The Life of Faith
15. To this I may add, that all the ordinary prayers and praises of the Churches, did continue the recital of much of this history, and of the Apostles names and acts, and were composed much in Scripture phrase, which preserved the memory, and professed the belief of all those things.
16. And the festivals or other days, which were kept in honorable commemoration of those Apostles and Martyrs, was another way of keeping these things in memory: Whether it were well done or not, is not my present enquiry (only I may say, I cannot accuse it of any sin, till it come to over-doing, and ascribing too much to them.) But certainly it was a way of transmitting the memory of those things to posterity.
17. Another hath been by the constant commemoration of the great works of Christ, by the days or seasons of the year, which were annually observed: How far here also the Church did well▪ or ill, I now meddle not: But doubtless the observing of anniversary solemnities for their commemoration, was a way of preserving the memory of the acts themselves to posterity. How long the day of Christ's Nativity hath been celebrated, I know not: Reading what Selden hath said on one side; and on the other finding no currant Author mention it (that I have read) before Nazianzen : and finding by Chrysostom, that the Churches of the East, till his time had differed from the Western Churches, as far as the sixth of January is from the 25 of December. But that is of less moment, because Christ's birth is a thing unquestioned in itself. But we find that the time of his fasting forty days, the time of his Passion, and of his Resurrection, and the giving of the Holy Ghost, were long before kept in memory, by some kind of observation by fa • ts or festivals: And though there was a controversy about the due season of the successive observation of Easter, yet that signified no uncertainty of the first day, or the season of the year. And though at first it was but few days that were kept in fasting at that season, yet they were enough to commemorate both the forty days fasting, and the death of Christ.
18. And the histories of the Heathens and enemies of the Church, do also declare how long Christianity continued, and what they were, and what they suffered who were called Christians; such as Pliny's, Celsus, Porphyry, Plotinus, Lucian, Su • tonius, and others.
19. And the constant instruction of Children by their Parents, which is Family-tradition, hath been a very great means also of this commemoration. For it cannot be (though some be negligent) but that multitudes in all times would teach their children, what the Christian Religion was, as to its doctrine and its history. And the practice of catechizing, and teaching children the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Decalogue, and the Scriptures, the more secured this tradition in families.
20. Lastly, A succession of the same Spirit, which was in the Apostles, and of much of the same works, which were done by them, was such a way of assuring us of the truth of their doctrine and history, as a succession of posterity teleth us, that our progenitors were men. The same spirit of Wisdom and Goodness in a great degree continued after them to this day. And all wrought by their doctrine: and very credible history assureth us, that many miracles also were done, in many ages after them; though not so many as by them: Eusebius, Cyprian, Augustine, Victor, Ulicensis, Sulpitius, Severus, and many others, show us so much as may make the belief of the Apostles the more easy.
And indeed, the Image of God's WISDOM, GOODNESS and POWER on the souls of all true Christians in the world, successively to this day, considered in itself, and in its agreement with the same Image in the holy Scriptures, which do imprint it, and in its agreement or sameness as found in all Ages, Nations and Persons, is such a standing perpetual evidence that the Christian Religion is Divine, that (being still at hand) it should be exceeding satisfactory to a considerate Believer, against all doubts and temptations to unbelief. And were it not lest, I should instead of an Index, give you too large a recital of what I have more fully written in my foresaid Treatise, I would here stay yet to show you how impossible it is that this Spirit of Holiness, which we feel in us, and see by the effects in others, even in every true Believer, should be caused by a word of falsehood, which he abhorreth, and as the Just Ruler of the world, would be obliged to disown.
I shall only here desire you by the way to note that when I have all this while shown you that the SPIRIT is the great witness of the truth of Christianity, that it is, this spirit of Wisdom, Goodness and Power, in the Prophets, in Christ, in the Apostles, and in all Christians, expressed in the doctrine, and the practices aforesaid, which I mean; as being principally the Evidences, or objective witness of Jesus Christ; and secondarily, being in all true Believers, their teacher, or illuminater and sanctifier, efficiently to cause them to perceive the aforesaid objective Evidences in its cogent undeniable power. And thus the Holy Ghost is the promised Agent or Advocate of Christ; to do his work in his bodily absence in the world: And that in this sense it is, that we Believe in the HOLY GHOST, and are baptized into his Name; and not only as he is the third person in the Eternal Trinity.
And therefore it is to be lamented exceedingly, 1. That any Orthodox Teachers should recite over many of these parts of the witness of the SPIRIT, and when they have done, tell us, that yet all these are not sufficient to convince us without the testimony of the Spirit: As if all this were none of the testimony of the Spirit ; and as if they would persuade us and our enemies, that the testimony which must satisfy us, is only some inward impress of this Proposition on the mind, by way of inspiration, [ The Scriptures are the Word of God, and true. ] Overlooking the great witness of the Spirit, which is his special work, and which our Baptism relateth to, and feigning some extraordinary new thing as the only testimony.
And it is to be lamented, that Papists, and quarrelling Sectaries should take this occasion to reproach us as Infidels, that have no true grounded faith in Christ; as telling us that we resolve it all into a private inward pretended witness of the Spirit: And then they ask us, who can know that witness but ourselves? and how can we preach the Gospel to others, if the only cogent argument of faith be incommunicable, or such as we cannot prove? Though both the Believing soul and the Church be the Kingdom of the Prince of Light, yet O what wrong hath the Prince of Darkness done, by the mixtures of darkness in them both!
So much for the first Direction for the strengthening of Faith, which is, by discerning the Evidences of Truth in our Religion.
CHAP. VIII. The rest of the Directions for strengthening our Faith.
I Shall be more brief in the rest of the Directions, for the increase of Faith : and they are these.
Direct. 2. Compare the Christian Religion with all other in the world: And seeing it is certain that some way or other God hath revealed, to guide man in his duty, unto his end, and it is no other; you will see that it must needs be this.
1. The way of the Heathenish Idolaters cannot be it: The principles and the effects of their Religion, may easily satisfy you of this. The only true God would not command Idolatry, nor befriend such ignorance, error and wickedness as doth constitute their Religion, and are produced by it, as its genuine fruits.
2. The way of Judaism cannot be it: For it doth but lead us up to Christianity, and bear witness to Christ, and of itself, is evidently insufficient; its multitude of ceremonies being but the pictures and alphabet of that truth which Jesus Christ hath brought to light, and which hath evidence, which to us is more convincing, than that of the Jewish Law,
3. The Mahometane delusion is so gross, that it seemeth vain to say anymore against it, than it saith itself; unless it be to those who are bred up in such darkness, as to hear of nothing else, and never to see the Sun which shineth on the Christian world; and withal are under the terror of the sword, which is the strongest reason of that barbarous Sect.
4. And to think that the Atheism of Infidels is the way, (who hold only the five Articles of the Unity of God, the duty of obedience, the immortality of the soul, the life of retributior, and the necessity of Repentance ) is but to go against the light. For 1. It is a denial of that abundant evidence of the truth of the Christian Faith, which cannot by any sound reason be confuted. 2. It is evidently too narrow for man's necessities, and leaveth our misery without a sufficient remedy. 3. Its inclusions and exclusions are contradictory: It asserteth the necessity of Obedience and Repentance, and yet excludeth the necessary means (the revealed Light, and Love, and Power) by which both Obedience and Repentance must be had. It excludeth Christ and his Spirit, and yet requireth that which none but Christ and his Spirit can effect. 4. It proposeth a way as the only Religion, which few ever went from the beginning (as to the exclusions. ) As if that were God's only way to Heaven, which scarce any visible societies of men, can be proved to have practiced to this day.
Which of all these Religions have the most wise, and holy, and heavenly, and mortified, and righteous, and sober persons to profess it: and the greatest numbers of such? If you will judge of the medicine by the effects, and take him for the best Physician, who doth the greatest cures upon the souls, you will soon conclude that Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh to the Father but by him, John 14.6.
Direct. 3. Think how impossible it is that any but God should be the Author of the Christian Religion.
1. No good man could be guilty of so horrid a crime as to forge a volume of delusions, and put God's Name to it; to cheat the world so blasphemously and hypocritically, and to draw them into a life of trouble to promote it. Much less could so great a number of good men do this, as the success of such a cheat (were it possible) would require. There is no man that can believe it to be a deceit, but must needs believe, as we do of Mahomet, that the Author was one of the worst men that ever lived in the world.
2. No bad man could lay so excellent a design, and frame a Doctrine and Law so holy, so self denying, so merciful, so just, so spiritual, so heavenly, and so concordant in itself▪ nor carry on so high and divine an undertaking for so divine and excellent an end: No bad man could so universally condemn all badness, and prescribe such powerful remedies against it, and so effectually cure and conquer it in so considerable a part of the world.
3. If it be below any good man, to be guilty of such a forgery as aforesaid, we can much less suspect that any good Angel could be guilty of it.
4. And if no bad man could do so much good, we can much less imagine that any Devil or bad spirit could be the author of it. The Devil who is the worst in evil, could never so much contradict his nature, and overthrow his own Kingdom, and say so much evil of himself, and do so much against himself, and do so much for the sanctifying and saving of the world: He that doth so much to draw men to sin and misery, would never do so much to destroy their sin. And we plainly feel within ourselves, that the spirit or party which draweth us to sin, doth resist the Spirit which draweth us to believe and obey the Gospel; and that these two maintain a war within us.
5. And if you should say, that the good which is in Christianity, is caused by God, and the evil of it by the Father of sin, I answer, either it is true or false: If it be true, it is so good, that the Devil can never possibly be a contributor to it: Nay, it cannot then be suspected justly of any evil. But if it be false, it is then so bad, that God cannot be any otherwise the Author of it, than as he is the Author of any common natural Verity which it may take in and abuse; or as his general concourse extendeth to the whole Creation. But it is somewhat in Christianity, which it hath more than other Religions have, which must make it more pure, and more powerful and successful, than any other Religions have been. Therefore it must be more than common natural truths: even the contexture of those natural truths, with the supernatural revelations of it, and the addition of a spirit of power, and light, and love, to procure the success. And God cannot be the Author of any such contexture, or additions, if it be false.
6. If it be said, that men that had some good, and some bad in them, did contrive it (such as those Fanatics, or Enthusiasts, who have pious notions and words, with pride and self-exalting minds) I answer, The good is so great which is found in Christianity, that it is not possible that a bad man ▪ much less an extremely bad man, could be the Author of it▪ And the wickedness of the plot would be so great if it were false, that it is not possible that any but an extremely bad man could be guilty of it: Much less that a multitude should be sound at once so extremely good as to promote it, even with their greatest labor and suffering, and also so extremely bad as to join together in the plot to cheat the world, in a matter of such high importance. Such exceeding good and evil, cannot consist in any one person, much less in so many as must do such a thing. And if such a heated brain sick person as Hacket, Nailer, David, George, or John of Leyden, should cry up themselves upon prophetical and pious pretences, their madness hath still appeared, in the mixture of their impious doctrines and practices: And if any would and could be so wicked, God never would or did assist them, by an age of numerous open miracles, nor lend them his Omnipotency to deceive the world; but left them to the shame of their proud attempts, and made their folly known to all.
Direct. 4. Study all the Evidences of the Christian Verity, till their sense, and weight, and order, be thoroughly digested, understood and remembered by you; and be as plain and familiar to you, as the lesson which you have most thoroughly learned.
It is not once or twice reading, or hearing, or thinking on such a great and difficult matter, that will make it your own, for the stablishing of your faith. He that will understand the art of a Seaman, a Soldier, a Musician, a Physician, &c. so as to practice it; must study it hard, and understand it clearly, and comprehensively, and have all the whole frame of it printed on his mind; and not only here and there a scrap. Faith is a practical knowledge: We must have the heart and life directed and commanded by it: We must live by it, both in the intention of our end, and in the choice and use of all the means: Whilest the Gospel, and the Reasons of our Religion, are strange to people, like a lesson but half learned, who can expect that they should be settled against all temptations which assault their faith, and able to confute the tempter? We lay together the proofs of our Religion, and you read them twice or thrice, and then think that if after that you have any doubting, the fault is in the want of evidence, and not in your want of understanding: But the life of faith must cost you more labor than so; study it till you clearly understand it, and remember the whole method of the evidence together, and have it all as at your fingers ends, and then you may have a confirmed faith to live by.
Direct. 5. When you know what are the sorest temptations to unbelief, get all those special arguments and provisions into your minds, which are necessary against those particular temptations. And do not strengthen your own temptations by your imprudent entertaining them.
Here are th • ee things which I would especially advise you to • gainst temptations to unbelief. 1. Enter not into the debate of so great a business when you are uncapable of it: Especially 1. When your minds are taken up with worldly business, or other thoughts have carried them away, let not Satan then surprise you, and say, Come now and question thy Religion: You could not resolve a question in Philosophy, nor cast up any long account, on such a sudden, with an unprepared mind. When the Evidences of your faith are out of mind, stay till you can have leisure to set yourselves to the business, with that studiousness, and those helps, which so great a matter doth require. 2. When sickness or melancholy doth weaken your understandings, you are then unfit for such a work. You would not in such a case dispute for your lives with a cunning sophister upon any difficult question whatsoever: And will you in such a case dispute with the Devil, when your salvation may lie upon it?
2. When your faith is once settled, suffer not the Devil to call you to dispute it over again at his command. Do it not when his suggestions urge you at his pleasure ; but when God maketh it your duty, and at his pleasure: Else your very disputing with Satan, will be some degree of yielding to him, and gratifying him. And he will one time or other take you at the advantage, and assault you when you are without your arms.
3 Mark what it is that Atheists and Infidels most object against Christianity; but especially mark what it is which Satan maketh most use of, against yourselves, to shake your faith: And there let your studies be principally bent; that you may have particular armor to defend you against particular assaults: And get such light by communication with wiser and more experienced men, as may furnish you for that use; that no objection may be-made against your faith, which you are not always ready to answer. This is the true sense of 1 Pet. 3.15. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.
Direct. 6. Mark well those works of God in the world, which are the plain fulfilling of his Word.
God doth not make such notable difference by his Judgments, as shall prevent the great discoveries at the last, and make his Assize and final Judgment to be unnecessary, by doing the same work before the time. But yet his Providences do own, and bear witness to his Word: and he leaveth not the world without some present sensible testimonies of his sovereign government, to convince them, and restrain them.
1. Mark how the state of the sinful world agreeth to God's description of it, and how maliciously Godliness is everywhere opposed by them, and how notably God still casteth shame upon sinners; so that even in their prosperity and rage they are pitied and contemned in the eyes of all that are wise and sober, and in the next generation their names do rot, Psal. 15.3, 4. Prov. 10.7. And it is wonderful to observe, that sin in the general and abstract, is still spoken of by all as an odious thing, even by them that will be damned rather than they will leave it: And that Virtue and Godliness, Charity and Justice are still praised in the world, even by them that abhor and persecute it.
2. And it is very observable, how most of the great changes of the world are made? By how small, contemptible and unthought of mean • ? Especially where the interest of the Gospel is most concerned! The instance of the Reformation in Luther 's time, and many others nearer to our days, would show us much of the conjunction of God's works with his Word, if they were particularly and wisely opened.
3. The many prodigies, or extraordinary events, which have fallen out at several times, would be found to be of use this way, if wisely considered. A great number have fallen out among us of late years, of real certainty, and of a considerable usefulness: But the crafty enemy (who useth most to wrong Christ and his Cause, by his most passionate, injudicious followers) prevailed with some over-forward Minister of this strain, to publish them in many volumes, with the mixture of so many falsehoods, and mistaken circumstances, as turned them to the advantage of the Devil and ungodliness, and made the very mention of Prodigies to become a scorn.
4. The strange deliverances of many of God's servants in the greatest dangers, by the most unlikely means, is a great encouragement to faith: And there are a great number of Christians that have experience of such: The very manner of our preservations is often such as forceth us to say, It is the hand of God.
5. The notable answer, and grant of prayers, (of which many Christians have convincing experience) is also a great confirmation to our faith, (of which I have before spoken.)
6. The three sensible evidences formerly mentioned, compared with the Scriptures, may much persuade us of its truth: I mean 1. Apparitions; 2. Witches; 3. Satanical possessions or diseases, which plainly declare the operation of Satan in them; of all which I could give you manifold and proved instances. These, and many other instances of God's providence, are great means to help us to believe his Word (though we must not with Fanatical persons, put first our own interpretation upon God's works, and then expound his Word by them; but use his works as the fulfilling of his Word, and expound his Providences by his Precepts, and his Promises and Threats.
Direct. 7. Mark well God's inward works of Government upon the soul; and you shall find it very agreeable to the Gospel.
There is a very great evidence of a certain Kingdom of God within us: And as he is himself a Spirit, so it is with the Spirit that he doth most apparently converse, in the work of his moral Government in the world. 1. There you shall find a Law of duty, or an inward conviction of much of that obedience which you owe to God. 2. There you shall find an inward mover, striving with you to draw you to perform this duty. 3. There you shall find the inward suggestions of an enemy, laboring to draw you away from this duty, and to make a godly life seem grievous to you; and also to draw you to all the sins which Christ forbiddeth. 4. There you shall find an inward conviction, that God is your Judge, and that he will call you to account for your willful violations of the Laws of Christ.
5. There you shall find an inward sentence past upon you, according as you do good or evil.
6. And there you may find the sorest Judgments of God inflicted, which any short of Hell endure. You may there find how God for sin doth first afflict the soul that is not quite forsaken, with troubles and affrightments, and some of the feeling of his displeasure. And where that is long despised, and men sin on still, he useth to with hold his gracious motions, and leave the sinner dull and senseless, so that he can sin with sinful remorse, having no heart or life to anything that is spiritually good: And if yet the sinner think not of his condition, to repent, he is usually so far forsaken as to be given up to the power of his most brutish lust; and to glory impudently in his shame, and to hate and persecute the servants of Christ, who would recover him; till he hath filled up the measure of his sin, and wrath be come upon him to the uttermost, Ephes. 4.18, 19. 1 Thes. 2.15, 16. being abominable, and disobedient, and to every good work reprobate, Titus 1.15, 16. Besides the lesser penal withdrawings of the Spirit, which God's own servants find in themselves, after some sins or neglects of grace.
7. And there also you may find the Rewards of Love and faithful duty; by many tastes of God's acceptance, and many comforts of his Spirit, and by his owning the soul, and giving out larger assistance of his Spirit, and peace of conscience, and entertainment in prayer, and all approaches of the soul to God, and sweeter forecasts of life eternal. In a word, if we did but note God's dreadful Judgments on the souls of the ungodly in this age, as well as we have noted our plagues and flames; and if God's servants kept as exact observations of their inward rewards and punishments, and that in particulars, as suited to their particular sins and duties; you will see that Christ is King indeed, and that there is a real Government according to his Gospel, kept up in the consciences or souls of men (though not so observable as the rewards and punishments at the last day.)
Direct. 8. Dwell not too much on sensual objects, and let them not come too near your hearts.
Three things I here persuade you carefully to avoid: 1. That you keep your hearts at a meet distance from all things in this world; that they grow not too sweet to you, nor too great in your esteem: 2. That you gratify not sense itself too much; and live not in the pleasing of your taste or lust: 3. That you suffer not your imaginations to run out greedily after things sensitive, nor make them the too frequent objects of your thoughts.
You may ask perhaps, what is all this to our faith? why, the life of faith is exercised upon things that are not seen: And if you live upon the things that are seen, and imprison your soul in the fetters of your concupiscence, and fill your fancies with things of another nature, how can you be acquainted with the life of faith? Can a bird fly that hath a stone tied to her foot? Can you have a mind full of lust, and of God at once? Or can that mind that is used to these inordinate sensualities, be fit to relish the things that are spiritual? And can it be a lover of earth, and fleshly pleasures, and also a Believer and lover of Heaven?
Direct. 9. Use yourselves much to think and speak of Heaven, and the invisible things of Faith?
Speaking of Heaven is needful both to express your thoughts, and to actuate and preserve them. And the often thoughts of Heaven, will make the mind familiar there: And familiarity will assist and encourage faith: For it will much acquaint us with those reasons and inducements of faith, which a few strange and distant thoughts will never reach to. As he that converseth much with a learned, wise, or godly man, will easilier believe that he is learned, wise, or godly, than he that is a stranger to him, and only now and then seeth him afar off: So he that thinketh so frequently of God and Heaven, till his mind hath contracted a humble acquaintance and familiarity, must needs believe the truth of all that excellency which before he doubted of. For doubting is the effect of ignorance: And he that knoweth most here, believeth best. Falsehood and evil cannot bear the light; but the more you think of them, and know them, the more they are detected and ashamed: But truth and goodness love the light; and the better you are acquainted with them, the more will your belief and love be increased.
Direct. 10. Live not in the guilt of willful sin: For that will many ways hinder your belief.
1. It will breed fear and horror in your minds, and make you wish that it were not true, that there is a day of Judgment, and a Hell for the ungodly, and such a God, such a Christ, and such a life to come, as the Gospel doth describe: And when you take it for your interest to be an unbeliever, you will hearken with desire to all that the Devil and Infidels can say: And you will the more easily make yourselves believe that the Gospel is not true, by how much the more you desire that it should not be true. 2. And you will forfeit the grace which should help you to believe; both by your willful sin, and by your unwillingness to believe: For who can expect that Christ should give his grace to them, who willfully despise him, and abuse it: Or that he should make men believe, who had rather not believe? Indeed he may possibly do both these, but these are not the way, nor is it a thing which we can expect. 3. And this guilt, and fear, and unwillingness together, will all keep down your thoughts from Heaven ; so that seldom thinking of it, will increase your unbelief: and they will make you unfit to see the evidences of truth in the Gospel, when you do think of them, or hear them: For he that would not k •• w cannot learn. Ob • y therefore according to the knowledge which you have, if ever you would have more, and would not be given up to the blindness of Infidelity.
Direct. 11. Trust not only to your understandings, and think not that study is all which is necessary to faith: But remember that faith is the gift of God, and therefore pray as well as study.
Prov. 3.5. Trust in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not to thy own understanding. It is a precept as necessary in this point as in any. In all things God abhorreth the proud, and looketh at them afar off, as with disowning and disdain: But in no case more, than when a blind ungodly sinner shall so overvalue his own understanding, as to think that if there be evidence of truth in the mystery of faith, he is able presently to discern it, before or without any heavenly illumination, to cure his dark distempered mind. Remember that as the Sun is seen only by his own light; so is God our Creator and Redeemer. Faith is the gift of God, as well as Repentance, Ephes. 2.8. 2 Tim. 2.25, 26. Apply yourselves therefore to God by earnest prayer for it. As he, Mark 9.24. Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. And as the Disciples, Luke 17.5. Increase our faith. A humble soul that waiteth on God in fervent prayer, and yet neglecteth not to study and search for truth, is much liker to become a confirmed Believer, than ungodly Students, who trust and seek no further than to their Books, and their perverted minds. For as God will be sought to for his grace; so those that draw near him, do draw near unto the Light ; and therefore are like as children of Light to be delivered from the power of darkness: For in his light we shall see the light that must acquaint us with him.
Direct. 12. Lastly, What measure of Light soever God vouchsafeth you, labor to turn it all into Love; and make it your serious care and business to know God, that you may love him, and to love God so far as you know him.
For he that desireth satisfaction in his doubts, to no better end, than to please his mind by knowing, and to free it from the disquiet of uncertainty, hath an end so low in all his studies, that he cannot expect that God and his grace should be called down, to serve such a low and base design. That faith which is not employed in beholding the love of God in the face of Christ, on purpose to increase and exercise our love, is not indeed the true Christian Faith, but a dead opinion. And he that hath never so weak a faith, and useth it to this end, to know God's amiableness, and to love him, doth take the most certain way for the confirmation of his faith. For Love is the closest adherence of the soul to God, and therefore will set it in the clearest light, and will teach it by the sweet convincing way of experience and spiritual taste. Believing alone is like the knowledge of our meat by seeing it: And Love is as the knowledge of our meat by eating and digesting it. And he that hath tasted that it is sweet, hath a stronger kind of persuasion that it is sweet, than he that only seeth it; and will much more tenaciously hold his apprehension: It is more possible to dispute him out of his belief, who only seeth, than him that also tasteth and concocteth. A Parent and child will not so easily believe any false reports of one another, as strangers or enemies will; because Love is a powerful resister of such hard conceits. And though this be delusory and blinding partiality, where Love is guided by mistake ; yet when a sound understanding leadeth it, and Love hath chosen the truest object, it is the naturally perfective motion of the soul.
And Love keepeth us under the fullest influences of God's Love ; and therefore in the reception of that grace which will increase our faith: For Love is that act which the ancient Doctors were wont to call, the principle of merit, or first meritorious act of the soul; and which we call, the principle of rewardable acts. God beginneth and loveth us first, partly with a Love of complacency, only as his creatures, and also as in esse cognito, he foreseeth how amiable his grace will make us; and partly with a Love of benevolence, intending to give us that grace which shall make us really the objects of his further Love: And having received this grace, it causeth us to love God: And when we love God, we are really the objects of his complacential Love; and when we perceive this, it still increaseth our Love: And thus the mutual Love of God and Man, is the true perpetual motion, which hath an everlasting cause, and therefore must have an everlasting duration. And so the faith which hath once kindled Love, even sincere Love to God in Christ, hath taken rooting in the heart, and lieth deeper than the head, and will hold fast, and increase as Love increaseth.
And this is the true reason of the stedfastness and happiness of many weak unlearned Christians, who have not the distinct conceptions and reasonings of learned men; and yet because their Faith is turned into Love, their Love doth help to confirm their Faith: And as they love more heartily ; so they believe more steadfastly, and perseveringly, than many who can say more for their faith. And so much for the strengthening of your faith.
CHAP. IX. General Directions for exercising the Life of Faith.
HAving told you how Faith must be confirmed, I am next to tell you how it must be used. And in this I shall begin with some General Directions, and then proceed to such particular cases, in which we have the greatest use for Faith.
Direct. 1. Remember the necessity of Faith in all the business of your hearts and lives, that nothing can be done well without it. There is no sin to be conquered, no grace to be exercised, no worship to be performed, nor no acts of mercy, or justice, or worldly business, to be well done without it, in any manner acceptable to God. Without Faith it is impossible to please God, Heb. 11.6. You may as well go about your bodily work without your eye-sight, as about your spiritual work without Faith.
Direct. 2. Make it therefore your care and work to get Faith, and to use it; and think not that God must reveal his mind to you, as in visions, while you idly neglect your proper work. Believing is the first part of your trade of life ; and the practice of it must be your constant business. It is not living ordinarily by sense, and looking when God will cast in the light of Faith extraordinarily, which is indeed the life of Faith: Nor is it seeming to stir up Faith in a Prayer or Sermon, and looking no more after it all the day: This is but to give God a salutation, and not to dwell and walk with him: And to give Heaven a complemental visit sometimes, but not to have your conversation there, 2 Cor. 5.7, 8.
Direct. 3. Be not too seldom in solitary meditation. Though it be a duty which melancholy persons are disabled to perform, in any set, and long, and orderly manner; yet it is so needful to those who are able, that the greatest works of Faith are to be managed by it. How should things unseen be apprehended so as to affect our hearts, without any serious exercise of our thoughts? How should we search into mysteries of the Gospel, or converse with God, or walk in Heaven, or fetch either joys or motives thence, without any retired studious contemplation? If you cannot meditate or think, you cannot believe. Meditation abstracteth the mind from vanity, and lifteth it up above the world, and setteth it about the work of Faith ; which by a mindless, thoughtless, or worldly soul, can never be performed, 2 Cor. 4.16, 17, 18. Phil. 3.20. Mat. 6.21. Col. 3.1, 3.
Direct. 4. Let the Image of the Life of Christ, and his Martyrs, and holiest servants, be deeply printed on your minds. That you may know what the way is which you have to go, and what patterns they be which you have to imitate; think how much they were above things sensitive, and how light they set by all the pleasures, wealth and glory of this world. Therefore the Holy Ghost doth set before us that cloud of witnesses, and catalogue of Martyrs, in Heb. 11. that example may help us, and we may see with how good company we go, in the life of Faith, Paul had well studied the example of Christ, when he took pleasure in infirmities, and gloried only in the Cross, to be base and afflicted in this world, for the hopes of endless glory, 2 Cor. 11.30. & 12.5 9, 10. And when he could say, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ — that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death, Phil. 3.8, 9, 10. No man will well militate in the life of Faith, but he that followeth the Captain of his salvation, Heb. 2.10. who for the bringing of many Sons to glory (even those whom he is not ashamed to call his Brethren) was made perfect, (as to perfection of action or performance ) by suffering : thereby to show us, how little the best of these visible and sensible corporeal things, are to be valued in comparison of the things invisible: and therefore as the General and the soldiers make up one army, and militate in one militia ; so he that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one, Heb. 2.10, 11, 12. Though that which is called the life of Faith in us, deserved a higher title in Christ, and his faith in his Father, and ours, do much differ, and he had not many of the objects, acts and uses of Faith, as we have who are sinners; yet in this we must follow him as our great example, in valuing things invisible, and vilifying things visible in comparison of them. And therefore Paul saith [ I am crucified with Christ: Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the Faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me, Gal. 2.20.
Direct. 5. Remember therefore that God and Heaven, the unseen things are the final object of true Faith: and that the final object is the noblest; and that the principal use of Faith, is to carry up the whole heart and life from things visible and temporal, to things invisible and eternal; and not only to comfort us in the assurance of our own forgiveness and salvation.
It is an exceeding common and dangerous deceit, to overlook both this principal object and principal use of the Christian Faith. 1. Many think of no other object of it, but the death and righteousness of Christ, and the pardon of sin, and the promise of that pardon: And God and Heaven they look at as the objects of some other common kind of Faith. 2. And they think of little other use of it, than to comfort them against the guilt of sin, with the assurance of their Justification. But the great and principal work of Faith is, that which is about its final object ; to carry up the soul to God and Heaven, where the world, and things sensible, are the terminus à quo, and God, and things invisible, the terminus ad quem: And thus it is put in contradistinction to living by fight, in 2 Cor. 5.6, 7. And thus mortification is made one part of this great effect, in Rom. 6. throughout, and many other places: and thus it is that Heb. 11. doth set before us those numerous examples of a life of Faith, as it was expressed in valuing things unseen, upon the belief of the Word of God, and the vilifying of things seen which stand against them. And thus Christ tried the Rich man, Luke 18.22. whether he would be his Disciple, by calling him to sell all, and give to the po • r, for the hopes of a treasure in Heaven. And thus Christ maketh bearing the Cross, and denying ourselves, and forsaking all for him, to be necessary in all that are his Disciples. And thus Paul describeth the life of Faith, 2 Cor. 4.17, 18. by the contempt of the world, and suffering afflictions for the hopes of Heaven: [ For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. ] Our Faith is our victory over the world, even in the very nature of it, and not only in the remote effect; for its aspect and believing approaches to God and the things unseen, and a proportionable recess from the things which are seen, is one and the same motion of the soul, denominated variously from its various respects to the terminus ad quem, and à quo.
Direct. 6. Remember, that as God to be believed in, is the principal and final object of Faith; so the kindling of love to God in the soul, is the principal use and effect of Faith: And to live by Faith, is but to love (obey and suffer) by Faith. Faith working by Love, is the description of our Christianity, Gal. 5.6. As Christ is the Way to the Father, Joh. 14.6. and came into the world to recover Apostate man to God, to love him, and be beloved by him; so the true use of Faith in Jesus Christ, is to be as it were the bellows to kindle love ; or the burning-glass as it were of the soul, to receive the beams of the Love of God, as they shine upon us in Jesus Christ, and thereby to enflame our hearts in love to God again. Therefore if you would live by Faith indeed, begin here, and first receive the deepest apprehensions of that Love of the Father; Who so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life : And by these apprehensi • ns, stir up your hearts to the Love of God; and make this very endeavor the work and business of your lives.
Oh that mistaken Christians would be rectified in this point! how much would it tend to their holiness and their peace? You think of almost nothing of the life of Faith; but how to believe that you have a special interest in Christ, and shall be saved by him: But you have first another work to do: You must first believe that common Love and Grace before mentioned, John 3.16. 2 Cor. 5.19, 20.14, 15. 1 Tim. 2.6. Heb. 2.9. And you must believe your own interest in this ; that is, that God hath by Christ, made to all, and therefore unto you, an act of oblivion, and free deed of gift, that you shall have Christ, and pardon, and eternal life, if you will believingly accept the gift, and will not finally reject it. And the belief of this, even of this common Love and Grace, must first persuade your hearts accordingly to accept the offer, (and then you have a special interest) and withal, at the same time, must kindle in your souls a thankful love to the Lord and fountain of this grace: and if you were so ingenuous as to begin here, and first use your Faith upon the foresaid common gift of Christ, for the kindling of love to God within you, and would account this the work which Faith hath every day to do; you would then find that in the very exciting and exercise of this holy Love, your assurance of your own special interest in Christ, would be sooner and more comfortably brought about, than by searching to find either evidence of pardon before you find your love to God ; or to find your love to God, before you have labored to get and exercise it.
I tell you, they are dangerous deceivers of your souls, that shall contradict this obvious truth; that the true method and motive of man's first special love to God, must not be by believing first God's special love to us ; but by believing his more common love and mercy in the general act and offer of grace before mentioned. For he that believeth God's special love to him, and his special interest in Christ, before he hath any special love to God, doth sinfully presume, and not believe. For if by God's special love, you mean his love of complacency to you, as a living member of Christ; to believe this before you love God truly, is to believe a dangerous lie: and if you mean only, God's love of benevolence, by which he decreeth to make you the objects of his foresaid complacency, and to sanctify and save you; to believe this before you truly love God, is to believe that which is utterly unknown to you, and may be false for ought you know, but is not at all revealed by God, and therefore is not the object of Faith.
Therefore if you cannot have true assurance or persuasion of your special interest in Christ, and of your justification, before you have a special love to God, then this special love must be kindled (I say not by a common Faith, but) by a true Faith in the General Love and Promise mentioned before.
Nay, you must not only have first this special love ; but also must have so much knowledge, that indeed you have it, as you will have knowledge of your special interest in Christ, and the love of God: for no act of Faith will truly evidence special grace, which is not immediately and intimately accompanied with true love to God our Father and Redeemer, and the ultimate object of our Faith: Nor can you any further perceive or prove, the sincerity of your Faith itself, than you discern in or with it, the Love here mentioned. For Faith is not only an act of the Intellect, but of the Will also: And there is no volition or consent to this or any offered good, which hath not in it the true nature of Love: and the intention of the end, being in order of nature, before our choice or use of means; the intending of God as our end, cannot come behind that act of Faith, which is about Christ as the chosen means or way to God.
Therefore make this your great and principal use of your Faith, to receive all the expressions of God's Love in Christ, and thereby to kindle in you a love to God; that first the special true belief of God's more common love and grace, may kindle in you a special love, and then the sense of this may assure you of your special interest in Christ; and then the assurance of that special interest, may increase your love to a much higher degree: And thus live by Faith in the work of Love.
Direct. 7. That you may understand what that Faith is which you must live by, take in all the parts (at least that are essential to it) in your description; and take not some parcels of it for the Christian Faith; nor think no • that it must needs be several sorts of Faith, if it have several objects; and hearken not to that dull Philosophical subtlety, which would persuade you that Faith is but some single physical act of the soul.
1. If you know not what Faith is, it must needs be a great hindrance to you, in the seeking of it, the trying it, and the using it. For though one may use his natural faculties, which work by natural inclination and necessity, without knowing what they are; yet it is not so where the choice of the rational appetite is necessary; for it must be guided by the reasoning faculty. And though unlearned persons may have and use Repentance, Faith, and other graces, who cannot define them; yet they do truly (though not perfectly) know the thing itself, though they know not the terms of a just definition: and all defect of knowing the true nature of Faith, will be some hindrance to us in using it.
2. It is a moral subject which we are speaking of; and terms are to be understood according to the nature of the subject: therefore Faith is to be taken for a moral act, which comprehendeth many physical acts: Such as is the act of believing in, or taking such a man for my Physician, or my Master, or my Tutor, or my King. Even our Philosophers themselves know not what doth individuate a physical act of the soul ▪ (Nay, they are not agreed whether its acts should be called physical properly, or not.) Nay, they cannot tell what doth individuate an act of sense ; whether when my eye doth at once see many words and letters of my Book, every word or letter doth make as many individual acts, by being so many objects? And if so, whether the parts of every letter also do not constitute an individual act; and where we shall here stop. And must all these trifles be considered in our Faith? Assenting to the truths is not one Faith (unless when separated from the rest) and consenting to the good, another act: Nor is it one Faith to believe the promise, and another to believe the pardon of sin, and another to believe salvation, and another to believe in God, and another to believe in Jesus Christ; nor one to believe in Christ as our Ransom, and another as our Intercessor, and another as our Teacher, and another as our King, and another to believe in the Holy Ghost, &c. I deny not but someone of these may be separated from the rest, and being so separated may be called Faith ; but not the Christian Faith, but only a material parcel of it, which is like the limb of a man, or of a tree, which cut off from the rest, is dead, and ceaseth when separated to be a part, any otherwise than Logical (a part of the description.)
The Faith which hath the promise of salvation, and which you must live by, hath 1. God for the Principal Revealer, and his Veracity for its formal object. 2. It hath Christ, and Angels, and Prophets, and Apostles, for the sub-revealers. 3. It hath the Holy Ghost by the divine attesting operations before described, to be the seal and the confirmer. 4. It hath the same Holy Ghost for the internal exciter of it. 5. It hath all truths of known divine revelation, and all good of known divine donation by his Covenant, to be the material general object. 6. It hath the Covenant of Grace, and the holy Scriptures, (and formerly the voice of Christ and his Apostles) or any such sign of the mind of God, for the instrumental efficient cause of the object in esse cognito: And also the instrumental efficient of the act. 7. It hath the pure Deity, God himself, as he is to be known and loved, inceptively here, and perfectly in Heaven, for the final and most necessary material object. 8. It hath the Lord Jesus Christ, entirely in all essential to him, as God and Man, and as our Redeemer or Savior, as our Ransom, Intercessor, Teacher and Ruler, for the most necessary, mediate, material object. 9. It hath the gifts of Pardon, Justification, the Spirit of Sanctification or Love, and all the necessary gifts of the Covenant, for the material, never-final objects. And all this is essential to the Christian Faith, even to that Fath which hath the promise of pardon and salvation: And no one of these must be totally left out in the definition of it, if you would not be deceived. It is Heresy, and not the Christian Faith, if it exclude any one essential part: And if it include it not, it is Infidelity: And indeed there is such a connection of the objects, that there is no part (in truth) where there is not the whole. And it is impiety if any one part of the offered good that is necessary, be refused. It is no true Faith, if it be not a true composition of all these.
Direct. 8. There is no nearer way to know what true Faith is, than truly to understand what your Baptismal Covenanting did contain.
In Scripture phrase, to be a Disciple, a Believer, and a Christian, is all one, Acts 11.26. Acts 5.14. 1 Tim. 4.12. Matth. 10.42. & 27.57. Luke 14.26, 27, 33. Acts 21.16. Joh. 9.28. And to be a Believer, and to have Belief or Faith, is all one: and therefore to be a Christian, and to have Faith, is all one. Christianity signifieth either our first entrance into the Christian State, or our progress in it. (As Marriage signifieth either Matrimony, or the Conjugal State continued in.) In the latter sense Christianity signifieth more than Faith ; for more than Faith is necessary to a Christian. But in the former sense, as Christianity signifieth but our becoming Christians, by our covenanting with God; so to have Faith, or to be a Believer, and internally to become a Christian in Scripture sense, is all one; and the outward covenanting is but the profession of Faith or Christianity: Not that the word Faith is never taken in a narrower sense, or that Christianity, as it is our heart-covenant or consent, containeth nothing but Faith, as Faith is so taken in the narrowest sense: But when Faith is taken (as ordinarily in Scripture) for that which is made the condition of Justification and Salvation, and opposed to Heathenism, Infidelity, Judaism, or the works of the Law, it is commonly taken in this larger sense.
Faith is well enough described to them, that understand what is implied, by the usual shorter description; as, that it is a believing acceptance of Christ, and relying on him as our Savior, or for salvation: Or, a belief of pardon, and the heavenly Glory as procured by the Redemption wrought by Christ, and given by God in the Covenant of Grace : But the reason is, because all the rest is connoted, and so to be understood by us, as if it were expressed in words: But the true and full definition of it is this.
The Christian Faith which is required at Baptism, and then professed, and hath the promise of Justification and Glorification, is a true Belief of the Gospel, and an acceptance of, and consent unto the Covenant of Grace: Particularly, a believing that God is our Creator, our Owner, our Ruler, and our Chief Good; and that Jesus Christ is God and man, our Savior, our Ransoms, our Teacher, and our King; and that the Holy Ghost is the Sanctifier of the Church of Christ: And it is an understanding, serious consent, that this God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, be my God and reconciled Father in Christ, my Savior, and my Sanctifier; to justify me, sanctify me, and glorify me, in the perfect knowledge of God, and mutual complacence in Heaven; which belief and consent wrought in me by the Word and Spirit of Christ, is grounded upon the Veracity of God as the chief Revealer, and upon his Love and Mercy as the Donor; and upon Christ and his Apostles as the Messengers of God; and upon the Gospel, and specially the Covenant of Grace, as the instrumental Revelation and Donation itself: And upon the many signal operations of the Holy Ghost, as the divine infallible attestation of their truth.
Learn this definition, and understand it thoroughly, and it may prove a more solid useful knowledge (to have the true nature of Faith or Christianity thus methodically printed on your minds) than to read over a thousand volumes in a rambling and confused way of knowledge.
If any quarrel at this definition, because the foundation is not first set down, I only tell him that no Logicians do judge of the Logical order of words by the mere priority and posteriority of place. And if any think that here is more than every true Christian doth understand and remember, I answer, that here is no more than every true Christian hath a true knowledge of; though perhaps everyone have not a knowledge so methodical, explicit and distinct, as to define Faith thus, or to think so distinctly and clearly of it, as others do, or to be able by words to express to another, what he hath a real conception of in himself. There is first in the mind of man a conception of the Object or Matter (by those words or means which introduce it) and next that verbum mentis, or inward word, which is a distincter conception of the matter in the mould of such notions as may be expressed; and next the verbum oris, the word of mouth expresseth it. Now many have the conception of the matter, long before they have the verbum mentis, or logical notions of it: And many have the verbum mentis, who by a hesitant tongue are hindered from oral expressions; and in both, there are divers degrees of distinctness and clearness.
Direct. 9. Turn not plain Gospel Doctrine into the Philosophical fooleries of wrangling and ill-molded wits; nor feign to yourselves any new notions, or offices of Faith, or any new terms as necessary, which are not in the holy Scriptures.
I do not say, use no terms which are not in the Scriptures: for the Scriptures were not written in English: Nor do I persuade you to use no other notions than the Scriptures use; but only that you use them not as necessary, and lay not too great a stress upon them. I confess new Heresies may give occasion for new words (as the Bishops in the first Council of Nice thought:) And yet as Hilary vehemently enveigheth against making new Creeds on such pretences, and wisheth no such practice had been known (not excepting theirs at Nice ) because it taught the Heretics and contenders to imitate them: and they that made the third Creed, might have the like arguments for it as those that made the second ; and he knew not when there would be any end; so I could wish that there had been no new notions in the Doctrine of Faith, so much as used ; for the same reasons: And especially because that while the first inventers do but use them, the next Age which followeth them, will hold them necessary, and lay the Churches communion and peace upon them.
For instance, I think the word [satisfaction] as used by the Orthodox, is of a very sound sense in our Controversies against the Socinians: And yet I will never account it necessary, as long as it is not in the Scriptures, and as long as the words [ Sacrifice, Ransom, Price, Propitiation, Atonement, &c. ] which the Scripture useth, are full as good.
So I think that [ imputing Christ's Righteousness to us ] is a phrase which the Orthodox use in a very sound sense: And yet as long as it is not used by the Spirit of God in the Scriptures; and there are other phrases enough, which as well, or better, express the true sense, I will never hold it necessary.
So also the notions and phrases of [ Faith being the instrument of our Justification ] and [ Faith justifieth only obj • ctively ] and [ that Faith justifieth only as it receiveth Christ's blood, or Christ's Righteousness, or Christ as a Priest] [that Faith is only one physical act: that it is only in the understanding ; or only in the will ; that its only Justifying act is Recumbency, or resting on Christ for Justification ; that it is not an action, but a passion, that all acts of Faith save one, and that one as an act, are the works which Paul excludeth from our Justification ; and that to expect Justification, by believing in Christ for Sanctification, or Glorification, or by believing in him as our Teacher, or King, or Justifying Judge, or by Repenting, or Loving God, or Christ, as our Redeemer, or by confessing our sins, and praying for Pardon and Justification, &c. is to exp • ct Justification by Works, and so to fall from Grace or true Justification ; that he that will escape this pernicious expectance of Justification by Works, must know what that one act of Faith is by which only we are justified, and must expect Justification by it only relatively (that is, not by it at all, but by Christ, say some) or as an Instrument (say others) &c.
Many of these Assertions are pernicious errors ; most of them false ; and the best of them are the unnec • ssary inventions of men's dark, yet busy wits, who condemn their own Doctrine by their practice, and their practice by their Doctrine; whilst they cry up the sufficiency of the Scriptures, and cry down other men's additions, and yet so largely add themselves.
Direct. 10. Take heed lest parties and contendings tempt you to lay so much upon the right notion or doctrines of Faith, as to take up with these alone as true Christianity; and to take a dead Opinion, instead of the life of Faith.
This dogmatical Christianity cheateth many thousands into Hell, who would scarce be led so quietly thither, if they knew that they are indeed no Christians. It is ordinary, by the advantages of education, and converse, and teachers, and books, and studies, and the custom of the times, and the countenance of Christian Rulers, and for reputation, and worldly advantage, &c. to fall into right opinions about Christ, and Faith, and Godliness, and Heaven; and tenaciously to defend these in disputings; and perhaps to make a trade of preaching of it: And what is all this to the saving of the soul, if there be no more? And yet the case of many Learned Orthodox men, is greatly to be pitied, who make that a means to cheat and undo themselves, which should be the only wisdom and way to life; and know but little more of Christianity, than to hold, and defend, and teach sound Doctrine, and to practice it so far as the interest of the flesh will give them leave; I had almost said, so far as the flesh itself will command them to do well, and sin itself forbiddeth sin; that it may not disgrace them in the world, nor bring some hurt or punishment upon them.
Direct. 11. Set not any other Graces against Faith; as raising a jealousy left the honoring of one, be a diminution of the honor of the other: But labor to see the necessary and harmonious consent of all, and how all contribute to the common end.
Though other graces are not Faith, and have not the office proper to Faith; yet everyone is conjunct in the work of our salvation, and in our pleasing and glorifying God: Some of them being the concomitants of Faith, and some of them its end, to which it is a means: Yea, ofttimes the words [ Faith and Repentance ] are used as signifying much of the same works, the latter named from the respect to the term from which, and the former from the respect to part of the term to which the soul is moving: And Faith is oft taken as containing somewhat of Love and Desire in it; and he that will without any prejudice and partiality study Paul where he opposeth Faith and Works, as to our Justification, shall find by his almost constant naming [ the Works of the Law ] or by the context and analysis, that indeed his chief meaning is to prove, that we are justified by the Christian Religion, and must be s • ved by it, and not by the Jewish ▪ which the adversaries of Christianity then pleaded for, and trusted to.
Direct. 12. Set not the helps of Faith as if they were against Faith; but understand their several places and offices, and use them accordingly.
Do not like those ignorant self-conceited Heretics, who cry out, [ It is by Believing, and not by Repenting, or Reading, or Hearing Sermons, or by Praying, or by forbearing sin, or by doing good, that we are justified; and therefore it is by Faith only that we are saved; the same which is sufficient for our Justification, being sufficient for our salvation; seeing the Justified cannot be condemned; and Justification and Salvation are both equally ascribed to Faith without the works of the Law by the Apostle. ] For we are justified only by such a Faith, as is caused by God's Word, and maintained and actuated by Hearing, Reading, Meditation, Prayer and Sacraments ; and as is accompanied by Repentance, and worketh by Love, and is indeed the beholding of those invisible and glorious motives, which may incite our Love, and set us on good works, and obedience to our Redeemer. And he that by negligence omitteth, or by error excludeth any one of these, in the Life of Faith, will find that he hath erred against his own interest, peace and comfort, if not against his own salvation. And that he might as wisely have disputed that it is his eyes only that must see his way, and therefore he may travel without his legs.
Direct. 13. Take heed left a misconceit of the certainty of some common Philosophical Opinions, should make you stagger in those Articles of Faith which seem to contradict them.
Not that indeed any truths can be contrary one to another: For that which is true in Philosophy, is contrary to no one truth in Theology: But Philosophers have deceived themselves and the world, with a multitude of uncertainties and falsities; and by straining them to subtle niceties, and locking them up in uncouth terms, have kept the common people from trying them, and understanding them; and thereby have made it their own prerogative explicitly to err, and the people's duty not to contradict them ; but to admire that error as profound parts of learning, which they cannot understand. And then their conclusions oft go for principles which must not be gainsaid, when they are perhaps either false, or nonsense. And then when they meet with anything in Scripture, which crosseth their opinions, the reputation of human folly maketh them despise the wisdom of God. I have given you elsewhere some instances about the immortality of the soul: They know not what Generation is; they do not know it: nor what are the true principles and elements of mixed bodies; nor what is the true d • fference between immaterial and material substances; with an hundred such like: And yet some expect, that we should sacrifice the most certain useful truths, to their false or uncertain useless suppositions, which is the true reason why Paul saith, Col. 2.8, 9, 10. Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy, and vain deceit (not true Philosophy, which is the true knowledge of the works of God, but the vain models which every Sect of them cried up) after the tradition of men (that is, the opinions of the Masters of their Sects) after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and ye are complete in him. See Act. 17.18. It is Christ who is the kernel and summary of the Christian Philosophy; who is therefore called The Wisdom of God, 1 Cor. 1.24, 30. both because he is the heavenly Teacher of true Wisdom, and because that true Wisdom consisteth in knowing him. And indeed even in those times, the several Sects of Philosophers accounted much of each others principles to be erroneous; and the Philosophers of these times, begin to vilify them all; and withal to confess that they have yet little of certainty to substitute in the room of the demolished Idols; but they are about their experiments, to try if anything in time may be found out.
Direct. 14. Especially take heed lest you be cheated into Infidelity, by the Dominicans Metaphysical Doctrine, of the necessity of God's Physical predetermining promotion as the first total cause, to the being of every action natural and free, not only in genere actionis, but also as respectively and comparatively exercised on this object rather than on that.
I add this only for the learned, who are as much in danger of Infidelity as others; and will use it to the greater injury of the truth. I will meddle now with no other reasons of my advice, but what the subject in hand requireth. If God can, and do thus premove and predetermine the mind, will and tongue of every liar in the world to every lie (or material falsehood) which ever they did conceive or speak, there will be no certainty of the Gospel, nor of any Divine Revelation at all: Seeing all such certainty is resolved into God's Veracity: that God cannot lie. And God speaketh not to us, by any but a created voice: and if he can thus predetermine others to those words which are a lie, rather than to the contrary which are true, there would be no certainty, but he may do so by Prophets and Apostles: and let them tell you what they will of the greater certainty of Inspirations and Miracles, than of Predeterminations, it will be found upon trial, that no man can prove, or make it so much as probable, that any inspiration hath more of a Divine Causation, than such a premoving predetermination as aforesaid doth amount to; much less so much more, as will prove that one is more certain than the other.
This Doctrine therefore which undeniably (whatever may be wrangled) taketh down Christianity, and all belief of God or man, is not to be believed merely upon such a Philosophical conceit, that every Action is a Being, and therefore must in all its circumstances be caused by God. As if God were not able to make a faculty, which can determine its own comparative act to this rather than to that, by his sustentation, and universal precausation and concourse, without the said predetermining premotion: When as an Action as such is but a modus entis ; and the comparative exercise of it, on this rather than on that, is but a modus vel circumstantia modi. And they leave no work, for gracious determination, because that natural determination doth all the same thing (equally to duty and sin ) without it.
Direct. 15. Consider well how much all human converse is maintained by the necessary belief of one another, and what the world would be without it; and how much you expect yourselves to be believed: And then think how much more belief is due to God.
Though sin hath made the world so bad, that we may say, that all men are liars, that is, deceitful vanity, and little to be trusted; yet the honesty of those that are more virtuous, doth help so far to keep up the honor of veracity, and the shamefulness of lying, that throughout the world, a lie is in disgrace, and truth in speech and dealing is well spoken of. And the remnants of natural honesty in the worst, do so far second the true honesty of the best, that no man is so well spoken of commonly in the world, as a man of truth and trustiness, whose Word is his Law and Master, and never speaketh deceitfully to any: Nor no man is so commonly ill spoken of as a knave, as he that will lie, and is not to be trusted: In so much, that even those debauched Ruffians, who live as if they said in their hearts, There is no God, will yet venture their lives in revenge against him that shall give them the lie. Perhaps you will say, that this is not from any virtue, or natural Law, or honesty, but from common interest, there being nothing more the interest of mankind, than that men be trusty to each other. To which I answer, that you oppose things which are conjunct: It is both: For all God's natural Laws are for the interest of mankind, and that which is truly most for our good, is made most our duty; and that which is most our duty, is most for our good. And that which is so much for the interest of mankind, must needs be good: If it were not for credibility and trustiness in men, there were no living in families; but Masters and Servants, Parents and Children, Husbands and Wives, would live together as enemies: And neighbors would be as so many thieves to one another: There could be no Society or Common-wealth, when Prince and people could put no trust in one another: Nay, thieves themselves, that are not to be trusted by any others, do yet strengthen themselves by confederacies, and oaths of secrecy, and gather into troops and armies, and there put trust in one another. And can we think that GOD is not much more to be trusted, and is not a greater hater of a lie? and is not the fountain of all fidelity? and hath not a greater care of the interest of his creatures? Surely he that thinketh that God is a liar, and not to be trusted, will think no better of any mortal man or Angel (and therefore trusteth no one, and is very censorious) and would be thought no better of himself, and therefore would have none believe or trust him: For who would be better than his God?
Direct. 16. Consider also that Veracity in God is his nature or essence; and cannot be denied without denying him to be God.
For it is nothing but his three Essentialities, or Principles, Power, Wisdom and Goodness, as they are expressed in his Word or Revelations, as congruous to his mind, and to the matter expressed. He that neither wanteth knowledge (to know what to say and do) nor Goodness (to love truth, and hate all evil) nor Power to do what he please, and to make good his word, cannot possibly lie ; because every lie is for want of one, or more of these, Heb. 6.18. Titus 1.12. And there as it is said, that he cannot lie, and that it is impossible ; so it is called, a denying of himself, if he could be unfaithful, 2 Tim. 2.13. If we believe not, yet be abideth faithful, and cannot deny himself.
Direct. 17. Exercise Faith much in those proper works, in which self and sense are most denied and overcome.
Bodily motions and labors which we are not used to, are done both unskilfully, and with pain. If Faith be not much exercised in its warfare, and victorious acts, you will neither know its strength, nor find it to be strong, when you come to use it. It is not the easy and common acts of Faith, which will serve turn, to try and strengthen it. As the life of sense is the adversary which Faith must conquer; so use it much in such conflicts and conquests, if you would find it strong and useful: Use it in such acts of mortification and self-denial, as will plainly show, that it over ruleth sense: Use it in patience and rejoicing in such sufferings, and in contentment in so low and cross a state, where you are sure that sight and sense do not contribute to your peace and joy: Use it not only in giving some little of your superfluities, but in giving your whole two mites, even all your substance, and selling all and giving to the poor, when indeed God maketh it your duty: At least in forsaking all for his sake in a day of trial. Faith never doth work so like itself, so clearly, so powerfully, and so comfortably, as in these self-denying and overcoming acts, when it doth not work alone, without the help of sense to comfort us; but also against sense, which would discourage us, Luke 18.22, 23. & 14.26, 33. 2 Cor. 5.7.
Direct. 18. Keep a constant observation of God's converse with your hearts, and workings on them.
For as I said before, there are within us such demonstrations 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 of a Kingdom of God, in precepts, mercies, rewards and punishments, that he which well worketh them, will have much help in the maintaining and exercising his belief, of the everlasting Kingdom: Especially the godly, who have that Spirit there working, which is indeed the very seal, and pledge, and earnest of life eternal, 2 Cor. 1.22. & 5.5. Ephes. 1.13, 14. Gal. 4.5, 6. Rom. 8.16, 17. There is so much of God and Heaven in a true Believers heart, that (as we see the Moon and Stars when we look down into the water, so) we may see much of God and Heaven within us, if the heart itself be thoroughly studied.
And I must add; that Experiences here must be carefully recorded: and when God fulfilleth promises to us, it must not be forgotten.
Direct. 19. Converse much with them that live by Faith, and fetch their motives and comforts from the things unseen.
Converse hath a transforming power. To converse with them that live all by sense, and show no other desires, or joys, or sorrows, but what are fetched from fleshly sensible things, is a great means to draw us downwards with them. And to converse with them who converse in Heaven; and speak of nothing else so comfortably or so seriously ; who show us that Heaven is the place they travel to, and the state that all their life doth aim; and who make little of all the wants or plenty, pains or pleasures of the flesh; this much conduceth to make us heavenly. As men are apt to learn and use the language, the motives, and the employments of the Country and people where they live; so he that is most familiar with such as live by Faith, upon things unseen, and take God's promise for full security, hath a very great help to learn and live that life himself, Heb. 10.24, 25. 1 Thes. 4.17, 18. Phil. 3.20, 21.
Direct. 20. Forget not the nearness of the things unseen, and think not of a long continuance in this world; but live in continual expectation of your change.
Distant things, be they never so great, do hardly move us: As in bodily motion, the mover must be contiguous: And as our senses are not fit to apprehend beyond a certain distance; so our minds also are finite, and have their bounds and measure: And sin hath made them much narrower, foolish and 〈◊〉 -sighted than they would have been. A certainty of dying 〈◊〉 last, should do much with us: But yet he that looketh to live long on earth, will the more hardly live by Faith in Heaven; when he that daily waiteth for his change, will have easily the more serious and effectual thoughts of the world in which he must live next, and of all the preparations necessary thereunto; and will the more easily despise the things on earth, which are the employment and felicity of the sensual, Col. 3.1, 2, 3. Phil. 1.20, 21, 22, 23. 1 Cor. 15.31. As we see it in constant experience in men, when they see that they must presently die indeed, how light then set they by the world? how little are they moved with the talk of honor, with the voice of mirth, with the sight of meat, or drink, or beauty, or anything which before they had not power to deny? and how seriously they will then talk of sin and grace, of God and Heaven, which before they could not be awakened to regard? If therefore you would live by faith indeed, set yourselves as at the entrance of that world which faith foreseeth, and live as men that know they may die tomorrow, and certainly must be gone ere long. Dream not of I know not how many years more on earth, which God never promised you; unl • ss you make it your business to vanquish faith by setting its objects at a greater distance than God hath set them. Learn Christ's warning to one and all, To watch, and to be always ready, Mark 13.33, 35, 37. 1 Pet. 4▪ 7. Mat. 24.44. Luke 12.40. He that thinketh he hath yet time enough, and day-light before him, will be the apter to loiter in his work or Journey: When every man will make haste when the Sun is setting, if he have much to do, or far to go. Delaies which are the great preventers of Repentance, and undoers of the world, do take their greatest advantage from this ungrounded expectation of long life. When they hear the Physician say, He is a dead man, and there is no hope, then they would fain begin to live, and then how religious and reformed would they be? whereas if this foolish error did not hinder them, they might be of the same mind all their lives, and might have then done their work, and waited with desire for the Crown; and said with Paul, For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand: I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness, which the Lord the Righteous Judge shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but to them also that love his appearing, 2 Tim. 4.6, 7, 8.
And so much for the General Directions to be observed by them that will live by Faith: I only add, that as the well doing of all our particular duties, dependeth most on the common health and soundness of the soul, in its state of grace ; so our living by Faith in all the particular cases after instanced, doth depend more upon these General Directions, than on the particular ones which are next to be adjoined.
CHAP. I. An Enumeration of the Particular Cases in which especially Faith must be used. 1. How to live by Faith on GOD.
THE General Directions before given must be practiced in all the Particular Cases following, or in order to them: But besides them, it is needful to have some special Directions for each Case. And the particular Cases which I shall instance in are these: 1. How to exercise Faith on GOD himself: 2. Upon Jesus Christ: 3. Upon the Holy Ghost: 4. About the Scripture Precepts and Examples: 5. About the Scripture Promises: 6. About the Threatenings: 7. About Pardon of sin, and Justification: 8. About Sanctification, and the exercises of other Graces; 9. Against inward vices and temptations to actual sin: 10. In case of Prosperity: 11. In Adversity and particular Afflictions: 12. In God's Worship, public and private: 13. For Spiritual Peace and Joy: 14. For the World, and the Church of God: 15. For our Relations: 16. In loving others as ourselves: 17. About Heaven, and following the Saints: 18. How to die in Faith: 19. About the coming of Christ to Judgment.
GOD is both the object of our knowledge, as he is revealed in Nature, and of our Faith, as he is revealed in the holy Scriptures. He is the first and last object of our Faith. It is life eternal to know him the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. Ye believe in God, believe also in me ; was Christ's order in commanding and causing Faith, Joh. 14.1. Seeing therefore this is the principal part of Faith (to know God, and live upon him, and to him ) I shall give you many (though brief) Directions in it.
Direct. 1. Behold the glorious and full demonstrations of the Being of the Deity, in the whole frame of nature, and especially in yourselves.
The great argument from the Effect to the Cause, is unanswerable. All the caused and derived Beings in the world, must needs have a first Being for their cause: All Action, Intellection and Volition ; all Power, Wisdom and Goodness, which is caused by another, doth prove that the cause can have no less than the total effect hath. To see the world, and to know what a man is, and yet to deny that there is a God, is to be mad. He that will not know that which all the world doth more plainly preach, than words can possibly express, and will not know the sense of his own Being and faculties, doth declare himself uncapable of teaching, Psal. 14.1. & 49.12, 20. Isa. 1.2, 3. It is the greatest shame that man's understanding is capable of, to be ignorant of God, 1 Cor. 15.34. and the greatest shame to any Nation, Hos. 4.1. & 6.6. As it is the highest advancement of the mind, to know him, and therefore the sum of all our duty, Prov. 2.5. Hos. 6.6· 2 Chron. 30.21, 22. Isa. 11.9. 2 Pet. 2.20. Rom. 1.20, 28. Joh. 17.3.
Direct. 2. Therefore take not the Being and Perfections of God, for superstructures and conclusions, which may be tried, and made bow to the interest of other points; but as the greatest, clearest, surest truths, next to the knowledge of our own Being and Intellection: And that which all other (at least, not the proper objects of sense) must be tried and reduced to.
When there is no right method or order of knowledge, there is no true and solid knowledge. It is distraction, and not knowing, to begin at the top, and to lay the foundation last, and reduce things certain to things uncertain. And it is no wiselier done of Atheists, who argue from their apprehensions of other things, against the Beings or Perfections of God. As when they say, [ There is much evil in the world permitted by God; and there is death, and many tormenting pains befall even the innocent bruits; and there are wars and confusions, and ignorance and wickedness, have dominion in the earth: Therefore God is not perfectly good; nor perfectly wise, and just, and powerful in his government of the world. ] The error in the method of arguing here, helpeth to continue their blindness. That God is perfectly good, is prius cognitum: Nothing is more certain than that he, who is the cause of all the derived goodness in the whole Universe, must have as much or more than all himself: Seeing therefore that Heaven and Earth, and all things, bear so evident a witness to this truth, this is the foundation, and first to be laid, and never more questioned, nor any argument brought against it. For all that possibly can be said against it; must be à minus notis, from that which is more obscure. Seeing then that it is most certain by sense, that calamities and evils are in the world; and no less certain that there is a God, who is most perfectly good; it must needs follow that these two are perfectly consistent; and that some other cause of evil must be found out, than any imperfection in the chief good. But as to the Being of things, and Order in the world, it followeth not that They must be as g • od and perfect as their Maker and Governor is himself: nor one part as good and perfect in itself as any other. Because it was not the Creatours purpose when he made the world, to make another God, that should be equal with himself (for two Infinite Beings and Perfections, is a contradiction.) But it was his will to imprint such measures of his own likeness and excellencies upon the creatures, and with such variety, as his wisdom saw fittest; the reasons of which are beyond our search: The Divine Agency, as it is in him the Agent, is perfect: But the effect hath those measures of goodness which he was freely pleased to communicate.
And as I have given you this instance, to show the folly of trying the certain foundation by the less certain notions or accidents in the world; so you must abhor the same error in all other instances: Some wit may consist with the questioning of many plain conclusions: But he is a fool indeed, who saith, There is no God, or doubteth of his essential properties, Psal. 14.1, 2. Rom. 1.19, 20, 21.
Direct 3. Remember that all our knowledge of God, while we are in the body here, is but enigmatical, and as in a glass; and that all words which man can speak of God (at least except Being and Substance) are but terms bel • w him, borrowed from his Image on the Creatures, and not s • gnifying the same thing formal • y in God, which they signify in us.
If you think otherwise, you will make an Idol in your conception, instead of God: And you will debase him, and bring him down to the condition of the creature. And yet it doth not follow that we know nothing of him, or that all such expressions of God are vain, or false, or must be difused: For then we must not think or talk of God at all. But we must speak of him according to the highest notions, which we can borrow from the nobl • st parts of his Image; confessing still, that they are but borrowed: And these must be used till we come nearer, and see as face to face; and when that which is perfect is come, then that which is imperfect shall be done away, 1 Cor. 13.10, 11, 12. And yet it is (in comparison of darker revelations) as with open face that we behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord ; and it is a sight that can change us into the same Image, as from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord, 2 Cor. 3.18.
D • rect. 4. Abhor the furious ignorance, which brandeth everyone with the names of heresy or blasphemy, who differ from them in the use of some unnecessary metaphor of God, when their different phrases tend not indeed to his dishonor, and perhaps may have the same signification with their own.
When we are all forced to confess, that all our terms of God are improper or metaphorical, and yet m • n will run those metaphors into numerous branches, and carry them unto greater impropriety, and then rail at all as blasphemers that question them; this practice is (though too common) a heinous sin in them, as it hath direful effects upon the Church. Should I recite the sad histories of this iniquity, and show what it hath done between the Greek and Latin Churches, and between those called Orthodox and Catholic, and many through the world that have been numbered with Heretics; it would be too large a subject for our sorrow and complaints.
Direct. 5. Abhor presumptu • us curiosities in enquiring into the secret things of God; much more in pretending to know them; and most of all in reviling and contending against others upon those pretences.
It is sad to observe abundance of seemingly learned men, who are posed in the smallest creature which they study, yet talking as confidently of the unsearchable things of God; yea and raving as furiously and voluminously against all that contradict them, as if they had dwelt in the inaccessible light, and knew all the order of the acts of God, much better than they know themselves, and the motions of their own minds; or better than they can anatomize a worm or a beast. They that will not presume to say, that they know the secrets of their Prince, or the heart of any of their neighbors; yea they that perceive the difficulty of knowing the state of a man's own soul, because our hearts are a maze and labyrinth, and o • r thoughts so various and confused, can yet give you so exact a Scheme of all God's conceptions, that it shall be no less than heresy to question the order of any part of it. They can tell you what Idea's are in the mind of God, and in what order they lie; and how those Idea's are the same unchanged about things that are changed; about things past, and present, and to come; and what futurition was from Eternity, as in the Idea of God's mind; they can tell me in what order he knoweth things, and by what means ; and whether future contingents are known to him in their causes, or in his decree, or in their coexistence in eternity: They can tell what Decrees he hath about Negatives ; as that such a man shall not have Faith given him; that millions of things possible shall not be, that you shall not be a plant, or a beast, nor any other man, nor called by any other name, &c. And how all God's Decrees are indeed but One, and yet not only inconceivably numerous, but the order of them as to priority and posteriority, is to be exactly defined and defended, though to the detriment of charity and peace: As to sin, they can tell you, whether he have a real positive Decree, de re eveniente, or only de eventu rei, or only de propriâ permissione eventus, i. e. de non impediendo, i. e. de non agendo ; whether non agere need and have a positive act of Volition or Nolition antecedent; Though they know not when they hear the sound of the wind, either whence it cometh, or whither it goeth; yet know they all the methods of the Spirit: They know how God as the first-mover, predetermineth the motions of all Agents, natural and free, and whether his influence be upon the essence, or faculty, or act immediately; and what that influx is. In a word, how voluminously do they darken counsel by words without knowledge? As if they had never read God's large expostulation with Job (42 &c.) Deut. 29 29. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed, unto us, and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this Law. Even an Angel could say to Manoah, Judge. 13.18. Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret? No man hath seen God at any time, (saving) the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; he hath declared him, Joh. 1.18. And what he hath declared we may know: But how much more do these men pretend to know, than ever Christ declared? But who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his Counselor? Rom. 11.34.
Etiam vera de Deo loqui periculosum: Even things that are true should be spoken of God, not only with reverence, but with great caution: And a wise man will rather admire and adore, than boldly speak what he is not certain is true and congruous.
Direct. 6. Let all your knowledge of God be practical; yea more practical than any other knowledge; and let not your thoughts once use God's Name in vain.
If it be a sin to use idle or unprofitable words, and especially to take God's Name in vain; it cannot be faultless to have idle unprofitable thoughts of God: for the thoughts are the operations of the mind itself. There is no thought or knowledge which ever cometh into our minds, which 1. Hath so great work to do; and 2. Is so fit and powerful to do it, as the knowledge and thoughts which we have of God. The v • ry renovation of the soul to his Image, and transforming it into the Divine Nature, must be wrought hereby: The thoughts of his Wisdom, must silence all our contradicting folly, and bring our souls to an absolute submission and subjection to his Laws: The knowledge of his Goodness, must cause all true saving Goodness in us, by poss • ssing us with the highest love to God. The knowledge of his Power, must cause both our confidence, and our fear: And the impress of God's Attributes must be his Image on our souls. It is a common (and true) observation of Divines, that in Scripture, words of God which express his Knowledge, do imply his will and affections: (As his knowing the way of the righteous, Psal. 2.6. is his approving and loving it, &c.) And it is as true, that words of our knowledge of God, should all imply affection towards him. It is a grievous aggravation of ungodliness, to be a learned ung • dly man: To profess to know God, and deny him in works, being abominable and disobedient, and reprobate to every good work (though as orthodox and ready in good words as others.) Titus 1.16.
A thought of God should be able to do anything upon the soul. It should partake of the Omnipotency and perfection of the blessed Object. No creature should be able to stand before him, when our minds entertain any serious thoughts of him, and converse with him. A thought of God should annihilat • all the grandeur and honors of the world to us; and all the pleasures and treasures of the flesh; and all the power of temptations: what fervency in prayer? what earnestness of desire? what confidence of faith? what hatred of sin? what ardent love? what transporting joy? what constant patience should one serious thought of God, possess the believing holy soul with?
If the thing known become as much one with the understanding, as Plotinus and other Platonists thought, or if man were so far partaker of a kind of deification, as Gibieuf and other Oratorians, and • enedictus de Benedictis, Barbanson, and other Fanatick Friars think, surely the knowledge of God should raise us more above our sensitive desires and passions, and make us a more excellent sort of persons, and it should make us more like those blessed spirits, who know him more than we on earth; and it should be the beginning of our eternal life, John 17.3.
Direct. 7. By Faith deliver up yourselves to GOD, as your Creator, and your Owner, and live to him as those that perceive they are absolutely his own.
The word [ GOD ] doth signify both God's essence, and his three great Relations unto man, and we take him not for our God, if we take him not as in these Divine Relations. Therefore God would have Faith to be expressed at our entrance into his Church, by Baptism ; because a believing soul, doth deliver up itself to God: The first and greatest work of Faith, is to enter us sincerely into the holy Covenant: In which this is the first part, that we take God for our Owner, and resign up ourselves to him, without either express or implicit reserve, as those that are absolutely his own. And though these words are by any hypocrite quickly spoken, yet when the thing is really done, the very heart of sin is broken: For as the Apostle saith, He that is dead is freed from sin, Rom. 6.7. Because a dead man hath no faculties to do evil: So we may say, He that is resigned to God as his absolute Owner, is freed from sin; because he that is not his own, hath nothing which is his own; and therefore hath nothing to alienate from his Owner. We are not our Own, we are bought with a price (which is the second title of God's propriety in us) and therefore must glorify God in body and spirit as being his, 1 Cor. 6.20.
And from this Relation faith will fetch abundant consolation, seeing they that by consent, and not only by constraint, are absolutely his, shall undoubtedly be loved, and cared for as his Own, and used and provided for as his own: He will not neglect his own, and those of his family, who will take us to be worse than Infidels, if we do so, 1 Tim. 5.8.
Direct. 8. By Faith deliver up yourselves to God, as your Sovereign Ruler, with an absolute Resolution to learn, and love, and obey his Laws.
Though I have often and more largely spoken of these duties in other Treatises, I must not here totally omit them, where I speak of that Faith in God, which essentially consisteth in them. It is a narrow, and foolish, and pernicious conceit of Faith, which thinketh it hath no object but promises and pardon ; and that it hath nothing to do with God as our Sovereign Governor: And it is too large a description of faith, which maketh actual and formal obedience to be a part of it: As Marriage is not conjugal fidelity and duty, but it is a Covenant which obligeth to it; and as the Oath of Allegiance is not a formal obedience to the Laws, but it is a covenanting to obey them; and as the hiring or covenant of a servant, is not doing service, but it is an entering into an obligation and state of service: So Faith and our first Christianity, is not strictly formal obedience to him that we believe in, as such: But it is an entering of ourselves by covenant into an obligation and state of future obedience. Faith hath God's precepts for its objects as truly as his promises: But his own Relation as our King or Ruler is its primary object, before his precepts, Hos. 13.10. Psal. 2.6. & 5.2. & 10.16. & 24.7, 8, 10. & 47.6, 7. & 89.18. & 149.2. Rev. 15.3. 1 Timoth. 1.17. Luke 19.27.
Direct. 9. By Faith acknowledge GOD as your total Benefactor, from him you have, and must have all that's worth the having: And accordingly live in a dependence on him.
Faith taketh every good thing as a stream from this inexhausted spring, and as a token of love, from this unmeasurable Love. It knoweth a difference in the means and way of conveyance; but no difference as to the fountain ; for all that we receive is equally from the same original; though not sent to us by the same hand. Faith should not take or look at any good abstractedly, as separated from God; but ever see the streams as continued up to the fountain; and the fruit as proceeding from the tree and roots: Remember still that he doth illuminate you by the Sun; and he doth nourish you by your food (for you live not by bread only, but by his Word and blessing;) and it is he that doth teach you by his Ministers, and protect you by his Magistrates, and comfort you by your friends: You have that from one, which another cannot give you; but you have nothing from any creature whatsoever; which is not totally from God: For though he honor creatures to be his Messengers or Instruments, the benefit is equally from him, when he useth an Instrument, and when he useth none. From him we have our Being, and our Comforts, and all the means and hopes of our well-being; and therefore our dependence must be absolutely on him: The blessings of this life, and of that to come; all things which appertain to life and godliness, are the gifts of his incomprehensible benignity. For it is natural to him, who is infinitely good, to do good, when he doth work ad extra ; though when to communicate, and in what various degrees is free to him, 1 Tim. 4.8. M • t. 6.33. 2 Pet. 1.3. Psal. 145.14, 15. & 146.7. & 18.50. 1 Tim. 6.17. James 1.5. & 4.6. Jer. 5.24, 25.
Direct. 10. By Faith set your eye and heart most fixedly and devotedly on GOD, as your ultimate end (which is your felicity, and much more.)
He taketh not God for God indeed, who taketh him not as his ultimate end: Nay, he debaseth God, who placing his felicity in anything else, doth cleave to God but as the means to such a felicity. But to make God our felicity is lawful and necessary ; but not to dream that this is the highest respect that we must have to God, to be our felicity. To love him, and to be beloved by him; to please him, and to be pleased in him, is our ultimate end; which though it be complex, and contain our own felicity, yet doth it, as infinitely supereminent, contain the complacency of God, and God as the object of our Love, considered in his own infinite perfections: For he is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last; and of him, and through him, and to him are all things, Rom. 11.36. It is the highest and noblest work of faith, to make our own Original to be our End, and to set our love entirely upon God; and to see that we ourselves are but worms and vanity; capable of no higher honor, than to be means to please and glorify God; and must not take down God so, as to love him only for ourselves. And he only who thus denieth himself for God, doth rightly improve self-love, and seek the only exaltation and felicity, by carrying up himself to God, and adhering to the eternal good, 1 Cor. 10.31. Luke 14.33. Mat. 16.25. Mark 8.35.
Direct. 11. Distinguish these Relations of God, but divide them not; much less set them in any opposition to each other; and remember that the effects of them all are marvelously and harmoniously mixed; but undivided.
The effects of God's Power, are always the effects also of his Wisdom and his Goodness : And the effects of his Wisdom, are always the effects of his Goodness and his Power: And the effects of his Goodness, are always the effects of his Power and his Wisdom. The effects of his Dominion on his rational subjects, are always the effects also of his Government and Love: And the effects of his Government, are always the effects also of his Dominion and Love: And the effects of his Love as Benefactor • ▪ are always the effects of his Dominion and Government. Though someone Principle, and someone Relation, may more eminently appear in one work as others do in the other works. Disposal is the effect of Propriety ; but it is always a Regular and L • ving disposal of the subjects of his Government. L • gislation and Judgment are the effects of his Kingdom: Bu • Dominion and Love have a hand in both, till Rebellion turn men from subjection: Glorification is the highest effect of Love: But it is given •• so by our Owner, as by one that may do as he list with his own and by our Governor by the way of a Reward, Mat. 20.15. 2 Tim. 4.7, 8. Mat. 25. throughout.
Direct. 12. Especially let Faith unvail to you the face of the Goodness of God; and see that your thoughts of it be neither false nor low; but equal to your thoughts of his Power and Understanding.
1. As our loss by sin, is more in the point of Goodness, than of Power or Knowledge (The Devils having much of the two last, who have but little or nothing of the first) so it is the Goodness of God which must be more studied by a Believer, than his Power or his Wisdom, because the impress of it is more necessary to us in our lapsed state.
2. They have false thoughts of God's Goodness, who make it to consist only or chiefly, in a communicative inclination ad extra, which we call Benignity: For he was as Good from Eternity, before he made any creature, as he is since: And his Goodness considered as essential in himself, and as his own perfection, is infinitely higher than the consideration of it, as terminated on any Creature. Man is denominated good from his adaptation to the will of God, and not God chiefly from his adaptation to the commodity or will of man. And they do therefore debase God, and defy his creature, who make the creature the ultimate end of GOD and itself ; and not God the ultimate end of the creature. And they might as well make the creature the Beginning also of itself and God: (And yet this sottish notion taketh much with many half-witted Novelists in this Age, who account themselves the men of ingenuity.)
And they have also false thoughts of the Goodness of God, who think that there is nothing of communicative Benignity in it at all. For all the good which God doth, he doth it from the Goodness of his Nature: Thou art good, and doest good, Psal. 119.68. And his doing good is usually expressed by the phrase of being good to them: The Lord is good to all, Psal. 145.9. Psal. 25 8 & 86.5.
Object. But if communicative Benignity be natural to God as his Essential Goodness is, then he must do good per modum naturae, & ad ultimum potentiae; and then the world was from Eternity, and as good as God could make it.
Answ. 1. Those Christian Divines who do hold that the Universe was from Eternity, and that it is as good as God can make it ; do not yet hold that it was its own original, but an eternal emanation from God, and therefore that God who is the beginning of it, is the ultimate end, and eternally and voluntarily, though naturally and necessarily produced it for himself, even for the pleasure of his will: And therefore that God's Essential Goodness as it is in itself, is much higher than the same as terminated in, or productive of the Universe. And that no mixed bodies which do oriri & interire, are generated and corrupted, were from eternity; and consequently, that this present system called the world, which is within our sight, was not from eternity: But that as spring and fall doth revive the plants, and end their transitory life; so it hath been with these particular systemes; the simpler and nobler parts of the Universe continuing the same. And they held that the world is next to infinitely good ; and as good as it is possible to be without being God ; and that for God to produce another God, or an infinite good, is a contradiction: And that all the baser, and pained, and miserable parts of the world, are best respectively to the perfection of the whole, though not best in and to themselves; (As every nuck and pin in a watch is necessary as well as the chief parts.) And that all things set together, it is best that all things be as they are, and will be: But of this the infinite Wisdom, who seeth not only some little parts, but the whole Universe at one perfect view, is the fittest Judge.
2. But the generality of Divines do hold the contrary, and say, that it is natural to God to be the All-sufficient pregnant good; not only able to communicate goodness, but inclined to it, as far as his perfection doth require; but not inclined to communicate in a way of natural constant necessity, as the Sun shineth, but in a way of liberty, when, and in what degrees he pleaseth ; which pleasure is guided by his infinite Understanding, which no mortal man can comprehend; and therefore must not ask any further reason of the first reason and will ; but stop here, and be satisfied to find that it is indeed God's Will and Reason, which causeth all things when and what they are, and not otherwise. And that God hath not made the Universe as good in itself, as by his absolute Power he could have made it: But that it is best to be as it is and will be, because it is most suitable to his perfect Will and Wisdom. And this answer seemeth most agreeable to God's Word.
And as you must see that your thoughts of God's Goodness be not false; so also that they be not diminutive and low. As no knowledge is more useful and necessary to us; so nothing is more wonderfully revealed by God, than is his amiable Goodness: For this end he sent his Son into flesh, to declare his Love to the forelorn world, and to call them to behold it, and admire it, John 1 8, 9, 10. & 3.16. 1 John 3.1. Rev. 21.3. And as Christ is the chief glass of the Fathers Love, on this side Heaven; so it is the chief part of the office of Faith, to see God's Love and Goodness in the face of Christ: Let him not reveal his Love in vain, at so dear a rate, and in a way of such wonderful condescension: Think of his Goodness, as equal to his greatness : And as you see his greatness in the frame of the world; so his goodness in the wonderful work of man's Redemption and Salvation: Let Faith beholding God in Christ, and daily thus gazing on his goodness, or rather tasting it, and feasting on it, be the very sum of all your Religion and your lives. This is indeed to live by Faith, when it worketh by that Love, which is our holiness and life.
Direct. 13. Let not Faith overlook the Books of the Creation, and the wonderful demonstrations of God's Attributes therein.
Even such revelations of God's goodness and fidelity as are made in Nature, or the works of Creation, are sometimes in Scriptures made the objects of faith. At least we who by the belief of the Scriptures, do know how the worlds were made, Heb. 11.2, 3. must believingly study this glorious work of our great Creator. All those admirations and praises of God as appearing in his works, which David useth, were not without the use of faith. Thus faith can use the world as a sanctified thing, and as a glass to see the glory of God in, while sensual sinners use it against God to their own perdition, and make it an enemy to God and them; so contrary is the life of Faith and of Sense. He hath not the heart of a man within him, who is not stricken with admiration of the Power, and Wisdom and Goodness of the incomprehensible Creator, when he seriously looketh to the Sun and Stars, to Sea and Land, to the course of all things, and to the wonderful variety and natures of the particular creatures. And he hath not the heart of a Believer in him, who doth not think [O what a God is it whom I am bound to serve, and who hath taken me into his Covenant as his child! How happy are they who have such a God, engaged to be their God and Happiness? And how miserable are they who make such a God their revenging Judge and enemy? Shall I ever again willfully or carelessly sin against a God of so great Majesty? If the Sun were an intellectual Deity, and still looked on me, should I presumptuously offend him? Shall I ever distrust the power of him that made such a world? Shall I fear a worm, a mortal man, above this great and terrible Creator? Shall I ever again resist or disobey the word and wisdom of him, who made and ruleth such a world? Doth he govern the whole world, and should not I be governed by him? Hath he Goodness enough to communicate as he hath done to Sun and Stars to Heaven and Earth, to Angels and Men, and every wight? and hath he not Goodness enough to draw, and engage, and continually delight, this dull and narrow heart of mine? Doth the return of his Sun, turn the darksome night into the lightsome day, and bring forth the creatures to their food and labor; doth its approach revive the torpid earth, and turn the congealed winter into the pleasant spring, and cover the earth with her fragrant many-coloured Robes, and renew the life and joy of the terrestrial inhabitants; and shall I find nothing in the God who made and still continueth the world, to be the life, and strength, and pleasure of my soul? Psal. 66.1. &c. Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye Lands: sing forth the honor of his Name; make his praise glorious: say unto God, How terrible art thou in thy works? — Come and see the works of God: He is terrible in his doing towards the children of men. —He ruleth by his power forever: his eyes behold the Nations: let not the rebellious exalt themselves. O bless our God ye people, and make the voice of his praise to be heard! who holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved, Psal. 86.8, 9, 10. Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord, neither are there any works like unto thy works. All Nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify thy Name: For thou art great, and dost wondrous things: thou art God alone, Psal. 92.5, 6. O Lord how great are thy works! thy thoughts are very deep, a brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand this.
Faith doth not separate itself from natural knowledge, nor neglect God's Works, while it studyeth his Word ; but saith Psal. 143.5. I meditate on all thy Works: I muse on the work of thy hands. Psal. 104.24. O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches; so is the great and wide Sea, &c.
Nay, it is greatly to be noted, that as Redemption is to repair the Creation, and the Redeemer came to recover the soul of man to his Creator, and Christ is the way to the Father ; so on the Lord's day our commemoration of Redemption includeth and is subservient to our commemoration of the Creation, and the work of the ancient Sabbath is not shut out, but taken in with the proper work of the Lord's day : and as Faith in Christ is a mediate grace to cause in us the Love of God ; so the Word of the Redeemer doth not call off our thoughts from the Works of the great Creator, but call them back to that employment, and fit us for it by reconciling us to God.
Therefore it is as suitable to the Gospel Church at least, as it was to the Jewish, to make God's works the matter of our Sabbath praises, and to say, as Psal. 145.4, 5, 10. One generation shall praise thy works to another; and shall declare thy mighty acts: I will speak of the glorious honor of thy Majesty, and of thy wondrous works: And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts, and I will declare thy greatness —All thy works shall praise thee O Lord, and thy Saints shall bless thee, Psal. 26.6, 7. I will wash my hands in innocence, and so will I compass thine Altar O Lord, that I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works, Psal. 9.12. I will praise thee O Lord with my whole heart, I will show forth all thy marvelous works.
Direct. 14. Let Faith also observe God in his daily Providences; and equally honor him for the ordinary and the extraordinary passages thereof.
The upholding of the world is a continual causing of it; and differeth from creation, as the continued shining of a Candle doth from the first lighting of it. If therefore the Creation do wonderfully declare the Power, and Wisdom, and Goodness of God ; so also doth the conservation. And note that God's ordinary works are as great demonstrations of him in all his perfections, as his extraordinary: Is it not as great a declaration of the Power of God, that he cause the Sun to shine, and to keep its wondrous course from age to age, as if he did such a thing but for a day or hour? and as if he caused it to stand still a day? And is it not as great a demonstration of his knowledge also, and of his goodness? Surely we should take it for as great an act of Love, to have plenty, and health, and joy continued to us as long as we desired it, as for an hour. Let not then that duration and ordinariness of God's manifestations to us, which is their aggravation, be looked upon as if it were their extenuation: But let us admire God in the Sun and Stars, in Sea and Land, as if this were the first time that ever we had seen them.
And yet let the extraordinarniess of his works have its effects also: Their use is to stir up the drowsy mind of man, to see God in that which is unusual, who is grown customary and lifeless in observing him in things usual. Pharaoh and his Magicians will acknowledge God, in those unusual works, which they are no way able to imitate themselves, and say, This is the finger of God, Exod. 8.19. And therefore miracles are never to be made light of, but the finger of God to be acknowledged in them, whoever be the instrument or occasion, Luke 11.20.
There are frequently also some notable, though not miraculous Providences, in the changes of the world, and in the disposal of all events, and particularly of ourselves, in which a Believer should still see God; yea see him as the total cause, and take the instruments to be next to nothing; and not gaze all at men as unbelievers do: but say, This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes, Psal. 118.23. Sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvelous things, Psal. 98.1. Marvelous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well, Psal. 139.14.
Direct. 15. But let the chief study of Faith for the knowledge of God, be of the face of Jesus Christ, and the most wonderful mystery of his Incarnation, and our Redemption.
For God is nowhere else so fully manifested to man, in that Goodness, Love, and Mercy, which it most concerneth us to know; and the knowledge of which will be most healing and sanctifying to the soul: But of this I must speak more in the chapter next following.
Direct. 16. Let Faith make use of every mercy, not only to acknowledge God therein, but to have a pleasant taste and relish of his Love.
For thus it is that they are all sanctified to Believers, and this is the holy use of mercies: Remember that as in order to Understanding, your eyes and ears are but the passages or inlets to your minds; and if sights and sounds went no further than the senses, you would be no better, if not worse than beasts: So also in order to Affection, the taste and sense of sweetness, or any other pleasure, is to pass by the sense unto the heart ; and what should it do there, but affect the heart with the Love and Goodness of the giver. A beast tasteth as much of the sensitive sweetness of his food and ease as you do: But it is the Believer who heartily saith, How good is the Author and end of all this mercy? whence is it that this cometh? and whether d • th it tend? I love the Lord because he hath heard the voice of my supplication, Psal. 116.1. O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, Psal. 145.15, 16. The eyes of all things wait on thee: thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thy hand, and satisfiest the desires of every living thing. He leaveth not himself without witness in that he doth good, and giveth us Rain from Heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness, Acts 14.17. The near conjunction of soul and body, and the near relation of God and his mercies, do tell us plainly, that every pleasure which toucheth the sense, should touch the heart, and reach unto the soul itself; and that as the creature is fitted to the sense, and God is suitable to the soul ; so the creature should be but God's servant to knock and cause us to open the door to himself, and the way of his communication and accession to the heart. Therefore so great a judgment is threatened against the Israelites in their prosperity, if they did not serve God with j • yfulness and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things, Deut. 28.47. And therefore the days in which men were to rejoice in God, with the greatest love and thankfulness, were appointed to be days of feasting, that the pleasure of the bodily senses might promote the spiritual pleasure and gratitude of the mind. 2 Chron. 19.21. & 29.30. Neh. 8.17. & 12.27. Esth. 9 17, 18, 19. Numb. 10.10.
Direct. 17. Let Faith feel God's displeasure in every chastisement and judgment.
For we must be equally careful that we despise them not, and that we faint not under them, Heb. 12.5. They that pretend that it is the work of faith to see nothing in any affliction but the love and benefit, do but set one act of faith against another: For the same word which telleth us, that it shall turn to a true believers good, doth tell us that it is of itself a natural evil, and that as the good is from God's Love, so the evil is from our sins, and his displeasure; and that he would give us the good without the evil, if man were without sin. He therefore that believeth not that it is a castigatory punishment for sin, is an unbeliever, as well as he that believeth not the promise of the benefit, Rom. 5.12, 14, 16, 17, 18. 1 Cor. 11.30, 32. Jer. 5.25. Micah 1.5. Amos 3.2.
Yea this opinion directly frustrateth the first end and use of all chastisements which is to further men's Repentance for the evil of sin, by the sense of the evil of punishment, and the notice of God's displeasure manifested thereby: And next to make us warnings to others, that they incur not the same correction and displeasure as we have done. For he that saith, there is no penalty or evil in the suffering, nor no displeasure of God expressed thereby, doth contradict all this. But as it is a great benefit which we are to reap by our corrections, even the furtherance of our Repentance and amendment; so it is a great work of faith, to perceive the bitterness of sin, and the displeasure of God in these corrections: of which more anon.
Direct. 18. Faith must hear the voice of God in all his Word, and in all the counsel which by any one he shall send us.
When sense taketh notice of nothing but a book, or of none but a man, faith must perceive the mind and message of God. Not only in Preachers, 2 Cor. 5.19, 20. 1 Thes. 2.13. Titus 2.5. Heb. 13.7. but also in the mouth of wicked enemies, when it is indeed the will of God which they reveal. And so David heard the curse of Shimei, speaking to him the rebukes of God, for his sin in the matter of U • iah, 2 Sam. 16.10, 11. And Paul rejoiced that Christ was preached by men of envy and strife, who did it to add affliction to his bonds, Phil. 1.18. Moses perceived the will of God in the counsel of Jethro, even in as great a matter as the governing and judging of the people, Exod. 18.19. The counsel of the ancients which Rehoboam forsook, was the counsel of God which be rejected, 1 King. 12.8. David blessed God for the counsel of a woman, Abigail. Whoever be the Messenger, a Believer should be acquainted with the voice of God, and know the true significations of his will. The true sheep of Christ do know his voice, and follow him, because they are acquainted with his Word; and though the Preacher be himself of a sinful life, he can distinguish betwixt God and the Preacher; and will not say, it is not the Word of God, because it cometh from a wicked mouth. For he hath read, Psal. 50.16. where God saith to the wicked, What hast thou to do to take my Covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction, and hast cast my words behind thee: But he never read [to the godly, saith God, Why didst thou hear a wicked Preacher?] He hath read, The Scribes and Pharisees fit in Moses chair, hear them, but do not as they do. But he never read [Hear none that live not according to their doctrine.] An unbeliever will not know Christ's Word, if a Judas be the Preacher of it: but a Believer can read the commission of Judas, or at least can understand whose counsel he delivereth: and though he would be loath to choose a Judas, or to prefer him before a holy man; yet if workers of iniquity do preach in Christ's Name, he leaveth it to Christ to say at Judgment, I know you not, Mat. 7.21, 22. Acts 1.17, 24.
Direct. 19. Faith must not look at God now and then, and leave the soul in ordinary forgetfulness of him: but remember that he is always present, and must make us rather forget them that are talking to us, or conversing with us, than to forget the Lord.
Nothing is more the work of Faith, than to see him who is invisible, Heb. 11.27. And to live as one that still remembereth, that God standeth by: To think as one that knoweth that our thoughts are always in his sight, and to speak and do as one that forgetteth not, that he is the constant and most reverend witness of all. To hear, and pray, and live, and labor as if we saw the God who employeth us, and will reward us, Matth. 6.4, 6. Isa. 59.18. Rev. 20.12. Matth. 16.27. Rom. 2.6.
Direct. 20. Faith must lay the heart of man, to rest in the Will of God, and to make it our chief delight to please him, and quietly to trust him whatever cometh to pass: And to make nothing of all that would rise up against him, or entice us from him, or would be to us as in his stead.
Faith seeth that it is the pleasing of the will of God, which is all our work, and all our reward: And that we should be fully pleased in the pleasing of him: And that there is no other rest for the soul to be thought on, but the will of God: And it must content the soul in him alone, 2 Thes. 1.11. Col. 3.20. 1 Cor. 7.32. 1 Thes. 4.1. 2 Tim. 2.4. Heb. 11.6. Mat. 3.17. & 17.5. Heb. 13.16. Psal. 16.5. & 73.26. & 119.57. & 142.5.
As God is often called Jealous, especially over the heart of man; so faith must make us jealous of ourselves, and very watchful against every creature, which w • uld become any part of the felicity or ultimate object of our souls. God is so great to a believing soul, that ease, and honor, and wealth, and pleasure, and all men, high and low must be as dead and nothing to us, when they speak against him, or would be loved, or feared, or trusted, or obeyed before him, or above him: It is as natural to a true life of Faith on God, to make nothing of the encroaching creature, as for our beholding the Sun, to make nothing of a Candle. And thus is faith our victory over the world, 1 John 5.4. Jer. 17.5. Isa. 2.22. 1 Cor. 15.28. Ephes. 4.6. Col. 3.11.
CHAP. II. Directions how to live by Faith on Jesus Christ.
SO much is said already towards this in opening the grounds of Faith, as will excuse me from being prolix in the rest: And the following parts of the Life of Faith, are still supposed as subordinate to these two which go before.
Direct. 1. Keep still the true Reasons of Christ's Incarnation and Mediation upon your mind (as they are before expressed) else Christ will not be known by you as Christ. Therefore the Scriptures are much in declaring the reasons of Christ's coming into the world, as to be a sacrifice for sin, to declare God's love and mercy to sinners; to seek and to save that which was lost; to destroy the works of the Devil, &c. 1 Tim. 1.15. 1 John 3.8. Heb. 2.14. Luke 19.10. Rom. 5.10. 1 John 3.1. Gal. 4.4, 6, &c. Let this name or description of Christ be engraven as in capital Letters upon your minds. THE ETERNAL WISDOM OF GOD INCARNATE TO REVEAL AND COMMUNICATE HIS WILL, HIS LOVE, HIS SPIRIT TO SINFUL MISERABLE MAN.
Direct. 2. See therefore that you join no conceit of Christ, which dishonoreth God, and is contrary to this character, and to God's design.
Many by mistaking the doctrine of Christ's Intercession, do think of God the Father, as one that is all wrath and justice, and unwilling of himself to be reconciled unto man: and of the second person in the Trinity, as more gracious and merc • full, whose mediation abateth the wrath of the Father, and with much ado maketh him willing to have mercy on us. Whereas it is the Love of God, which is the original of our Redemption, and it was God's loving the world, which provoked him to give his Son to be their Redeemer, John 3.16. Rom. 8.32. And God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing to them their trespasses, 2 Cor. 5.19. And therefore we still read of Christ's reconciling man to God, and not the phrase of his reconciling God to man: Not but that both are truly wrought by Christ's mediation; (For the Scripture frequently speaketh of God's hating the workers of iniquity, and of his vindictive Justice, and of that propitiating and atonement, which signifieth the same thing:) But the reason is, because the enmity began on man's part, and not on God's, by man's forsaking God, and turning his love from him to the creature, and not by God's forsaking man; and the change of man's state and heart towards God, by true reconciliation, will make him again capable of peace with God; and as soon as man is made an object fit for the complacency of God, it cannot be but that God will again take complacency in him; so that the real change must be only on man; and then that relative or denominative change which must be on God, will thence immediately result.
Some also there be who gather from Christ's death, that God desired the sufferings of Christ as pleasing to him in itself ; as if he made a bargain with Christ to sell so much mercy to man, for so much blood and pains of Christ; and as if he so delighted in the blood of the innocent, that he would the willinglyer do good to us, if he might first forsake and crucify Christ. But this is to contradict Christ's business in the world, as if he who came from Heaven to declare God's Love, had come to declare him to delight in doing hurt; and as if he who came to demonstrate God's Justice, had come to show, that he had rather punish the innocent, than the guilty: But the case is quite otherwise: God doth not delight in man's sufferings as such; no not of the guilty, much less of the innocent: He desired not Christ's suffering for itself: But as it was a convenient means, to demonstrate his Justice, and his Holiness, and to vindicate the honor of his Government and Law, and to be a warning to sinners, not to sin presumptuously; and yet to declare to them the greatness of his Love.
And some are ready to gather from Christ's propitiation, that God is now more reconcilable to sin, and so they blaspheme him as if he were unholy: As if he made a smaller matter of our mis-doings, since he is satisfied for them by a Mediator. And they are ready to gather, that God can now take complacency in man, though he have no inherent holiness at all, because of the righteousness of Christ imputed to him. And some take God's imputation of Christ's righteousness to us, to be a reputing us to be the persons, who ourselves fulfilled the Law in or by Christ; so that his very Attributes of Wisdom, and Love, and Holiness, and Justice, and Mercy, &c. which Christ came purposely to declare, are by some denied, blasphemed or abused, on pretence of extolling Christ and our Redemption; as if we might sin that grace may abound, Rom. 6.1, 2. But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the Minister of sin? God forbid, Gal. 2.17.
Direct. 3. Distinguish between the common and the special benefits of man's Redemption by Christ; and see how the latter do suppose the former; and set not these parts against each other, which God in wisdom hath joined together.
To pass by all other the great and notable common benefit, is the conditional Covenant of grace ; or the conditional pardon of sin, and gift of eternal life to all without exception, John 3.16. Mark 16.15, 16. Rom. 10.9. Mat. 6.14, 15. Mat. 22.7, 8, 9. And this general conditional promise must be first preached; and the preaching of this is the universal o • common call and offer of grace: And it must be first believed, as is before said. But the actual belief of it, according to its true intent and meaning, doth prove our actual personal title to all the benefits which were before given but conditionally, John 3.16. 1 John 5.10, 11, 12. 2 Cor. 5.19, 20 21.
Direct. 4. Accordingly judge how far Redemption is common or special, by the common and special benefits procured.
For no man can deny but it is so far common, as the benefits are common : that is, so far as to procure and give to sinners a common conditional pardon as aforesaid (as Dr. Twisse very often taketh notice.) And no man can affirm, that it is common to all, so far as absolutely or eventually to give them actual pardon and salvation, unless they dream that all are saved. But that some eventually and infallibly are saved, all confess: And we had rather think that Christ and the good pleasure of God, is the chief differencing cause, than we ourselves.
Direct. 5. Set not the several parts of the Office of Christ against each other; nor either depress or forget any one part, while you magnify and meditate only on the other,
It is most ordinary to reduce all the Office of Christ, to the Prophetical, Priestly, and Kingly part. (For it is more proper to call them three parts of one Office, than three Offices:) But it is hard to reduce his Incarnation, or his infant-humiliation, and his whole course of obedience, and fulfilling the Law to any one, or all of these, totally. Though in some respect, as it is his example, it is teaching, and as it is part of his humiliation, it may be called a part of his sacrifice ; yet as it is meritorious, obedience and perfection, it belongeth indeed to our High Priest, but not formally to his Priesthood: No nor yet as he himself is the sacrifice for sin: For it is not an act of Priesthood to be himself a sacrifice. But yet I think the common destribution intimateth to us that sense which containeth the truth which we inquire after: For the word Priesthood is applied to Christ in a peculiar notion, so as it is never applied to any other; and therefore is taken more comprehensively, as including all that good which he doth for us (as good) by the way of Mediation with the Father, and all his acts of Mediation with God; as the Prophetical and Kingly parts, contain his other acts toward men. But yet a more plain and accurate destribution should be made; in which it should be manifested also to what heads his many other assumed titles of Relation are to be reduced: But this is not a work for this place.
But that which now I advise you to avoid, i • the error of them who look so much at Christ's Mediation with God, that they scarce observe his work with man: And the error of them who look so much at his work on man, that they overlook his Mediation with God: And theirs that so observe h • s sacrifice, as to make light of his continual intercession: or that observing both, make light of his doctrine and example: Or that observe these so much as to make light of his sacrifice and intercession: Or that extol his doctrine and example, and overlook his giving of the Spirit to all his living members: Or that cannot magnify any one of these, without depressing or extenuating some other. If Christ's Kingdom be not divided, Mat. 12.25. sure Christ himself is not divided, nor his works, 1 Cor. 1.13.
Direct 6. Still distinguish between Christ's work of Redemption, which he hath already wrought on earth, to constitute him our Mediatory Head, and that which he was further to do for us in that Relation; that you may ground your faith on the first as a foundation laid by him, and may seek after the second as that which requireth somewhat from yourselves to your own participation.
The first part is commonly called the Impetration, the second the Application (or rather, the Communication ) As God did first do himself the work of Creation, and thence result his Relations of our Owner, our Ruler, and our Chief Good (or our Love, or End, or Benefactor;) so Christ first doth the works which make him our Redeemer towards God; and then he is also our Owner, our Ruler, and our communicative Benefactor, hereupon. And this seemeth intimated by those phrases, Heb. 5.8. & 2.9, 10. where he is said to learn obedience by the things which he suffered, that is, as a subj • ct exercised obedience, and so learnt to know by experience what obeying is. And that ( the Captain of our salvation was made perfect by sufferings, and for suffering death was crowned with glory ) because his sufferings did constitute him a perfect Captain or Redeemer in performance ; though before he was perfect in ability. As he that undertaketh to redeem some Turkish gally-slaves by conquering their Navy, is made a perfect Redeemer, or Conqueror, when he hath taken the fleet, though yet the prisoners are in his power, to release them on such terms at seem best to him. And as a man is a perfect Chirurgeon, when (besides his skill) he is furnished with all his instruments or salves (how costly soever) though yet the cure is not done: Or as he that hath ransomed prisoners is a perfect Ransomer, when he hath paid the price, though yet they are not delivered, nor have any actual right themselves to claim deliverance by. I here mention this, because the building upon that foundation, which is supposed to be already laid and finished, and the seeking of the further salvation which yet we have no possession of, nor perhaps any title to, are works so very different, that he that doth not discern the difference, cannot exercise the Christian faith: Because it is to be necessarily exercised by two such different acts, or different ways of acting and applying ourselves to our Redeemer.
Direct. 7. Still think of Christ's nearness both to the Father and to us ; and so of our NEARNESS to God in and by him.
Our distance is the lamentable fruit of our Apostasy; which inferreth, our fears, and estrangedness, and backwardness to draw near to God: It causeth our ignorance of him, and our false conceits of his will and works: it greatly hindereth both love and confidence: whereas the apprehension of our nearness to God will do much to cure all these evils. As it is the misery of the proud, that God looketh on them as afar off, that is, with strangeness, and abhorrence, and disdain, Psal. 138.6. And accordingly they shall be far off from the blessed ones hereafter, Luke 16.23. So it is the happiness of Believers to be nigh to God, in Jesus Christ, who condescended to be nigh to us; which is our preparation to be yet nearer to him forever, Psal. 148.14. & 34.18. & 145.18. Ephes. 2.13. It giveth the soul more familiar thoughts of God, who seemed before to be at an inaccessible distance; which is part of the boldness of access and confidence mentioned, Ephes. 3.12. & 2.18. Rom. 5.2. Heb. 10.19. We may come boldly to the Throne of grace, Heb. 4.16. And it greatly helpeth us in the work of Love, to think how near God is come to us in Christ, and how near he hath taken the human nature unto him. When a sinner looketh at God only as in himself, and as he is estranged from the guilty, he is amazed and confounded, as if God were quite out of the reach of our love; but when he thinketh how he hath voluntarily come down into our flesh, that he might be man, and be familiar with man, and what a wonderful marriage the Divine Nature hath made with the human, this wonderfully reconcileth the heart to God, and maketh the thoughts of him more sweet and acceptable. If the life of faith be a dwelling in God, and God in us, and a walking with God, 1 Joh. 3.24. & 4.12, 15, 16. Ephes. 3.17. Gen. 17.1. & 24.40. & 5.22. & 6.9. Heb. 11.5. Then must we perceive our nearness to God: The just apprehension of this nearness in Christ's Incarnation and Relation to us, is the chief means to bring us to the nearness of love and heavenly conversation, Col. 3.1, 3, 4.
Direct. 8. Make Christ therefore the Mediation for all your practical thoughts of God.
The thoughts of God will be strange to us through our distance, and terrible through our guilt, if we look not upon him through the prospective of Christ's humanity and cross. God out of Christ is a consuming fire to guilty souls. As our acceptance must be through the Beloved, in whom he is well pleased; so our thoughts must be encouraged with the sense of that acceptance; and every thought must be led up to God, and emboldened by the Mediator, Mat. 3.17. & 17.5. & 12.18. Ephes. 1.6. Heb. 2.9, 10, 12, 13, 17.
Direct. 9. Never come to God in prayer, or any other act of worship, but by the Mediation of the Son; and put all your prayers as into his hand, that he may present them to the Father.
There is no hoping for anything from God to sinners, but by Christ: and therefore there is no speaking to God but by him: not only in his Name, but also by his Mediation : And this is the exercise of his Priesthood for us, by his heavenly intercession, so much spoken of by the Holy Ghost in the Epistle to the Hebrews: Seeing we have a great High Priest, that is passed into the Heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession: Let us therefore come boldly to the Throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need, Heb. 4.14, 16.
Direct. 10. Hear every word of Scripture Precept; and Ministerial Exhortation (consonant to the Scripture) as sent to us by Christ, and from the Father by him, as the appointed Teacher of the Church.
Hear Christ in his Gospel and his Ministers, and hear God the Father in the Son. Take heed of giving only a slight and verbal acknowledgement of the voice of Christ, whilst you really are more taken with the Preachers voice, as if he had a greater share in the Sermon, than Christ hath. The voice in the holy Mount, which Peter witnesseth that he heard, 2 Pet. 1.17. was, This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him, Mat. 17.5. And it shall come to pass, that every soul which will not hear that Prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people, Acts 3.23. When ye received the Word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the Word of men, but as it is in truth the Word of God, which worketh effectually in you that believe, 1 Thes. 2.13. The Sheep will follow him, for they know his voice: a stranger they will not follow, John 10.4, 5.
Direct. 11. Take every mercy from God as from the hand of Christ; both as procured by his Cross, and as delivered by his Mediatory Administration.
It is still supposed that the giving of the Son himself by the Father to this office, is excepted as presupposed. But all subsequent particular mercies, are both procured for us, and given to us, by the Mediator. Yet is it nevertheless from God the Father, nor doth it evertheless, but the more fully signify his love. But the state of sinners alloweth them no other way of communication from God, for their benefit and happiness, but by one who is more near and capable to God, who from him may convey all blessings unto them. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in things heavenly in Christ, Ephes. 1.3. He that spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Rom. 8.32. Through the knowledge of him, the Divine Power giveth us all things that pertain to life and godliness, 2 Pet. 1.3. God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son, 1 John 5.10, 11. All things are delivered into his hand, Joh. 13.3. & 17.2. Therefore receive every particular mercy for soul and body, as from the blood, and from the present mediation of Christ, that you may rightly understand it, and have it as sanctified and sweetened by Christ.
Direct. 12. Let Faith take occasion by every sin, to renew your sense of the want of Christ, and to bring you to him, to meditate and grant you a renewed pardon.
Therefore entertain not their mistake, who tell men that all sin, past, present, and to come, is fully pardoned at once (whether it be before you were born in God's decree, or Christ's satisfaction, or at the time of your conversion) nor theirs who teach that Christ pardoneth only sins before conversion, but as for all that are committed afterward, he doth prevent the need of pardon, by preventing all guilt and obligation to punishment (except mere temporal chastisement.) The preparation which Christ hath made for our pardon, is in itself sufficient, yea and effectual as to that end which he would have it attain before our believing: But our actual pardon is no such end: Nor can sin be forgiven before it be committed ; because it is no sin. Christ never intended to justify or sanctify us perfectly at the first (whatsoever many say to the contrary, because they understand not what they say) but to carry on both proportionably and by degrees, that we may have daily use for his daily mediation, and may daily pray, Forgive us our trespasses. There is no guilt on them that are in Christ, so far as they walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit ; nor no proper condemnation by sentence or execution at all; because their pardon is renewed by Christ, as they renew their sins of infirmity: but not because he preventeth their need of any further pardon.
Therefore as God made advantage of the sins of the world, for the honoring of his grace in Christ, that grace might abound where sin abounded, Rom. 5.12, 16, 17. So do you make advantage of your renewed sins, for a renewed use of faith in Christ; and let it drive you to him with renewed desires and expectations of pardon by his intercession: That Satan may be a loser, and Christ may have more honor by every sin that we commit. Not that we should sin that grace may abound; but that we may make use of abounding grace when we have sinned. It is the true nature and use of Faith and Repentance to draw good out of sin itself, or to make the remembrance of it to be a means of our hatred and mortification of it, and of our love and gratitude to our Redeemer: Not that sin itself doth ( formally or efficiently ) ever do any good: But sin objectively is turned into good: For so sin is no sin ; because to remember sin is not sin. When David saith, Psal. 51.3. that his sin was ever before him, he meaneth not only involuntarily to his grief, but voluntarily as a meditation useful to his future duty, and to stir him up to all that which afterward he promiseth.
Direct. 13. In all the weaknesses and languishings of the new creature, let Faith look up to Christ for strength.
For God hath put our life into his hand, and he is our root, and hath promised that we shall live because he liveth, John 14.19. Do not think only of using Christ, as you do a friend when you have need of him; or as I do my pen, to write, and lay it down when I have done: But as the branches use the Vine, and as the members use the Head, which they live by; and from which when they are separated, they die and wither, John 15.1, 2, 3, &c. Ephes. 1.22. & 5.27, 30. & 4.4, 5, 12, 15, 16. Christ must even dwell in our hearts by Faith, Ephes. 3.17. that is, 1. Faith must be the means of Christ's dwelling in us by his Spirit; and 2. Faith must so habituate the heart to a dependence upon Christ, and to an improvement of him that objectively he must dwell in our hearts, as our friend doth whom we most dearly love; as that which we cannot choose but always think on.
Remember therefore that we live in Christ, and that the life which we now live is by the faith of the Son of God, who hath loved us, and given himself for us, Gal. 2.20. And his grace is sufficient for us, and his strength most manifested in our weakness, 2 Cor. 12.9. And that when Satan desireth to sift us, he prayeth for us that our faith may not fail, Luke 22.32. And that our life is hid with Christ in God, even with Christ who is our life, Col. 3.3, 4. That he is the Head, in whom all the members live, by the communication of his appointed ligaments and joints, Ephes. 4.14, 15, 16. Therefore when any grace is weak, go to your Head for life and strength. If faith be weak, pray, Lord increase our faith, Luke 17.5. If you are ignorant, pray him to open your understandings, Luk. 24.45. If your hearts grow cold, go to him by faith, till he shed abroad the love of God upon your hearts, Rom. 5.3, 4. For o • his fullness it is that we must receive grace for grace, J • hn 1.16.
Direct. 14. Let the • hief and most diligent work of your faith in Christ be, to inflame your hearts with love to God, as his Goodness and Love is revealed to us in Christ.
Faith kindling Love, and working by it, is the whole sum of Christianity, of which before.
Direct. 15. Let Faith keep the example of Christ continually before your eyes▪ especially in those parts of it, which he intended for the contradicting and healing of our greatest sins.
Above all others, these things seem purposely and specially chosen in the life of Christ, for the condemning and curing of our sins; and therefore are principally to be observed by faith.
1. His wonderful Love to God, to his Elect, and to his enemies: expressed in so strange an undertaking, and in his sufferings, and in his abundant grace, which must teach us, what fervours of love to God and man, to friends and enemies must dwell and have dominion in us, 1 John 4.10. Rev. 1.5. Rom. 5.8, 10. John 13.34, 35. & 15.13. 1 John 3.14.23.17. & 4.7, 8, 20, 21.
2. His full obedience to his Fathers will, upon the dearest rates or terms : To teach us that no labor or cost should seem too great to us in our obeying the will of God; nor anything seem to us of so much value, as to be a price great enough to hire us to commit any willful sin, Rom. 5.19. Heb. 5 8. Phil. 2 8. 1 Sam. 15.22. 2 Cor. 10.5, 6. Heb. 5 9. John 14.15. & 15.10. 1 John 2.3. & 3.22. & 5.2, 3. Rev. 22.14.
3. His wonderful contempt of all the Riches, and Greatness of the world, and all the pleasures of the flesh, and all the honor which is of man, which he shown in his taking the form of a servant, and making himself of no reputation, and living a mean inferior life: He came not to be served (or ministered to) but to serve: Not to live in state with abundance of attendants; with provisions for every turn and use, which pride, curiosity, or carnal imagination, taketh for a conveniency, or a decency, no nor a necessity: But he came to be as a servant unto others; not as despising his liberty, but as exercising his voluntary humility and love: He that was Lord of all for our sakes, became poor to make us rich: He lived in lowliness and meekness: He submitted to the greatest scorn of sinners; and even to the false accusations and imputations of most odious sin in itself, Phil. 2.6, 7, 8, 9. Heb. 12.1, 2, 3. Matth. 26.55, 60, 61, 63, 66. & 27, 28, 29, 30, 31. Matth. 11.29, 30. & 20.28. 2 Cor. 8.9. which was to teach us to see the vanity of the wealth and honors of the world, and to despise the Idol of the ungodly, and to lay that under our feet, which is nearest to their heart; and to be able without impatiency, to be scorned, spit upon, buffeted and abused; to be poor, and of no reputation among men; and though not to enslave ourselves to any (but if we can be free to use it rather, 1 Cor. 7.21.) yet to be the loving and voluntary servants of as many as we can to do them good; and not to desire to have a great retinue, and to be such voluntary burdens to the world, as to be served by many, while we serve none; as if we (who are taught by Christ and Nature, that it is more honorable to give than to receive, and to be helpful unto many, than to need the help of many ) would declare our impotency to be so great, that (when every poor man can serve himself and others) we are (and had rather be) so indigent, as not to live and help ourselves, without the help of many servants: yea scarce to undress and dress ourselves, or to do anything which another can do for us, Only such persons are willing to eat, and drink, and sleep for themselves, and to play, and laugh, and to sin for themselves; but as to anything that's good and useful, without their present sensitive delight, they are not only unserviceable to the world, but would live like the lame or dead, that must be moved and carried about by others. Among Christ's servants, he that is the chief, must be the chief in service, even as a servant unto all, Luke 22.26. Matth. 23.11. And all by love must serve one another, Gal. 5.13.
4. His submission unto death, and conquest of the natural love of life, for a greater good, even the pleasing of God, and the Crown of Glory, and the good of many in their salvation: To teach us that not only the pleasures of life, but life itself must be willingly laid down, when any of these three ends require it, Matth. 20.28. John 10 11. & 15.13. 1 John 3.16. Joh. 10.17. Acts 20.24. Matth. 10.39. & 16.25. Mark 14.26. Phil. 2.30. 1 John 3.16. Rev. 12.11.
Direct. 16. Let Faith behold Christ in his relation to his universal Church, and not unto yourselves alone.
1. Because else you overlook his most honorable relation: It is more his glory to be the Churches Head and Savior, than yours, Ephes. 5.23. & 1.21, 22. And 2. You else overlook his chief design and work ; which is for the perfecting and saving of his body, Ephes. 1.23. Col. 1.24.18. And 3. Else you overlook the chief part of your own duty, and of your conformity to Christ, which is in loving and edifying the body, Ephes. 4.12, 16, Whereas if you see Christ as the undivided and impartial Head of all Saints, you will see also all Saints as dear to him, and as united in him; and you will have communion by faith with them in him ; and you will love them all, and pray for all, and desire a part in the prayers of all (instead of carping at their different indifferent manner, and forms, and words of prayer, and running away from them, to show that you disown them.) And you will have a tender care of the unity, and honor, and prosperity of the Church, and regard the welfare of particular Brethren as your own, 1 Cor. 12. throughout, John 13.14, 34. & 15.12, 17. Rom. 13.8. stooping to the lowest service to one another, if it were the washing of the feet; and in honor preferring one another, Rom. 12.10. Not judging nor despising, nor persecuting, but receiving and forbearing one another, Rom. 14. throughout, & 15.1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8. Gal. 5.13. & 6.1, 2, 3. Ephes. 4.2, 32. Col. 3.13. Edifying, exhorting, and seeking the saving of one other, 1 Thes. 5.11. & 4.9, 18. Heb. 3.13. & 10.24. Not speaking evil one of another, James 4.11. Much less biting and devouring one another, Gal. 5.15. But having compassion one of another, as those that are members one of another, 1 Pet. 3.8. Rom. 12.5.
Direct. 17. Make all your opposition to the temptations of Satan, the world and the flesh, by the exercise of Faith in Christ.
From him you must have your weapons, skill and strength. It is the great work of Faith, to militate under him, as the Captain of our salvation; and by virtue of his precepts, example and Spirit to overcome as he hath overcome. Of which more anon.
Direct. 18. Death also must be entertained and conquered by Faith in Christ.
We must see it as already conquered by him, and entertain it as the passage to him: This also will be after spoken to.
Direct. 19. Faith must believe in Christ as our Judge, to give us our final Justification, and sentence us to endless life, Rom. 14.9, 10. John 5.22, 24, 25.
Direct. 20. Lastly, Faith must see Christ as preparing us a place in Heaven, and possessing it for us, and ready to receive us to himself. But all this I only name, because it will fall in in the last Chapters.
CHAP. III. Directions to live by Faith on the Holy Ghost.
THis is not the least part of the life of Faith. If the Spirit give us Faith itself, then Faith hath certainly its proper work to do towards that Spirit which giveth it: And if the Spirit be the worker of all other grace, and Faith be the means on our part, then Faith hath somewhat to do with the Holy Ghost herein. The best way that I can take in helping you to believe aright in the Holy Ghost, will be by opening the true sense of this great Article of our Faith to you, that by understanding the matter aright, you may know what you are here both to do, and to expect.
Direct. 1. The name of the Holy Ghost, or Spirit of God, is used in Scripture for the third person in the Trinity as constitutive, and as the third perfective principle of operation; and most usually as operating ad extra, by communication. And therefore many Fathers, and ancient Divines and Schoolmen, say. That the Holy Ghost, the third person and principle is THE LOVE OF GOD; which as it is God's Love of himself, is a constitutive person or principle in the Trinity; but as it is pregnant and productive, it is the third principle of operation ad extra; and so that it is taken usually, for the pregnant, operative Love of God.
And thus they suppose that the Divine POWER, INTELLECT and WILL (or Wisdom and Love ) are the three constitutive persons in themselves, and the three principles of operation ad extra. To this purpose writeth Origen, Ambrose and Richardus the Schoolman; but plainlier and fullier Damascene and Bernard, and Edmundus Cantuariensis, and Potho Prumensis cited by me in my Reasons of the Christian Religion, page 372, 373, 374. Augustine only putteth Memory for Power, by which yet Campanella thinketh he meant Power, (Metaphys. par. 2. l. 6. c. 12. art. 4. pag. 88.) what Caesarius and many other say de triplici lumine, I pass by: The Lux Radii & Lumen, are thought a fit similitude by many. But the Motion, Light and Heat, is a plain impression of the Trinity on that noble element of fire. That holy man Ephraem Syrus in his Testament useth the phrase (in his adjuration of his Disciples, and the protestation of his own stedfastness in the doctrine of the Trinity against all Heresies) [ By that three-named fire of the most holy Trinity ] (or Divine Majesty as another Copy hath it) [ And by that infinite and sole, one Power of God; and by those three subsistences of the intelligible (or intellectual) fire. ] And as it is a most great and certain truth, that this sacred Trinity of Divine Principles, have made their impress communicatively upon the frame of nature, and most evidently on the noblest parts, which are in excellency nearest their Creator; so it is evident that in the creatures LOVE is the pregnant communicative principle : So is Natural Love in Generation and friendly Love in benefiting others; and spiritual Love, in propagating knowledge and grace, for the winning of souls.
What I said of the Scripture use of the word is found in 1 John 5.5, 6, 7, 8. Heb. 9.14. 1 Cor. 12.2, 3, 4. Rom. 1.4. John 1.32, 33. & 3.5, 34. & 6.63. Gen. 1.2. Job 33.4. 2 Cor. 3.17, 18. Luke 4.18. Micah 3.8. Isa. 11.2. & 61.1.
Direct. 2. The more excellent measure of the Spirit given by Christ after his ascension to the Gospel Church, is to be distinguished from that which was before communicated; and this Spirit of Christ is it which our Christian Faith hath special respect to.
Without the Spirit of God, as the perfective principle, nature would not have been nature, Gen. 1.2. All things would not have been good, and very good, but by the communication of goodness: And without somewhat of that Spirit, there would be no Moral Goodness in any of mankind: And without some special operations of that Spirit, the godly before Christ's coming in the flesh, would not have been godly, nor in any present capacity of glory: Therefore there was some gift of the Spirit before.
But yet there was an eminent gift of the Spirit proper to the Gospel times, which the former ages did not know; which is so much above the former gift, that it is sufficient to prove the Verity of Christ.
For 1. There was use for the special attestation of the Father by way of Power, by Miracles, and his Resurrection to own his Son. 2. The Wisdom and Word of God incarnate, must needs bring a special measure of Wisdom to his Disciples; and therefore give a greater measure of the Spirit for illumination. 3. The design of Redemption being the revelation of the Love of God, and the recovery of our Love to him, there must needs be a special measure of the Spirit of Love shed abroad upon our hearts. And in all these three respects, the Spirit was accordingly communicated.
Quest. Was it not the Spirit of Christ which was in the Prophets, and in all the godly before Christ's coming?
Answ. The Spirit of Christ is either that measure of the Spirit, which was given after the first Covenant of Grace, as it differeth from the state of man in innocence, and from the state of man in his Apostasy and condemnation: And thus it was the Spirit of Christ which was then given, so far as it was the Covenant and Grace of Christ, by which men were then saved. But there was a fuller Covenant to be made after his coming, and a fuller measure of Grace to be given, and a full attestation of God for the establishment and promulgation of this Covenant: And accordingly a fuller and special gift of the Spirit. And this is called The Spirit of Christ, in the peculiar Gospel sense.
Quest. How is it said, Joh. 7.37. that the Holy Ghost was 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 not yet given, because Christ was not yet glorified?
Answ. It is meant of this special measure of the Spirit, which was to be Christ's special witness and agent in the world. They had before that measure of true grace, which was necessary to the salvation of Believers, before the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ, (which was the Spirit of Christ, as the Light before Sun-rising is the Light of the Sun;) and if they died in that case, they would have been saved: But they had not the signal Spirit of the Gospel, settled and resident with them, but only some little taste of it for casting out Devils, and for Cures, at that time when Christ sent them by a special mission to preach, and gave them a sudden special gift, Luke 9.1. & 10.17.
Quest. How is it said of those baptized Believers, Acts 19. that they had not heard that there was a Holy Ghost?
Answ. It is meant of this eminent Gospel gift of the Holy Ghost, as he is the great Witness and Agent of Christ; and not of all the graces of the Holy Ghost?
Quest. Was it before necessary to have an explicit belief in the Holy Ghost as the third person in the blessed Trinity, and as the third principle of the divine operations, and were the faithful then in Covenant with him?
Answ. Distinguish between the Person and the Name : No Name is necessary to salvation; else none could be saved but men of one language: To believe in the Holy Ghost under that Name, was not necessary to salvation (nor yet is) for he that speaketh and heareth of him in Greek, or Latin, or Sclavonian, &c. may be saved, though he never learnt the English tongue: But to believe in the Energetical, or operative, or communicative Love of God, was always necessary to salvation, considered in the thing, and not only in the Name: As it was to believe in his Power and his Wisdom: And to believe which is the first, and which the second, and which the third, is not yet of absolute necessity to salvation; while they are coequal and coessential; and it was necessary to the Jews to believe, that this Love of God did operate, and was communicated to the faithful, not upon the terms of innocence, according to the first Covenant; but to sinners that deserved death, and upon terms of mercy, through the Covenant of Grace, which was made with lapsed man in order to his recovery, through a Redeemer.
Direct. 3. All that is efficiently necessary to our salvation, in or of God, is not objectively necessary to be known. And such a measure of the knowledge of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is necessary to save us, as is necessary objectively to sanctify us under the efficiency of the said Spirit: And all the rest is not of such necessity. And therefore as under the Gospel, the Spirit is Christ's great Witness, as well as Agent in the world, it is more necessary now to believe distinctly in the Holy Ghost in that relation, than it was before Christ's coming in the flesh.
There is a great deal of the Divine Perfection, which causeth our salvation, unknown to us: As the Sun will shine upon us, and the wind will blow, and the rain will fall, and the earth will bear fruits, whether we know it or not; so our knowledge of it, is not at all necessary to any Divine Efficiency as such: The Spirit by which we are regenerate, is like the wind that bloweth, whose sound we hear, but know not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth (no nor what it is) John 3.6, 7, 8, 9. But all those things which are necessary to work objectively and morally on the soul, do work in esse cognito ; and the knowledge of them is as necessary as the operation is. It was of absolute necessity to the salvation of all, before Christ's coming, and among the Gentiles as well as the Jews, that the Spirit should sanctify them to God, by possessing them with a predominant Love of him in his Goodness; and that this Spirit proceed from the Son or Wisdom of God: But it was not so necessary to them as it is now to us, to have a distinct knowledge of the personality and operations of the Spirit, and of the Son. And though now it is certain that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no man cometh to the Father, but by the Son, Joh. 14.6. Yet that knowledge of him, which is necessary to them that hear the Gospel, is not all necessary to them that never hear it; though the same efficiency on his part be necessary: And so it is about the knowledge of the Holy Ghost▪ without which Christ cannot be sufficiently now known, and rightly believed in.
Direct. 4. The presence or operation of the Spirit of God is casually the spiritual Life of man, in his holiness: As there is no natural Being but by influence from his Being; so no Life but by communication from his Life, and no Light but from his Light, and no Love or Goodness, but from his Spirit of Love.
It is therefore a vain conceit of them, that think man in innocence had not the Spirit of God: They that say, his natural rectitude was instead of the Spirit, do but say, and unsay: for his natural rectitude was the effect of the influx or communication of God's Spirit: And he could have no moral rectitude without it; as there can be no effect without the chief cause: The nature of Love and Holiness cannot subsist, but in dependence on the Love and Holiness of God: And those Papists who talk of man's state first in pure naturals, and an after donation of the Spirit, must mean by pure naturals, man in his mere essentials, not really, but notionally by abstraction distinguished, from the same man at the same instant as a Saint ; or else they speak unsoundly: For God made man in moral dispositive goodness at the first ; and the same Love or Spirit, which did first make him so, was necessary after to continue him so. It was never his nature to be a prime good, or to be good independently without the influence of the prime good, Isa. 44.3. Ezek. 36.27. Job 26.13. Psal. 51.10, 12. & 143.10. Prov. 20.27. Mal. 2.15. John 3.5, 6. & 6.63. & 7.39. Rom. 8.1, 5, 6▪ 9, 13, 16. 1 Cor. 6.11. & 2.11, 12. & 6.17. & 12.11, 13. & 15.45. 2 Cor. 3.3, 17. Ephes. 2.18, 22. & 3.16. & 5.9. Col. 1.8. Jude 19.
Direct. 5. The Spirit of God, and the Holiness of the soul may be lost, without the destruction of our essence, or species of human nature▪ and may be restored without making us specifically other things.
That influence of the Spirit which giveth us the faculty of a Rational Appetite or Will, inclined to good as good, cannot cease, but our humanity or Being would cease: But that influence of the Spirit, which causeth our adherence to God by Love, may cease, without the cessation of our Beings ; as our health may be lost, while our life continueth, Psal. 51.10. 1 Thes. 5.19.
Direct. 6. The greatest mercy in this world, is the gift of the Spirit, and the greatest misery is to be deprived of the Spirit; and both these are done to man by God, as a Governor, by way of reward and punishment ofttimes: Therefore the greatest reward to be observed in this world, is the increase of the Spirit upon us, and the greatest punishment in this world is the denying or with-holding of the Spirit.