, Antinomians liberally promise to all sinners, as sinners. I cannot believe that its so easy a step to Christ.
For the second: It's a dream, that God loveth sinners with the same love every way, wherewith he loveth his own Son Christ. And why? Because God loveth us only for his own Son, and for nothing in us Ergo, Far more it must follow, its a far other, an higher, fountain love, wherewith the Father loveth his own eternal and consubstantial Son, the Mediator between God and man; and that derived love wherewith he loveth us sinners. As the one is 1. Natural; the latter, free? 2. The love of the Father to the Son, as his consubstantial Son, and so far as it's essentially included in his love to Jesus Christ Mediator, is not a love founded on grace and free-mercy, which might never have been in God ; because essentially, the Father must love his Son Christ, as his Son; and being Mediator, he cannot for that renounce his natural love to him, which is the fundamental cause, why he loveth us for Christ his Son, as Mediator ; but the love wherewith the Father loveth us for his Son Christ, is founded on free Grace and mercy; and might possibly never have been in God. For, 1. as he could not but beget his Son, he could not but love him; nature, not election can have place in either: but it was his Free will to create a man, or not create him. 2. He cannot but love his Son Christ, but God might either have loved neither man nor Angel, so as to choose them to Salvation, and he might have chosen other Men and Angels, then these whom he hath chosen; God hath no such freedom in loving his own Consubstantial Son. 2. Its an untruth, that God loveth his chosen ones, as he doth love his Son; that is, with the same degree of love, wherewith he loves his Son; I think that not far from either gross ignorance, or blasphemy. It possibly may be the same love by proportion, with which the Father tendereth the Mediator, or Redeemer, and all his saved and ransomed ones; but in regard of willing good to the creature loved, he neither loveth his redeemed with the same love, wherewith he loveth his Son; except blasphemously we say, God hath as highly exalted all the redeemed, and given to them a name above every name, as he hath done to his own Son; nor doth he so love all his chosen ones, as he conferreth equal grace and glory upon all alike; as if one star differed not from ano • her star in glory, in the highest heavens. Our own good works cannot make our Lord love us less or more, with the love of eternal election; but they may make God love us more with the love of compl • cency, and a sweeter manifestation of God in the fruits and gracious effects of his love. According to that, John 14.23. Jesus said, if a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
The third reason is the same with the first, and proveth nothing but a Major Poposition, not denied by the disquieted sinner, which is this: Who ever is justified and chosen, cannot be condemned; whom ever the Lord once loveth to salvation, he must always love to salvation ; for his love is like himself, and changeth not. But the disquieted sinner is chosen and loved to salvation. This Assumption is all the question: and the truth of a Major Proposition, can never prove the truth of the Assumption.
Saltmarsh, Free Grace, Chap. 4. Pag. 83.84, 85.
Because you feel not yourself sanctified, you fear you are not justified. If you suppose that God takes in any part of your faith, repentance, new obedience, or sanctification, as a ground upon which he justifieth or forgiveth 1. you are clear against the Word; for if it be of Works, it is no more of Grace. 2. It must then be the only evidence you seek for; and you ask for sanctification to help your assurance of justification: but take it in the Scriptures way.
1. In the Scriptures, Christ is revealed to be our sanctification. Christ is made unto us righteousness, sanctification. I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Ye are Christ's, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus. He hath quickened us together with Christ. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone: That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that new man which after God was created in righteousness and true holiness; We are members of his body, of his flesh, and his bones. And being found in him, not having mine own righteousness. I can d • e all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. But Christ is all in all. Your life is hid with Christ in God, Heb. 13.20, 21. All these set forth Christ as our sanctification▪ the fullness of his, the all in all. Christ hath believed perfectly for us, he hath sorrowed for sin perfectly, he hath obeyed perfectly, he hath mortified sin perfectly; and all is ours, and we are Christ's, and Christ is God's.
2. The second thing is Faith about our own sanctification we must believe more truth of our own graces then we can see or feel: the Lord in his Dispensation hath so ordered, that here our life should be hid with Christ in God, that we should walk by faith, not by sight: So we are to believe our repentance true in him, who hath repented for us; our mortifying sin true in him, through whom we are more then conquerors, our new obedience true in him, who hath obeyed for us, and is the end of the Law to everyone that believeth, our change of the whole man true in him, who is righteousness and true holiness. And thus without faith, its unpossible to please God. This is Scripture-assurance to see everyone in himself as nothing, and himself everything in Christ, Faith is the ground of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. All other assurances are rotten conclusions from the Word, invented by Legal Teachers not understanding the mystery of the Kingdom of Christ. The Scriptures bid you see nothing in yourself, or all as nothing. These teachers bid you see something in yourself: so as the leaving out Christ in Sanctification, is the foundation of all doubts, fears, distractions. And he that looketh on his repentance, on his love, on his humility, on his obedience, and not in the tincture of the blood of Christ, must needs believe weakly and uncomfortably.
Answer.
If a servant of sin, any Cain, wakened with the terrors of God, see his sins, feel hell in his soul for them, and have no warm thoughts of love, and far-off-affiance, at least in Christ Jesus ; but flee from Christ, and go to the enemies of Christ for comfort, as Judas did, he may strongly conclude: I feel, I am not sanctified; I hate the Physician Christ, and run from him: Ergo, I am not justified. And from a true real non-feeling of sanctification, its a strong consequence, there's no justification. But from a mis-prizing of Grace and Sanctification in myself, I cannot conclude, I am not justified. We know Papists in point of certainty of salvation, argue so; many deluded Hypocrites believe, or imagine, they have oil in their lamps, yet they are deceived; therefore the Saints can have no certainty they are in Christ. Its just like the answer now in hand. A mis-judging of sanctification, cannot argue no justification: Ergo, A true and real judgment of no sanctification in Hypocrites, and slaves of sin, cannot argue the persons to be justified, who thus argue. It is as if I should argue thus; A frantic and a sleeping man cannot know that he is frantic, and sleeping; therefore a sober and a waking man, cannot know that he is sober and waking. For a deserted child of God is in some spiritual Frensy and sleep, and does mis-prize Christ in himself, and sanctification; and therefore argueth often, that he is not in Christ, upon false principles. But a wakened conscience in Cain, and Judas, do strongly conclude, I am not a new creature, but a servant of sin: Ergo, I am not justified, and not in Christ ; and Cain in this consequence is sober, and not asleep.
2. Not any Protestant Divine, whom the Author calleth Legal Teachers, ignorant of the mystery of the Gospel ; did ever teach, that Faith, new Obedience, Repentance, are grounds upon which God justifieth a sinner. Antinomians, who make Repentance and Mortification all one with Faith; and as Master Den saith, they are but a change of the mind, to seek righteousness and mortification in Christ▪ not in ourselves. Thus much 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 doth signify, must say, as we are justified by faith, so also by repentance, and mortification: if repentance be nothing but faith, as they say.
3. We seek only the evidence of justification in our holy walking; as the Scripture doth, 1 Pet. 1.24. Galat. 1.4. 1 Pet. 1 18. 1 Joh. 3.14. Infinite places say, these that live to Christ, and are new Creatures must be in Christ, and justified, 2 Cor. 5.17. 1 Cor. 6.9, 10, 11, 12. Gal. 2.20. Col. 3.1, 2, 3, 4. Then the arguing from the effect to the cause can be no rotten conclusion, except by accident, in a soul distempered under desertion and weakness.
4. These places that make Christ our sanctification, and Christ to live in us, and believers to be the workmanship of Jesus created in him, unto good works, &c. Make not these to be acts of Christ formally repenting perfectly in us, sorrowing for sin, mortifying sin perfectly in us: as if we were mere patients, and were only obliged to repent, sorrow, mortify sin, when the Spirit breatheth • n us, and not otherwise, as Libertines explain themselves; which I hope to refute hereafter. 2. Nor do these places make Justification and Regeneration all one; as Master Town, with other Antinomians do. For we are not regenerated by faith, but that we may believe; but we are justified by faith. 2. Regeneration putteth in us a new birth, the image of the second Adam; Justification formally is for the imputed righteousness of Christ, which is in Christ, not in us. And it seems to me, that they make Justification and Sanctification all one: for the Author saith, that Christ not only repenteth in us, but for us, Christ obeyed for us, and is the end of the Law to everyone that believeth. Now what mysterious sense can be here, I cannot dream; Sure, it is no Gospel-secret; if the meaning (that Christ repenteth, and obeyeth for us, ) be, that Christ by his grace worketh in us repentance, and new obedience, and mortification, and the change of the whole man; its a good and sound sense. But then how must all assurances from repentance and new obedience, be the rotten conclusions of Legal Teachers? To see all these wrought by Christ, as the efficient and meritorious cause, and to ascribe them to the Spirit of Jesus, and thence conclude, we are Justified, as all Protestant Divines teach, is no rotten conclusion of Legal Teachers. For sure, if we ascribe them to nature, to free will, to ourselves, and confide in them, as parts of our righteousness, and from them, in that notion, draw the assurance of our Justification, as Papists, and Arminians do, and as the Saints out of fleshly presumption may do; this is no doctrine of Protestants. Is the Sun obliged to me, because I borrow light from it? Or the Flouds and Rivers beholden to men because they drink out of them? The new man is a creature of Christ's finding; cursed be they that sacrifice to Free-will; Its a strange God. The kingdom of grace, is a Hospital of free graces to sick men: all we do, the least good thought, or gracious motion in the soul, is a flower, and a rose of Christ's planting, and an Apple that grew on the tree of life; a sinner is the stock, but free Grace the sap. Christ's Father the Husbandman, life and growing is from Jesus the wine tree; we are but poor twigs that bring forth fruit in Christ. But I fear the sense of this, that Christ repenteth for us, and obeyeth for us, he being the end of the Law to overy one that believeth ; be far otherwise, to wit, that Christ's obedience of the Law, he being the end of the Law, as also his passive obedience is ours. If this be the intended sense, then all our Sanctification is nothing, but the Sanctification and holy active obedience of Christ. I yield this to be a broad, a fair and easy way to heaven. Christ doth all for us, Christ weeped for my sins, and that is all the repentance required in me, if I believe that Christ was mortified, and dead to the world for me, that is my mortification; and if I believe, that the Change of the whole man was truly in Christ, this is my true holiness: then my walking in holiness cannot be rewarded with life eternal, nor have any influence as a way, or means leading to the kingdom. 2. Christ's active obedience imputed to the sinner, can be no evidence of justification, because it is in Christ, not in me; any evidence, or mark of Justification must be inherent in the believer, not in Christ. 3. And one and the same thing cannot be a mark and a sign of it self. Now the active obedience of Christ imputed to the sinner, is holden to be a part of Justification.
5. The Scripture doth indeed bid you see nothing in yourself, that can buy the righteousness of Christ, or be an hire and wages to ransom imputed righteousness; and Legal Teachers, not any Protestant Divines, b • d you see something, a great something of merit, and self-righteousness in yourself. And Antinomians say, that the New creature, or the New man mentioned in the Gospel, is not meant of Grace, but of Christ. The Scripture maketh Christ and Justification the cause, and Sanctification and the New creature the effect; 2 Cor. 5.17. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. And this assertion maketh Sanctification, as form • lly distinguished from Christ and Justification, just nothing. And Antinomians say, that in the regenerate and Saints there is no inherent righteousness, no grace or graces in the souls of believers, but in Christ only. And M. Saltmarsh saith the same, that our sorrow, repentance, mortification, and change of the whole man, are nothing in us; but they are in Christ, and must be apprehended by faith, as things unseen: whereas the divine nature is in the Saints, 2 Pet. 1.4. Faith dwelleth in us. 2 Tim. 1.5. The new creation and image of Christ is in the mind, Ephes. 4.23. The seed of God abideth in us, 1 Joh. 3.9. The anointing that teacheth all things, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , remaineth in you, 1 Joh. 2.27. and Ezek. 36. • 6. I will give you an heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the inner part, or in the midst of you.
Antinomians teach, That true poverty of spirit doth kill and take away the sight of grace. And, Sanctification is so far from evidencing a good estate, that it darkens it rather; and a man may more clearly see Christ, when he seeth no sanctification, then when he sees it; the darker my sanctification is, the brighter is my justification. So Saltmarsh, The Scriptures bid you see nothing in yourself, or all as nothing; these Teachers bid you see something in yourself. And its a walking by faith, and not by sight; and a life hid with Christ in God, to believe more truth in our own graces, then we see or feel. Now its true, the Saints out of weakness mis-prize the Spirit 's working in them, and while they under-value themselves, they under-rate the new creation in themselves, and tacitly upbraid and • lander the grace of Christ, and lessen the heavenly treasure, because it is in an earthen vessel; but poverty of spirit and grace will see, and do see grace inherent in it self, though as the fruit of grace. Cant. 1.5. I am black (O daughters of Jerusalem) but comely, as the tents of Kedar. Vers. 11. While the King sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof. The Saints as they make a judgment of Christ and his beauty, so also of themselves; My heart waked. I am sick of love. Psal. 116.16. O Lord, truly I am thy servant. Psal. 63.1. My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth after thee. Psal. 73.25. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. Psal. 130.6. My soul waiteth for the Lord, more then they that watch for the morning. So Hezekiah, Isaiah 38.3. Paul, 2 Cor. 1.12. 2 Tim. 4.7, 8. 1 Cor. 15.9, 10. And others have set out in its colors the image of Christ in it self; but not as leaving out Christ, and taking in merit; nor doth the sense of sanctification darken justification, or lessen it to nothing, except where we abuse it to merit, and self-confidence, as Peter did; who in point of self-confidence ought to have forgotten the things that are behind. 2. Yea, to say we see justification more clearly, when we se • no sanctification, is to make the water and the Spirit, 1 Joh. 5.8. dumb or false witnesses, that either speak nothing, or tell lies. 3. It is against the office of the Spirit, which is to make us know 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the things that are freely given us of God, such as faith, repentance, love, mortification, Act. 5. • . 2 Tim. 2.25. Phil. 1.29. Ephes. 2.8. Rom. 5.5. Gal. 2.20. I grant by accident, when sin appeareth to a Saint out of measure sinful, and he seeth how little good he hath, that he is blind, naked, poor, and hath no money, nor price, that he is sold as a wretched man under a body of sin, Rom. 7.14, 24. it heighteneth the excellency and worth of the ransom and blood holden forth in Just • fication: And white righteousness, free and glorious, set beside black guiltiness, and no sanctification compearing as price or hire, maketh Christ appear to be choycer then gold or rubies. Yea, when I see no sanctification to buy Christ, then justification is more lovely, eye-sweet, taking, and soul-ravishing; as the more light, the more darkness is discovered; and the more sin, the higher is Jesus Christ. And by all this, the Saints professing their own integrity, and holy walking before God, should see something in themselves, not understanding the mystery of the Gospel, and err miserably with Legal Teachers, and darken free justification by grace: And one grace of God should obscure and destroy another; for to see, feel, and profess sanctification, is an act of supernatural feeling, and of grace; how then can it darken the faith of the remission of sins in Christ?
But it may be asked, When the Saints cannot be assured that God is their Father, in regard of sin, unbelief, and present deadness, what reasons would you use to raise their spirits up to the assurance of their interest and relation to God, as to their Father?
Ans. There is no way of arguing Saints out of their unbelief, except he that laboreth to strengthen them, being an Interpreter, one of a thousand, who can show a man his righteousness, be so acquainted with the condition of the afflicted soul, that he see in him some inherent qualification, that may argue to the Physician there is some, less or more of Christ in the soul of the man; else if he know him to be a person yet utterly void of Christ, sure he must deal with him that is under the Law, in a more legal and violent manner, then with him whom he conceiveth to be under the Gospel ; for one and the same physic cannot suit with contrary complexions. The Author professeth he dealeth with sinners as sinners, and so with all sinners; as if physic for the gut were fit physic for the stone in the bladder. I go not so high, but speak to a weak son, who hath God for his Father, but under soul-trouble doubteth whether God be his Father or not.
If he lay down a principle that he was never in Christ, because of such and such sins; you are not, whoever intends to cure him, to yield so much, and to deal with him according to a false supposal, as if he were not in Christ : but must labor to prove he is in Christ ; which to no purpose is done, by proving fair generals, as Saltmarsh, with other Libertines, doth; that is, you but till the sand, and beat the air to prove, that God's love is eternal, and his covenant and decree of election to his chosen so stable and unalterable, as no sin can hinder the flowings of eternal love, when you make not sure to the man, that he is loved with an everlasting love.
Hence these considerations for easing the afflicted conscience of a weak child of God.
Asser. 1. The soul laboring under doubts whether God be his Father, is to hold off two rocks, either confiding or resting on duties, or neglecting of duties: the former is to make a Christ of duties; as if Christ himself were not more lovely and desirable, then the comfortable accidents of joy, comfort, and peace in doing duties. Yea, take the formal vision of God, in an immediate fruition in heaven, as a duty, and as in that notion contra-distinguished from the objective vision of Christ, then Christ is to be enjoyed, loved, rested on, infinitely above the duties of vision, beatifice love, eternal resting on him, yea, above imputed righteousness, assurance of pardon, reconciliation; as the King is more then his bracelets of gold, his myrrh, Spikenard, perfumes, ointment, kisses; the tree more desirable then a fleece of apples that groweth on it for the fourth part of a year. 2. Sin, it must be to sue and woe the Kings Attendants and Courtiers by himself, or to make duties Christ, and Christ but a Man-servant and Mediator to duties, sense, comfort, assurance, or the like. 3. The Whelps of the Bear are taken from her by swift riding away with them, and by casting down one of them, that she may lose time in gaining the rest, while she returneth back again so many miles to bring that one to the den. And the smell of some delicious fields, they say, so taketh the dogs, that they forget the prey, and follow it no more. To smell so much in duties, and to be so sick and impotent in loving and resting on them, as to lie down in the way, and seek Christ no more, is doubtless a neglect of Christ. And thus high our Doctrine never advanced Sanctification, nor enthroned any acts, duties, or qualifications, under the notion of witnesses, or creators of peace or reconciliation; how our hearts may abuse them, is another thing.
Asser. 2. What, advise you then a deserted soul to go on in duties? and seek righteousness in himself? By no means; to seek righteousness in himself, that is highest pride: but will you call it pride for a starving man to beg? Is it self-denial for such a one to be stark dumb, and to pray none in his famishing condition for food? Did the Spouse seek her self in this duty? Cant. 3. Watchmen, saw ye him whom my soul loveth? Was this a resolution of pride? Chap. 3.2. I will rise now, and go about the City in the streets, and in the broad ways, I will seek him whom my soul loveth. And is it self-righteousness for the Spouse to send her hearty respects of service to Christ, when she cannot have one word from him, nor one smile? Cant. 5.6. Tell my beloved that I am sick of love. Nor do I think Mary Magdalene was in a distemper of Pharisaical righteousness, when she rose and prevented the morning sky, and came weeping to the grave; O Angels, saw ye the Lord? Gardener, whither have you carried him? May I not do these duties, when I miss him? May I not wake in the night? May I not do well to f • ed a love-fever for the want of him? May I not both pray, and say, Daughters of Jerusalem, pray for me? May I not make a din through all the streets and the broad ways, and trouble all the Watch-men and Shepherds, and pray them, Can you lead me to his tent, and tell me where he lieth? O but all these were to be done in faith: True; but are they not duties of love-sickness I owe to Christ also? I know they cannot bring to me everlasting righteousness; but is not seeking and knocking, stairs to finding and opening?
Asser. 3. Another counsel is; force not a Law-suit, seek not, buy not a plea against Christ. Conscience a tender piece under Jealousies saith, O he loveth not me, Christ hath forgotten me, join not in such a quarrel with conscience. Have not cold and low thoughts of Christ's love to you, because he is out of sight, he is not out of languor of love for you.
Asser. 4. Unbeliefe is a Witch, an Inchantresse, and covers Christ's face with a veil of hatred, wrath, displeasure. Examine what grounds of reason you have to mis-believe, or break with Christ ; say, he had broken with you, yet because you know it not, for suspicion; lose not such a friend as Christ, if you get never more of him, you may swear and vow to take to hell with you (if so he deal with you) the pawns, and love-tokens you once received, that they may be witnesses what Christ is, and may be the remnants, seeds, and leavings, of the high esteem you once had of him.
Asser. 5. A time Christ must have to go and come, and therefore must be waited on. We give the Sea hours to ebb and slow, and the Moon days to decrease and grow full; and the Winter-sun and the Summer-sun months to go away, and return; and whether we will, or no, God and Nature take their time, and ask us no leave: Why has God given to us eyes within, and without, but that David may wear his eyes, while they be at the point of failing, in looking up, and in waiting for God, Psal. 69.
Asser. 6. And though you were in hell, and he in heaven, he is worthy to be waited on; the first warm smile of a new return, is sufficient to recompense all sorrow in his absence, to say nothing of everlasting huggings, and embracings.
Asser. 7. Nor is this a good reason; I find sin, rottenness, and so a deserved curse in all my works of sanctification; therefore why should I make them any bottom for assurance, but I must take in Christ here for Sanctification: for if works of this kind be not done in Faith, to the knowledge of the doer; they can witness nothing, but bear a false testimony of Christ ; nor do we ever teach, that Christ is to be decourted from our works of Sanctification; but even faith it self, which is a bottom of peace to Antinomians, by this reason, must be cashiered; for as the love of Christ, our prayers, humility, are not formally sins, but only concomitantly, in regard that sin adhereth to them; as muddy water is not formally clay and mud, but in mixture its clayie, and muddy; so our Faith is concomitantly sinful; both because often its weak, and so wanting many degrees, and mixed with sin, deserves a curse, as well as works of Sanctification, but it apprehendeth Christ and righteousness in him, and so it bottometh our assurance: If by apprehending, you mean to bring to you certain knowledge, and assurance, that Christ is made my righteousness; then you beg the question, if you deny this to works of Sanctification. For, 1 John 2.3. Hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. Ver. 5. And who so keepeth his word, in him verily the love of God is perfected: hereby, (that is, by keeping his word, called twice before, verse. 3.4. The keeping of his Commandments ; and verse. 6. Walking as he walked:) Hereby (saith he) know we, that we are in him, in Christ our propitiation and righteousness; and thus are we justified by keeping the Commandments of God, because by this we apprehend, and know that we are justified. 2. But then all that are justified must be fully persuaded of their justification, and that faith is essentially a persuasion and assurance of the love of God to me in Christ, its more then I could ever learn to be the nature of Faith, a cons • quent separable I believe it is. 3. If by apprehending Christ and his righteousness, be understood a relying, and fiducial acquiescing and recumbencie on Christ for salvation: It is granted in this sense, that Faith is a bottom to our assurance of our being in Christ ; but that it breedeth assurance, in a reflect knowledge, always that a believer is in Christ, is not true: for, 1. I may believe, and be justified, and not know; yea positively doubt, that I believe and am justified; as thousands have pardon, and have no peace nor assurance of their pardon, and have faith in Christ, and in his free love, and have no feeling of Christ, and of his free love. For we believe more truth of our own graces (and so of our faith and assurance of our pardon) then we can see or feel, which is God's dispensation, that our life should be hid with Christ in God; Ergo, the life of Faith, by which the just doth live, is hid; and above the reach of feeling at all times. 2. As Faith which is the direct act of knowing and relying on Christ for pardon, is a work of the Spirit, above the reach of reason; so also the reflect act of my knowing and feeling, that I believe and am in Christ, which proceedeth sometime from Faith, and the immediate Testimony of the Spirit; sometime from our walking in Christ, 1 John 2.3, 4. 1 Joh. 3.14. is a supernatural work, above the compass and reach of our Free-will, and is dispensed according to the spirations and stirrings of the free grace of God ; and as the keeping of his Commandments, actu primo, and in it self, giveth Testimony that the soul is in Christ, and justified, even as the act of believing in it self doth the same; yet that we actu secundo, efficaciously know and feel that we are in Christ, from the irradiation and light of Faith, and sincere walking with God, is not necessary, save only when the wind of the actual motion and flowing of the Spirit, concur with these means; just as the Gospel-promises of themselves are life, and power, but they then only actually, actu secundo, animate and quicken whithered souls, when the Lord is pleased to contribute his influence, in the shinin • of his Spirit. Otherwise I may walk in darkness, yea, b •• eeve, pray, love, die for pain of love, and have no ligh • 〈◊〉 reflect knowledge, and feeling that I am in Christ, Isaiah • 0.10. I may be sick of love for Christ, call, knock, pray, confer with the watchmen, and daughters of Jerusalem, and be at a low ebb in my own sense; yea the beloved may to my feeling and actual assurance have withdrawn himself, Cant. 3.1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Cant. 5.5, 6, 7, 8. and all my inherent evidences cannot quicken me in any tolerable assurance. It's true, Sanctification may be darkened, yea, and Faith also, when there is nothing to the faith-failing and outer dying but this only of Christ the head, (all the life of a Saint retiring not to his faint heart, but to his strong head,) I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not: but the dark evening of David's, both Faith and Sanctification, and of Peter in his denying of his Master, and his Judaizing, Gal. 2. When he and others, ver. 14. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , do crook and halt between Grace and the Law, as the people did between Jehovah and Baal; their profession of Jehovah, and Christ's grace being long, and their practice short, and inclining too much to Baal, and salvation by the Law: as halting is a walking with a long and a short leg, the body unevenly inclining to both sides of the way: this darkening (I say) was in the second acts of Faith and Sanctification: but life and sap was at the root of the Oak-tree, when it was lopped, hewed, and by winter storms spoiled of the beauty of its leaves. We do not say, that Sanctification doth at all times, actually bear witness, or a like sensibly, and convincingly, that the soul is justified, is in Christ ; there be degrees, and intermission, and sick days, both of Faith and Sanctification. But we say, roses and flowers have been ever since the creation, and shall be to the end of the world, because though they vanish in winter, yet in their causes they are as eternal as the earth: so is Faith, and the bloomings, and green blossomings of Sanctification, always; but there is a Summer, when they cast forth their leaves and beauty.
Asser. 8. To press duties out of a principle of Faith, is to press Christ upon souls, nor can the seeing of beams, and light in the air, or of Wine-grapes on the tree, be a denying of the Sun to be in the firmanent, or of life and sap to be in the Vine-tree: to see and feel in ourselves grapes, and fruits of righteousness, except we make the grace of Christ a bastard, and mis father it, is no darkening of Christ, and free Grace, 1 Cor. 15.9, 10.
Asser. 9. There is a great difficulty, yea an impossibility, when the Lord hides himself, and goeth behind the Mountain, to command the flowing and emanations of Free grace.
1. Because desertion were not desertion, if it were under the dominion of our Free-will. For desertion as a punishment of sin, cannot be in the free-will of him that is punished; every punishment, as such is contrary to the will of the punished: and desertion as an act of free dispensation for trial, must be a work of omnipotent dominion.
2. As in works of nature and art, so is it here, that God may be seen in both; doth not men sweat, till, sow much, and the sun and summer, and clouds, warm dew and rains smile upon corns and meadows, yet God steppeth in between the mouth of the Husbandman and the sickle, and blasteth all; and the Lord takes away the physme, stay and staff of corn and grass; and there is bread enough, and yet famine and starving for hunger. Do not some rise early, and go late to bed, eat the bread of sorrow; yet the armed soldier of God, extreme poverty, breaketh in upon the house? Do not watch-men wake all the night, yet the City is surprised and taken in the dawning, because the Lord keepeth not th • City? The Lord doth all this, to show that he is the supreme and absolute Lord of all second causes. Why, but he hath as eminent and independent a Lordship in the acts of his free departure, and returns, in the sense of his love. Hath not the King of Saints a withdrawing room, and an hiding place? Is not his presence and manifestations his own? The deserted soul prayeth, crieth, weepeth; the Pastor speaketh with the tongue of the learned; the Christian friend argueth, exhorteth; experience and the days of old come to mind; the promises convince, and speak home to the soul; the poor man remembereth God, and he is troubled ; the Church, and many Churches pray, Christians weep and pray; yet Christ is still absent, the man cannot have, from all these, one half smile from Christ 's face; the vision will not speak one word of joy: All these can no more command a raging sea and stormy winds to be still, and create calmness in the soul, then a child is able to wheel about the third heavens, in a course contrary to its natural motion. Omnipotency is in this departure. God himself is in the dispensation, and absolute freedom of an independent dominion acteth in the Lord 's covering of himself with a cloud, and putteth an iron cross-bar on the door of his pavilion; and can you stir Omnipotency, and remove it? Think you praying can charm and break independent dominion, working to show it self as a dominion?
3. The sense of Christ which is wanting in desertion, cannot be enforced by persuasion, no more then you can, by words, persuade the deaf to hear. Oratory cannot make the taste feel the sweetness of honey. There is a light that cometh from heaven, above the sun and moon; yea, above the Gospel ; and is not extracted, or educed out of the potency of either the soul, nay nor of the Gospel, (I conceive,) that bringeth forth, in act, the white stone, and the new name: and as nature and instincts natural perform their natural duties without any oratory, so as persuasion cannot make the fire to burn, nor the sun to shine, nor the bird to build its nest, nor the lamb to know its mother; nature doth all these: So neither doth the persuasion of Paul, preaching the Gospel, Act. 26.28. Act. 16.14. the same thing, and every way the same work, that the Lord doth, in persuading Japheth to dwell in the tents of Shem, Gen. 9.27. I could easily admit, that we are patients in receiving the predetermination active of the Holy Ghost in either believing, or in actual enlightening, and the actual witness-light by which Christ shineth in the heart, for producing actual assurance; though in the same moment and order of time (not of nature) we be also agents.
Asser. 10. Though means must not be neglected, as praying, and waiting on the watch-tower, for the breathings of renewed assurance; yet as touching the time, manner, way and measure of the speaking of the vision, God 's absolute dominion is more to be respected here, then all the stirrings and motions of the under wheels of prayer, preaching, conference.
Asser. 11. The soul should be argued with, and convinced, thus: Why, will you not give Christ your good leave to tutor and guide you to heaven? He hath carried a world of Saints over the same seas you are now in, and Christ paid the fare of the ship himself, not one of them are found dead on the shore; they were all as black and sun-burnt as you are, but they are now a fair and beautiful company, without spot before the throne, and clothed in white; they are now on the sunny side of the river, in the good Land where glory groweth, far above sighing and jealousy. You are guilty of the breach of the Privilege of Christ ; 1. He is a free Prince, and his Prerogative Royal is uncapable of failing against the Fundamental Laws of Righteousness, in the measuring out either work or wages, grace or glory. Mat. 20.13. Friend, I do thee no wrong: mine own is mine own.
Object. O but he is sparing in his grace, his love-visits are thin sown, as straw-berries in the rock.
Answ. I answer for him; 1. The quantity of grace is a branch of his freedom. 2. Why do you not complain of your sparing improving of two talents, rather then of his niggard giving of one only. He cannot sin against his liberty in his measuring out of grace; you cannot but sin in receiving. Never man, except the man Christ, durst, since the creation, (the holiest I will not except) face an account with God, for Evangelic receipts; Christ to this day is behind with Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Job, Peter, John, Paul, and all the Saints, in the using of grace, they were below grace, and Christ was necessitate to write in the close of their counts with a pen of grace, and ink of his blood, Friend, you owe me this, but I forgive you. They flew all up to heaven with millions of arrear • s, more then ever they wrought for: As some godly rich man may say, This poor man was addebted to me thousands, now he is dead in my debt, I forgive him, his grave is his acquittance; I have done with it. Christ upbraids not you with old debts, that would sink you; why cast ye up in his teeth, his free gifts? 3. Think it mercy he made you not a gray-stone, but a believing Saint: And there is no imaginable compari • on, between his free gifts, and your bad deserving.
2. The way of his going and coming should not be quarrelled. The Lord walketh here in a liberty of dispensation; a summer-sun is heritage to no Land. It was not a blood of a daily temper that Paul was in, when he said, Rom. 8.38. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, &c. shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ. It was a high and great feast, when Christ saith to his Church, Cant. 5.1. I am come into my garden, my Sister, my Spouse, I have gathered my myrrh with my spice, I have eaten my honey-comb with my honey: eat, O friends, d • ink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved. Its true, he is always in his Church, his Garden, gathering lilies; but storms and snowes often cover his Garden.
3. Were assurance always full moon, as Christ 's faith in his saddest soul-trouble was bank-full sea, and full moon; and were our joy ever full, then should the Saints heaven on earth, and their heaven above the visible heavens, differ in the accident of place, and happily, in some fewer degrees of glory; but there is a wisdom of God to be reverenced here. The Saints in this life are narrow vessels; and such old bottles could not contain the new wine that Christ drinketh with his, in his Fathers Kingdom, Mat. 17. When the Disciples see the glory of Christ in the Mount, Peter saith, Vers. 4. Lord, it is good for us to be here: but when that glory cometh nearer to them, and a cloud over-shadows them, Luk. 9.34. and they hear the voice of God speak out of the cloud, Mark. 9.7. They fell down on their face, Mat. 17.6▪ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , They were sore afraid. Why afraid? Because of the exceeding glory, which they testified was good, but knew not what they said. We know not that this joy is unspeakable. We rejoice, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , with joy that no man can relate: How then can a man contain it? I may speak of a thousand millions of things more excellent and glorious then I can feel. Should God pour in as much of Christ in us in this life, as we would in our private wisdom, or folly desire, the vessel would break, and the wine run out: We must cry sometimes, Lord, hold thy hand. We are as unable to bear the joys of heaven in this life, as to endure the pains of hell. Every drop of Christ 's honey-comb is a talent weight; and the fullness of it must be reserved, till we be enlarged vessels, sitted for glory.
Asser. 12. We do not consider, that Christ absent hath stronger impulsions of love, then when present in sense and full assurance: as is clear in that large Song of the high praises of Christ, which is uttered by the Church, Cant. 5. when he had with-drawn himself, Vers. 6. and She was sick of love for him. Vers. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. 2. There is a sort of heavenly antiperistasis, a desire of him kindled, through occasions of absence; as we are hottest in seeking after precious things, when they are absent, and farthest from our enjoying. Absence sets on fire love. The impression of his kissing, embracing, lovely and patient knocking, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove ; the print of his foot-steps, the remanents of the smell of his precious ointments, his shadow when he goeth out at doors, are coals to burn the soul. Psal. 63.6. When I remember thee, upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. I cannot sleep, for the love of Christ, in the night. What follows? Vers. 8. My soul follows hard, cleaveth strong after thee. Psal. 77.3. I remembered God, and was troubled: rather, I remembered God, and rejoiced: But the memory of old love, and of absent and with-drawing consolations, break the heart. How do some weep, and cast-aside their harps, when they remember the seven year old embracements of Christ, and Christ 's virgin-love, and Zion-sweet songs in the days of their youth? Cant. 5. when the Church rose, but after the time, to open to Christ, when he was gone, and had withdrawn himself, Vers. 5. Mine hands (saith the Church) dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh upon the handles of the bar. Then her love to Christ was strongest, her bowels moved, the smell of his love, like sweet-smelling myrrh, was mighty rank, and piercing.
Asser. 13. Why, but then when the wheels are on moving, and the longing after Christ awaked, and one foot, we should pray Christ home again, and love him in to his own house, and sigh him out of his place, from beyond the mountain into the soul again; as the Spouse doth, Cant. 3.1, 2, • , 4, 5. if ever he be found, when he is sought, it will be now, though time, and manner of returning be his own.
Asser. 14. Nor are we to believe that Christ's love is coy, or humorous in absenting himself, or that he is lordly, high, difficill, inexorable, in letting out the sense, the assurance of his love, or his presence; as we dream a thousand false opinions of Christ under absence, nor do we consider that security and indulgence to our lusts loses Christ, and therefore its just, that as we sin in roses, we should sorrow in thorns.
Asser. 15. If the Lord's hiding himself, be not formally an act of Grace, yet intentionally on God's part, it is; as at his return again, he cometh with two heavens, and the gold chain soldered is strongest in that link which was broken; and the result of Christ's return to his garden, Cant. 5.1. is a feast of honey, and milk, and refined wines: when he is returned, then his Spicknand, his perfume, his myrrh, aloes, and cassia, casteth a smell even up to heaven; in the falls of the Saints, this is seen; David after his fall hearing mercy, feeling God had healed his bones, that were broken, Psal. 51. there is more of God's praises within him, then he can vent, he prayeth God would broach the vessel, that the new wine may come out, Vers. 15. O Lord open thou my lips, that my mouth may show forth thy praise: and after the meeting of the Lord and the forlorn Son, besides the poor sons expression, full of sense: consider how much sense and joy is in the Father; It is a Parable, yet it saith much of God. Luke 15. verse. 20. And when he was yet a great way off, his Father saw him. Christ the Father of age or eternity, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Isaiah 9.6. knoweth a friend a far off, and his heart kindles, and grows warm when he sees him, Were he thousands and millions of miles from God, yet aiming to come, he sees him, and had compassion ; he sees with moved bowels, and ran, how swift is Christ's love, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. O what expression of tenderness! and to all these, is added a new robe, and a Ring for ornament, and a feast, the fat Calf is killed, and the Lord sings, and dances, Vers. 23, 24, 25. Peters denial of Christ, brought him to weeping, flowing from the Spirit of Grace poured on David's house, Zach. 12.10. And Peter had the more grace, that he loosed grace, for a time. As after drawing blood and cutting a vein, more cometh in the place; and after a great Feaver, and decay of strength, in a recovery, Nature repaireth it self more copiously. And often in our sad troubles, we have that complaint of God, which he rebuketh his people for; Isaiah • 0.27. Why sayest thou O Jaakob, and speakest O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from God ; that is, the Lord takes no notice of my affliction, and he forgets to right me, as if I were hid out of his sight: and David Psal. 31.22. I said in my hast, I am cut off from before thine eyes. Its not unlike a word which Cain spake, with a far other mind, Gen. 4.14. From thy face shall I be hid. But this is 1. To judge God to be faint and weak, as if he could do no more, but were expi • ing, Isaiah 40. verse. 28. He will be both weak and wearied, if he forget his own; and our darkness cannot rob the Lord of light, and infinite knowledge, he cannot forget his office as Redeemer. God is not like the Stork that leaves her eggs in the Sand, and forgets that they may be crushed and broken. When Christ goes away, he leaves his heart and love behind in the soul, till he return again himself; if the young creation be in the soul, he must come back to his nest, to warm with his wings, the young tender birth.
Asser. 16. Nor is Christ so far departed at any time, but you may know the soul he hath been in, yea he stands at the side of the sick bed, weeping for his pained child; yea your groans pierceth his bowels, Jer. 31.20. For since I spoke against him (saith the Lord) I do earnestly remember him ; its not the less true, that the head of a swoning son, lieth in the bosom and the two arms of Christ ; that the weak man believeth, that he is utterly gone away.
Asser. 17. Nor will Christ more reckon in a Legal way, for the slips, mis-judgings, and love-rovings of a spiritual distemper, then a Father can whip his child with a rod, because he mis-knoweth his Father, and uttereth words of folly in the height of a fever. Christ must pardon the fancy, and sins of sick love; the errors of the love of Christ, are almost innocent crimes, though unbelief make love-lies of Jesus Christ. There be some over-lovings, as it were, that foames out, rash and hasty jealousies of Christ, when acts of fiery and flaming desires do out-run acts of faith: as hunger hath no reason; so the inundations and swellings of the love of Christ, flow over their banks, that we so strongly desire the Lord to return, that we believe he will never return.
Asser. 18. Though hid Jewels be no Jewels, a loosed Christ, no Christ, to sense, yet is their an unvisible, and an undiscerned instinct of heaven, that hindered the soul to give Christ over.
Shall we upon all this, extend all these Spiritual considerations to all men, whether they be in Christ, or not. Some teach us this, as the great Gospel-secret concerning Faith; That none ought to question, whether they believe God to be their Father, Christ their Redeemer, or no; but are to believe till they be persuaded, that they do believe, and feel more and more of the truth of their faith, or belief; righteousness being revealed from faith to faith: The 1. ground of this is, Christ's command to believe; now commands, of this nature are to be obeyed, not disputed.
But this is so far from being a Gospel-secret, that it is not a Gospel truth; and sends poor souls to seek honey in a nest of Wasps, the path-way to presumption. For though these who truly believe, ought not to doubt of their belief, yet these who have lamps of faith, and no oil, ought to question, whether there be oil in their lamps, or no, and true faith with their profession, else the foolish Virgines were not far out, who never questioned their faith, till it was out of time to buy oil; and that these Virgines should believe, they had oil in their lamps, when they had none, till they should be persuaded, that empty lamps, were full lamps, and a bastard faith, true faith, were to oblige them to feed upon the East-wind, till there should be a faith produced in the imagination, that the East is the West. 2. All the Scriptures that charge us to try ourselves, 1 Cor. 11. • 8. To examine ourselves, whether we be in the faith, and to know ourselves, that Jesus Christ is in us, except we be reprobates. 2 Cor. 13.5. and to know the things that are freely given us of God. 1 Cor. 2.12. and so to know our faith, Phil. 1.29. do evince that we are to try, and so far to question, whether we believe, or not; as multitudes are obliged to acknowledge, their faith is but fancy, and that there is a thing like faith, which is nothing such; and that we are not to deceive ourselves, with a vain presumption, which looketh like faith, and is no faith. And James 2. many who believe there is a God, and imagine they have faith, being void of good works, and of love, in which the life and efficacy of faith is much seen, have no more faith, then Devils have, Vers. 18, • 9▪ 20. ( • .) It is true that we are to believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, without any disputing concerning the equity of the command of believing, or of our obligation to believe: For both are most just. And to dispute th • holy and just will of God, is to oppose our carnal reason, to the wisdom of God ; but we are no • , because we cannot dispute the holy command of God ; nor to reason our duty, not to examine whether that which we conceive, we do as a duty be a bastard and false conception, or a true and genuine duty; nor, because I may not reason the precept of believing, given by Jesus Christ, am I therefore to believe, in any order that I please, and to come to Christ, whether I be weary and laden with sin, or not weary and laden. Christ commandeth me to believe, Ergo, remaining in my wickedness, regarding iniquity in my heart, without despairing of salvation in myself, I am to believe, I shall deny this c • ns • quence. It is all one, as if Antinomians would argue thus; All within the visibl • Church are obliged to believe and r • st on Christ for salvation; whether they be elect or reprobate? whether their whoorish heart be broken with the sense of sin, or whole? Ergo, they are obliged to presume, or to rest on Christ, their righteousness, whether they distrust their own, or not.
Object. 2. We find not any, in the whole course of Christ's preaching, or the Discioles, that asked the question, whether they believed or not; or whether their faith were true faith or no. It were a disparagement to the Lord of the feast to ask, whether his dainties were real or delusions.— The way to be sure of the truth of good things, is tasting and feeling: Eat, O friends, drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved.
Answ. This reason would infer, that there is not a Saint on earth capable of such a sin, as to doubt whether they believe or not; because we read not of it in any of the hearers of Christ, or the Apostles : This is a bad consequence, except you say, All the various conditions of troubled consciences are set down, in particular examples, in the New Testament. Which is contrary to all experiences of the Saints. 2. It is one thing to doubt of the truth of the promises, and another thing to doubt, whether my apprehension of the promise be true or false: The latter is not always sin; for it may be my apprehension of the truth of the promises be beside the line, and off the way; and then I question not Christ 's dainties (which to do were unbelief) but my own deluded fancy, which may appear to be faith, and is nothing less: the former is indeed unbelief, not the latter. 3. Its true, tasting makes sure the truth of the Lord 's good things, that are enclosed in the promises; but then, an unconverted sinner, who is void of spiritual senses, cannot be the beloved, nor the friend that Christ speaketh to, Cant. 5.1. We do not say, a believer ought to doubt, whether he hath true faith or no: but because the command of believing obliegeth the non-converted, as well as the converted, shall the natural man eat as a friend and a beloved, he remaining in nature, and not yet converted, and this man in nature ought not to doubt, whether his fancy be faith or not, but he is obliged to believe, that is, to imagine that his fancy is faith? 4. I see not how, if the faith of the Saints be tried as gold in the fire, they may not through the prevalency of temptation be shaken in their faith, as Peter was, when he denied his Savior ; and Paul ; who 2 Cor. 1, 8. was pressed out of measure, above strength, despaired of life, had the sentence of death. 2 Cor. 7.5. was troubled on every side, fightings without, and fears within: and the sons of God, who may fear that they have received the spirit of bondage to fear again, opposite to the Spirit of adoption, Rom. 8.15. but that they may faint in their tribulations, Ephes. 3.13. and may be surprised with fear, which hath torment, and must be cast out, 1 Joh. 4.18. and may be ready to faint and die, Revel. 3.2. and turn luke-warm, be wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked, and yet believe the contrary of themselves, Revel. 3.16, 17. All these may come, and often do come to that low condition of spirit, after Justification, as to say and think that all men are liars, their faith is no faith, that they are forsaken of God, to their own sense, and cast out of his sight, and question whether they ever did believe, or no: And why would the Apostle say, Patience bringeth forth experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, Rom. 5.4. if experience that ever God loved me, or that ever I believed, to my present sense, cannot be removed? But this is but the Doctrine of Famulists ; who teach, That after the revelation of the Spirit, neither devil nor sin can make the soul to doubt. And To question whether God be my dear Father, after, or upon the committing of some heinous sins, (as murder, incest, &c.) doth prove a man to be in the Covenant of works. Do not they then teach us a way of despairing, who say, that We find not in the whole course of Christ's preaching, or the Disciples, that any asked the question, whether they believed, or no; whether their faith were true faith, or no? What then shall thousands of smoking flaxes and weak reeds do, who often ask this question, and say and think, Ah, I have no faith; my faith is but counterfeit metal? And then by this Doctrine of despair, believers ought to conclude, I am not under Grace, but under the Law, and a Covenant of works, and so not in Christ ; yea, whatever lusters were in me before, I am in no condition of any we read of in the New Testament, who were hearers of Christ and the Apostles ; for Libertines, never true believers, doubted whether their faith was true, or not.
Object. 3. For any to doubt whether they believe or no, is a question, that Christ only can satisfy, who is the Author and Finisher of our faith. Who can more properly show one that he sees, then the Light which enlightens him?
Answ. Christ solves not questions that no man ever made: S. thinks that believers never doubt whether their faith be true faith, or not; which is a strong way of believing: and those must be so strong in the faith, who doubt not of this, as they are above all temptations. But this will be found against the experience of all believers. It is most true, none can work faith, but the only Creator and Author of faith: but will the Author hence infer, no man, the most wicked, nor any that ever heard Christ or his Apostles preach, doubted of their faith? 2. The sun, with all its light, cannot persuade a blind man who seeth not, that he seeth: believers often think they see, when they see not, and think they are blind, when they see; as experience and Scripture, Revel. 3.16, 17. Joh. 9.38, 39. teach us.
Object. 4. Faith is truly and simply this, A being persuaded more or less of Christ's love: and therefore it is called a believing with the heart. Now, what infallible sign is there to persuade any that they are persuaded, when themselves question the truth of their persuasion: God only shall persuade Japheth. Who can more principally, and with clearer satisfaction persuade the Spouse, of the good will of him she loves, but himself? Can all the love-tokens, or testimonial rings and bracelets? They may concur and help in the manifestation, but it is the voice of the beloved, that doth the turn: My beloved spake and said unto me, Rise my love, my fair one; saith the Spouse.
Answ. 1. Faith may be a persuasion in some sense, but that it is a persuasion that my faith or persuasion is true, not counterfeit, and so formally, is utterly denied. How many believe and love Christ with the heart, who are not persuaded that they do so; yea, much doubt whether they believe with the heart, and would give a world to know (if it were possible) that they truly love God? No Divine, who knoweth that a direct act of faith and to believe, is, when there is no reflex act, can deny this. 2. Arguments or signs, in accurate speech, are not called infallible, actu secundo ; the word of God is in it self infallible, actu pr •• o : But to Aristotle, this, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, is not infallible, actu secundo ; nor are the promises, He that believeth, shall be saved. Knocke, and it shall be opened. He that overcometh, shall inherit all things; actu secundo ; to a believer, who, under a distemper, doth doubt of them, infallible. So, The love of the brethren, 1 Joh. 3.14. The keeping of the Commandments, and the word of Jesus, is infallible in it self. That I know Christ savingly, and that he dwelleth in me, 1 Joh. 2. verse. 3.5. but that it infallibly concludeth so to me, actu secundo, is not sure, except the wind blow fair from heaven, and the Spirit act in me. So the love-tokens and testimonial rings and bracelets of the Husband, my love to the Saints, my keeping of his word, my holy walking in Christ, being the works of his Spirit, which dwelt in Jesus Christ, are actu primo, in themselves, as infallible signs of the Bridegromes love to me; as the Beloved's word who spake and said, Arise, my love: And if the spirations and breathings of the Spirit go not along, both the voice and the love-bracelets (for Christ is no more counterfeit in his love-tokens, then in his word, when he speaks as a Husband) are alike ineffectual to persuade the soul. I see no reason to call the works of Sanctification inferior helps in the Manifestation, more then the voice of the Beloved; for both without the Spirit are equally ineffectual: and if the Spirit breathe and move with them, both are effectual, & actu primo, & secundo, and they infallibly persuade. It is then a weak Argument, None can simply persuade Japheth but God; ergo, The word of the Bridegroom only can infallibly persuade; or, therefore love-bracelets cannot infallibly persuade: for the word not quickened by the Spirit of Jesus, cannot simply persuade; and the Lord's persuading of Japheth, is the Lord's work of converting Japheth, not his enlightening of Japheth to know his faith to be true faith. Hence for that which infallibly persuadeth us, I say,
1. Our act of believing doth no more persuade of it self that we do believe, except the Spirit breathe with the act of believing, for actual illumination and persuasion, then any other act of loving Christ, his Saints, or universal intention, or sincerity of heart to obey, doth prove to us that we believe; for many believe who know not, yea, doubt of their believing, because the Holy Ghost maketh not the light of faith effectual to persuade, that they truly believe.
2. Asser. The testimony of the Holy Spirit, is the efficacious and actual illumination and irradiation of the Sun of righteousness and his Spirit, assuring us that we are the sons of God. This light cometh from inherent acts of grace in us: 1 Joh. 2.3, 4, • . chap. 3.14. (2) From the testimony and rejoicing which resulteth from a good conscience: 2 Cor. 1.12. 2 Tim. 4.6, 7, 8. 1 Tim. 6.17, 18. Heb. 13.18. (3.) From the experience they have had of the Lord's dealing with their souls, and the love of God spread abroad in the heart, by the Holy Ghost: Rom. 5.3, 4, 5. (4) From a sincere aim and respect to all the Commandments of God, Psal. 119.6. Acts 24.16. 1 Joh. 3.20, 21. 1 Thess. 5.23. Phil. 4.12. Revel. 22.14, 15. (5.) From the positive marks that Christ putteth on his Children as marks of true blessedness, Math. 5.3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Psal. 119.1, 2. Psal. 32.1, 2. (6.) From the judgment that the Saints maketh of themselves, and their own begun communion with God, Psal. 73.25. Psal. 18.20, 1, 22. Psal. 26.3, 4.8. Psal. 40.9 10.7.8. Job 31. Job 29. Isaiah • 8.3. Psal. 42.1, 2. Psal. 6 • .1, 2, 3, 4 8. Psal. 84.2, 3, 4, 5. Psal. 119. • 0, 31, 40.46.50.57.60, 62, 63.81.82.97.98▪ 99.101, 103, 111, 112.125.127.128.136.139, 145.148.162.164. Cant. 1.5. chap. 2.4.5.6.16. chap. 3.1, 2, 3, 4, 5. chap. 5.6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. All which were needless floorishes, if they had neither peace, consolation, nor assurance from these, as from marks and signs which do infallibly convince, (the light, breathings and irradiations of the Holy Ghost concurring with them) that they are in a saving condition, who have these qualifications, in them. (7.) Because by holy walking, the Saints make their calling and election sure and firm, not to God, but to themselves, 2 Pet. 1.10, 11, 12. verse. 5.6, 7.
Asser. 3. As there is in the eye, lumen innatum ; in the ear, aer internus ; a certain inbred light, to make the eye see lights, and colors without; and a sound and air in the ear within, to make it discern the sounds that are without. So is there a grace, a new nature, an habitual instinct of heaven, to discern the Lord's Spirit immediately testifying, that we are the Sons of God, Rom. 8.16. 1 Cor. 1.12. Grace within knoweth Christ speaking without, the voice of my beloved. As the Lamb knoweth, by an internal instinct, the mother; but for wakening and quickening of the instinct to apprehend this, there is need of opened eyes, and the presence of the mother to the eye, or of the bleating of the mother, to a waking ear; for instincts cannot work in the sleep, if the Spirit speak, and the voice behind be heard, the soul knoweth what sound it heareth, but not otherways; it is but curiosity so to compare the evidence by signs and marks of Sanctification, with that evidence, that cometh from the Spirits immediate voice, or testimony, so as the former should be less sure, fallible, conjectural; and the latter infallible, sure and efficaciously convincing. For the evidences are both supernatural, certain, divine, and strongly convincing, if there be any deception in either, it is because of the dullness of our apprehension, or our imagination, which fancieth, we see, what we see not, or from our unbelief who will not be convinced. For the Holy Ghost speaketh the same thing, by his operations of grace, in holy walking, that he speaketh by either the Word preached, or by the Word, and immediate voice of the Spirit, witnessing to our Spirit ; and there is the same authority revealing to us a thing hid, and the same thing revealed; it maybe, there be a variation of the degrees, of light and divine irradiation: Or the one may carry in to the soul a more deep impression of God then the other, and the radiation of light in the subject, may be more strong in the one, then in the other; but of themselves they are both infallible, supernatural, and convincing.
It is doubted which of these evidences be more free, and partake more of the nature of Grace. Antinomians conceive that an evidence by marks in our self is more selfie, less free, and nearer to a seeking of assurance in our self, then that evidence which resulteth from the immediate testimony of the Spirit. But the ground they build on is false, and the superstructure is less sure. If it were a matter of giving and receiving, or of wages and work, it were something, but its a matter of mere knowledge, God reveiling our condition to us one way, not another. Possibly the more external, the more immediate, and far a thing be from a condition, even of Grace, the more free, as the election to Glory, the paying of the ransom of Christ's blood, or the act of atonement are most free, for they require not so much as the condition of faith wrought by the free Grace of God; but Justification (say our Divines) requireth faith, as a condition. And here God may keep his hands free of any knot, or obligation of a condition; and it would seem that the immediate testimony of the Spirit, is more free then evidence from inherent marks, the wind seemeth to be freer in its motion, which hath not a restriction to fixed causes, rather at this hour, then at that; the Sea again in its ebbing and flowing, and the Sun in its rising and going down, are more fettered to set times, and condition of natural causes, yet all these detract nothing from the freedom of God the creator, in his concurring with these causes; nor do conditions that are wrought in us irresistibly by the grace of God, lay any tie on that independent, sovereign, and high freedom of Grace, which doth no less justify, and save us freely, then choose us to glory, and redeem us with the same freedom, without p • ice and hire: only I will mind Libertines, who deny that Justification, the covenant of grace and salvation, have any the most gracious conditions in us; for that should obscure the freedom of Grace, (they say) all within the visible Church, without aany preparations, are immediately to believe salvation and remission of sins to themselves in particular. But I hope, Faith is a work of free Grace, and must presuppose, conversion and a new heart, as an essential condition, else with Pelagians, they must say, that out of the principles of nature, all are to believe; and this obscureth far more the freedom of the grace of God working Faith in us, then all the conditions of Grace, which we hold to be subservient, not contrary to the freedom of grace.
Object. 5. We ought to believe, till we be persuaded that we believe. Ephes. 1.13. In whom after ye believed, ye were sealed. The way to be warm, is not only to ask for a fire, or whether there be a fire or no, or to hold out the hands a little toward it, and away, and wish for a greater; but to stand close to that fire, and gather heat.
Answ. 1. That believing bringeth persuasion, I doubt not; but not such a sealing with the broad and great seal of heaven, as excludeth all doubting, as Antinomians teach; nor doth the place prove it. For these who can flee with such strong wings, and are above all doubting, (1.) need not Christ's intercession, that their faith fail not, they are above, and beyond the Sphere of all obligation to Grace: nor (2.) need they pray, Lead us not into temptation. Nor (3.) need they bear in meekness, the overtaken weak ones, who trip and stumble unawares, considering lest they also be tempted, Gal. 6.1. (4.) The faith of the strongest is not full Moon, or uncapable of growing, Phil. 3.12. (5.) There is need of praising of Grace, for the prevailing victory of a faith beyond doubting. (6.) Nor need such pray Christ to increase their faith. Judge then of Libertines, who talk of a broad seal, of perfect assurance, and say, There is no assurance true and right, unless it be without fear and doubting.
2. The way to be warm at a painted fire, such as is the immediate revealing of Christ to an unconverted sinner, never humbled, nor despairing of himself, which is the Libertines dead faith, is not the way to be warmed, nor are we to believe in Christ, but in Christ's own way and order: and its safe to call in question, whether such a painted fire be fire; nor are we to go on in this believing, till we be persuaded that we believe, truly this is no Gospel-secret.
If Libertines say, its unpossible to believe, but we must despair in ourselves. I answer, So I believe; but then must it follow, that Libertines deceive, and are deceived, when they teach, that sinners as sinners are to believe, because sinners despairing of salvation in themselves, must be fewer in number, then sinners as sinners ; for sinners as sinners, comprehendeth Pharisees, and all secure and malicious slaves of hell; but self-despairing sinners include not any such, far less include they all sinners, they be only such sinners as are half sick, looking a far off, with half an eye to Jesus Christ, not daring fully to make out to Jesus Christ ; proud Pharisees despair not of salvation in themselves, for then they should not be proud Pharisees in so far; but Libertines teach us, that Pharisees remaining Pharisees, without any preparations going before, are immediately to believe in Christ, if they say, Self-despair is an essential part of Faith, not a preparation going before faith ; they err: Judas, Cain, despair of salvation both in themselves and in Christ, yet have they not any essential part of saving faith, nor can any essential part of saving faith be in such, nor can any come to Christ, and believe in him, while first they know sin by the law, and their mouth be stop'd, that the law cannot justify nor save them, Rom. .19 20, 21. An • M • . Eaton and the Antinomians that are not mere Familists, and Enthysiasts rejecting all written Scripture, do also grant this; then it must be unpossible, that any can believe, but some preparation fore-going there must be; and because all sinners as sinners have not such preparation, all sinners as sinners are not at the first clap, to believe in the soul Physician Christ, but only such as in Christ's order are plowed, ere Christ sow on them, and self-condemned ere they believe in Christ.
Object. 6. We are no more to question our faith, then we ought to question Christ the foundation of our faith, for salvation to the soul in particular is destroyed by unbelief, they entered not in because of unbelief: The word profitted not, being not mixed with faith.
Answ. 1. We cannot question Christ, more then we can question whether God be God ; but we may examine Paul 's Doctrine, as the Beroans did; we may try our own faith, if it can hold water. If some would wash their false coin, and bring it to the touch-stone, the false metal would be seen. 2. The unbelief in weak ones doubting of their faith, is not that which destroys salvation, and excludeth men out of the holy Land: they are cruel to weak reeds, who exclude them out of heaven, because in their mis-judging distempers they exclude themselves; were Christ as cruel to a faint believer, who is sick of misgivings, as he is to himself, who could be saved? But a believer may appeal from himself ill-informed, and doubting groundlessly, to meek Jesus well-informed, and judging aright a weak reed, to be a reed; a sick believer, and a swouning faith, to be a believer, and a faith, that will bear a soul to heaven. A weak hackney, if spritie, may accomplish a great journey.
Object. 7. Satan puts us clean back here; we are proving o •• faith by our works, when as no works can be proved solidly good, but by our faith; for without faith its unpossible to please God. We know that every piece of money is valued according to the image and superscription; if Caesar be not there, though it be silver, yet it is not coin, it is not so currant: So there is not anything of Sanctification currant, and of true practical use and comfort to a believer, if Christ be not there. Crisp saith, Sanctification and good works are litigious grounds of our faith. This bordereth with the language of Libertines. It is a fundamental and soul-damning error to make sanctification an evidence of justification. And Christ's work of grace can no more distinguish between an hypocrite and a Saint, then the rain that falls from heaven, between the just and the unjust. And The Spirit gives such full evidence of my good estate spiritually, that I have no need to be tried by the fruits of sanctification, this were to light a candle to the sun.
Answ. 1. That which the Spirit of God calleth saving knowledge, 1 Joh. 3.14. Hereby know we, &c. 1 Joh. 2.3, 4, 5. that doth Libertines affirm to be a policy of Satan, leading us back again, and a soul-condemning error. (2) 1 Joh. 3.10. In this are the children of God manifest, and the children of the Devil: whosoever doth not righteousness, is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. This is some other difference then the rain can make between the just and the unjust. And 1 Joh. 5.8. And there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one. And that we may know that the Spirit is in us, is evident, 1 Joh. 4.12, 13. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. H • reby we know that we dwell in him, and he in us; because he hath given us of his Spirit. Now, 1 Joh. 3.3. Every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure. And, Rom. 8.1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, which walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2 Cor. 7.1. Having therefore these promises (dearly beloved) let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and Spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Hence we argue, Whoever walketh after the Spirit, must know his Guide that leads the sons of God, Rom. 8.14. and whoever purgeth himself, and loveth his brother, and perfecteth holiness in the fear of God, he must know that he so doth; but he that doth walk so, knoweth that he is in Christ, freed from condemnation, and that God dwelleth in him ; for it is express Scripture: He that is holy, may know he is chosen to be holy, Ephes. 1.4. Now, Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's chosen? It is God that justifieth, Rom. 8.33. He that is conformed to the image of his Son, and called, may know that he is predestinated thereunto, Rom. 8.29, 30. and shall be glorified. Now, Crisp laboreth to prove, that these which commonly go for marks and infallible signs of our justification and interest in Christ, which are universal obedience, sincerity, love to the brethren, are either found in no man in their perfection, or they be such marks as agree to good and bad, to hypocrites and Saints; and so are not infallible marks; just as the falling of rain, and the shining of the sun, doth not difference between just and unjust men, because both have a like portion and share in sun and rain. Now for the former reason; Faith and the light of it is imperfect, capable of accession, and so tainted with sin: and if this be a strong reason, it cannot give assurance; which Libertines do not all hold. The other is the saying of Papists, teaching us to doubt of our salvation, because there be such shifts, wiles, circuits, and lurking places in a man's heart, that he can give no infallible judgment, with any divine certainty, of himself or his own spiritual state. But is there not so much darkness, so much night and blindness in our mind, as in admitting of the light of immediate witnessing of the Spirit, (which they call, the Broad-seal of heaven) we may no less be deceived, then we are in the light that resulteth from our signs of sanctification? There is a like darkness, and no less delusions, from the white Spirits, the day-light-ghosts and Angels of Enthusiasts, and dumb and Scripture-less inspirations, then in black Spirits. But sure we walk not in the ways of sanctification sleeping, nor doth the Spirit perfect holiness, in the Saints, as in a night-dream; we being led with fancy as frantic men are. Shall the Saints, when they attest the Lord of their sincere desire and unfeigned intentions, though mixed with great weakness, bring before God their integrity, and their rejoicing of a good conscience, as Paul, the Apostles, Peter, John, James; Lord, thou knowest that I love thee; David, who desired God might try him; Job, Hezekiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, &c. hold forth to God their conjectures, fancies, and such moth-eaten and rotten signs of their justification, as Crisp, and others say may be, and were in Pharisees, in Papists, Hypocrites, and bloody Oppressors, carnal Jews following the righteousness of the Law, Publicans, Heathen, Harlots, all the wicked Sects? for Crisp saith, All these have your marks of sanctification, such as are universal obedience, sincerity, zeal for God, love to the brethren. Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless, Luk. 1.6. was this such a righteousness, attested by the Holy Ghost, as is in Paul a persecutor, in Heathens, in Pharisees, in carnal Jews? I grant it was not that righteousness of God through faith, Phil. 3. yet it was a fruit and infallible sign of that righteousness, and such as did prove them to be in Christ. And 2. all our acts of sanctification are no acts, no infallible marks of justification to my soul, except they be done in faith ; yea, without faith they are sin, Rom. 14.23. but when I find they are done in faith, they add a further degree of evidence and certitude, that they argue me to have saving faith and interest in Christ, as in the Lord my righteousness, Jer. 23.6. for that is his name. And this reason doth conclude, its unlawful to seek any ground of assurance in sanctification, except we would with Papists argue in a circle, thus, How know you that your works are signs of justification? Because they are stamped with faith. And how know you that your justification and faith are not counterfeit? By your works.
But this is not the Papists circle, because works to my sense and spiritual discerning, may, and do add evidence and light to faith, and faith addeth evidence and light to works; as we prove the cause from the effect, and the effect from the cause, especially under desertion, without the fault of circular arguing; but Papists believe the Scripture to be the word of God, because the Church saith so, else it should be no word of God, to them more then the Turks Alcaron ; and they believe that the Church saith, that Scripture is the Word of God, because the Scripture saith, that the Church saith so.
This is no proof at all, and a vain consequence, without Faith its unpossible to please God, no work can be proved solidly God's, without faith, but how then followeth it; Ergo, we cannot prove faith to be true from good works. Saltmarsh can make no Logic out of this; nothing followeth from this antecedent, but ergo, by hypocritical works done without faith, we cannot prove our faith to be true faith, valeat totum, the conclusion is not against us. We acknowledge, except good works carry the stamp and image of faith, they are not good works; but if they carry this stamp, as we presuppose they do, in this debate, because works are more sensible to us then faith it followeth well, then we may know our faith by our works; and a believer doing works in faith, and out of warmenesse of love to Christ, and a sincere sense of his debt, he may be ignorant that he doth them in faith, but a coal of love to Christ, smoking in his soul, and the sincere sense of the debt that love layeth on him to do that; yea, and to swim through hell to pleasure Christ, are ordinarily more sensible then faith, and led us to know, there must be faith where these are.
3. Nor are ours litigious and disputable marks, except when our darkness raiseth disputes, more then the Gospel it self, is litigious; for men of corrupt minds, raise doubts against the Gospel, and weak believers sometime would argue themselves out of faith, Christ, out of imputed righteousness, election of grace and effectual calling; yet are not these litigious points, and say, that the evidence of the Spirit be as light and evident as the Sun light in it self: so is the Gospel, yet are we to seek evidences for our faith and peace, in such marks as the