Father, save me from this hour.

Father, save me from this hour.

2. As in works of nature and art, so is it here, that God may be seen in both; do not men sweat, till, sow much, and the sun and summer, and clouds, warm dews and rains smile upon corns and meadows, yet God steppeth in between the mouth of the husbandman and the sickle, and blasteth all; and the Lord takes away the physme, stay and staff of corn and grass; and there is bread enough, and yet famine and starving for hunger? Do not some rise early, and go late to bed, eat the bread of sorrow; yet the armed soldier of God, extreme poverty, breaketh in upon the house? Do not watchmen wake all the night, yet the city is surprised and taken in the dawning, because the Lord keepeth not the city? The Lord doth all this, to shew that he is the supreme and absolute Lord of all second causes. Why, but he hath as eminent and independent a Lordship in the acts of his free departure and returns, in the sense of his love. Hath not the King of saints a withdrawing room, and an hiding-place? Is not his presence and manifestations his own? The deserted soul prayeth, crieth, weepeth; the pastor speaketh with the tongue of the learned; the christian friend argueth, exhorteth; experience and the days of old come to mind; the promises convince, and speak home to the soul; the poor man remembereth God, and he is troubled; the church, and many churches pray, christians weep and pray; yet Christ is still absent; the man cannot have, from all these, one half smile from Christ's face; the vision will not speak one word of joy: all these can no more command a raging sea and stormy winds to be still, and create calmness in the soul, than a child is able to wheel about the third heavens, in a course contrary to its natural motion. Omnipotency is in this departure, God himself is in the dispensation, and absolute freedom of an independent dominion acteth in the Lord's covering of himself with a cloud, and putteth an iron cross-bar on the door of his pavilion; and can you stir omnipotency, and remove it? Think you, praying can charm and break independent dominion, working to shew itself as a dominion?

3. The sense of Christ which is wanting in desertion, cannot be enforced by persuasion, no more than you can, by words, persuade the deaf to hear. Oratory cannot make the taste feel the sweetness of honey. There is a light that cometh from heaven, above the sun and moon; yea, above the gospel; and is not extracted or educed out of the potency of either the soul, nay nor of the gospel; (I conceive,) that bringeth forth, in act, the white stone, and the new name: and as nature and instincts natural perform their natural duties without any oratory, so as persuasion cannot make the fire to burn, nor the sun to shine, nor the bird to build its nest, nor the lamb to know its mother; nature doth all these: so neither doth the persuasion of Paul, preaching the gospel, Acts 26:28; Acts 16:14 the same thing, and every way the same work that the Lord doth, in persuading Japhet to dwell in the tents of Shem, Gen. 9:27. I could easily admit, that we are patients in receiving the predetermination active of the Holy Ghost in either believing, or in actual enlightning, and the actual witness-light by which Christ shineth in the heart for producing actual assurance; though in the same moment and order of time (not of nature) we be also agents.

Asser. 10. Though means must not be neglected, as praying and waiting on the watch-tower, for the breathings of renewed assurance; yet as touching the time, manner, way and measure of the speaking of the vision, God's absolute dominion is more to be respected here, than all the stirrings and motions of the under wheels of prayer, preaching, conference.

Asser. 11. The soul should be argued with, and convinced thus: why, will you not give Christ your good leave to tutor and guide you to heaven? he hath carried a world of saints over the same seas you are now in, and Christ paid the fare of the ship himself, not one of them are found dead on the shore; they were all as black and sun-burnt as you are, but they are now a fair and beautiful company, without spot before the throne, and clothed in white; they are now on the sunny side of the river, in the good land where glory groweth, far above sighing and jealousy. You are guilty of the breach of the privilege of Christ; 1. He is a free Prince, and his prerogative-royal is uncapable of failing against the fundamental laws of righteousness, in the measuring out either work or wages, grace, or glory. Matth. 20:13. Friend, I do thee no wrong: mine own is mine own.

Object. O but he is sparing in his grace! his love visits are thin sown, as strawberries in the rock.

Answ. I answer for him; 1. The quantity of grace is a branch of his freedom. 2. Why do you not complain of your sparing improving of two talents, rather than of his niggard giving of one only? He cannot sin against his liberty in his measuring out of grace; you cannot but sin in receiving. Never man, except the man Christ, durst, since the creation, (the holiest I we not except) face an account with God, for evangelic receipts; Christ to this day is behind with Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Job, Peter, John, Paul, and all the saints, in the using of grace; they were below grace, and Christ was necessitate to write in the close of their counts, with a pen of grace, and ink of his blood, Friend, you owe me this, but I forgive you. They flew all up to heaven with millions of arrears, more than ever they wrought for: as some godly rich man may say, this poor man was indebted to me thousands, now he is dead in my debt, I forgive him, his grave is his acquittance; I have done with it. Christ upbraids you not with old debts, that would sink you; why cast ye up in his teeth his free gifts? 3. Think it mercy he made you not a gray stone, but a believing saint: and there is no imaginable comparison, between his free gifts, and your bad deserving.

2. The way of his going and coming should not be quarrelled. The Lord walketh here in a liberty of dispensation; a summer-sun is heritage to no land. It was not a blood of a daily temper that Paul was in, when he said, Rom. 8:38. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, &c. shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ. It was a high and great feast, when Christ faith to his church, Cant. 5:1. I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice, I have eaten my honey-comb with my honey: eat, O friends, drink, yea drink abundantly, O Beloved. 'Tis true, he is always in his church, his garden, gathering lilies; but storms and showers often cover his garden.

3. Were assurance always full moon, as Christ's faith in his saddest soul-trouble was bank-full sea, and full moon; and were our joy ever full, then should the saints heaven on earth, and their heaven above the visible heavens, differ in the accident of place, and happily, in some fewer degrees of glory; but there is a wisdom of God to be reverenced here. The saints in this life are narrow vessels; and such old bottles could not contain the new wine that Christ drinketh with his in his Father's kingdom. Mat. 17. When the disciples see the glory of Christ in the mount, Peter faith, v. 4. Lord, it is good for us to be here: but when that glory cometh nearer to them, and a cloud overshadows them, Luke 9:34 and they hear the voice of God speak out of the cloud, Mark 9:7. They fell down on their face, Mat. 17:6. καὶ ἐφοβήθησαν σφόδρα, They were sore afraid: Why afraid? because of the exceeding glory, which they testified was good, but knew not what they said. We know not that this joy is unspeakable. We rejoice, χαρᾶ ἀνεκλαλήτῳ, with joy that no man can relate: how then can a man contain it? I may speak of a thousand millions of things more excellent and glorious than I can feel. Should God pour in as much of Christ in us in this life, as we would in our private wisdom or folly desire, the vessel would break, and the wine run out: we must cry sometimes, Lord, hold thy hand. We are as unable to bear the joys of heaven in this life, as to endure the pains of hell. Every drop of Christ's honey-comb is a talent weight; and the fulness of it must be reserved, till we be enlarged vessels, fitted for glory.

Asser. 12. We do not consider, that Christ absent hath stronger impulsions of love, than when present in sense and full assurance; as is clear in that large song of the high praises of Christ, which is uttered by the church, Cant. 5 when he had withdrawn himself, ver. 6 and she was sick of love for him, ver. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. (2.) There is a sort of heavenly antiperistasis, a desire of him kindled, through occasions of absence; as we are hottest in seeking after precious things, when they are absent, and farthest from our enjoying. Absence sets on fire love. The impression of his kissing, embracing, lovely and patient knocking, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove; the print of his footsteps, the remnants of the smell of his precious ointments, his shadow when he goeth out at the doors, are coals to burn the soul, Psal. 63:6. When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night-watches. I cannot sleep for the love of Christ, in the night. What follows? Ver. 8. My soul follows hard, cleaveth strong after thee. Psal. 77:3. I remembered God, and was troubled; rather, I remembered God, and rejoiced: but the memory of old love, and of absent and withdrawn consolations, breaks the heart. How do some weep, and cast aside their harps, when they remember the seven-year-old embracements of Christ, and Christ's virgin love, and Sion-sweet songs in the days of their youth? Cant. 5 when the church rose, but after the time, to open so Christ, when he was gone, and had withdrawn himself, Ver. 5. Mine hands (faith the church) dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh upon the handles of the bar. Then her love to Christ was strongest, her bowels moved; the smell of his love, like sweet-smelling myrrh, was mighty rank, and piercing.

Asser. 13. Why, but then, when the wheels are on moving, and the longing after Christ awaked, and on foot, we should pray Christ home again, and love him into his own house, and sigh him out of his place from beyond the mountain into the soul again; as the spouse doth, Cant. 3:1, 2, 3, 4, 5. If ever he be found, when he is sought, it will be now, though time and manner of returning be his own.

Asser. 14. Nor are we to believe that Christ's love is coy or humorous in absenting himself, or that he is lordly, high, difficil, inexorable, in letting out the sense, the assurance of his love, or his presence; as we dream a thousand false opinions of Christ under absence, nor do we consider that security and indulgence to our lusts loses Christ; and therefore 'tis just, that as we sin in roses, we should sorrow in thorns.

Asser. 15. If the Lord's hiding himself, be not formally an act of grace, yet intentionally on God's part, it is; as at his return again, he cometh with two heavens, and the gold chain sodered is strongest in that link which was broken; and the result of Christ's return to his garden, Cant. 5:1 is a feast of honey and milk, and refined wines: when he is returned, then his spikenard, his perfume, his myrrh, aloes and cassia, casteth a smell even up to heaven. In the falls of the saints, this is seen; David after his fall hearing mercy, feeling God had healed his bones, that were broken, Psal. 51 there is more of God's praises within him than he can vent, he prayeth God would broach the vessel, that the new wine may come out, ver. 15. O Lord, open thou my lips, that my mouth may shew forth thy praise: and after the meeting of the Lord and the forlorn son, beside the poor son's expression, full of sense: consider how much sense and joy is in the father; it is a parable, yet it faith much of God, Luke 15:20. And when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him. Christ the Father of age or eternity [Abi gnad] Isa. 9:6 knoweth a friend afar off, and his heart kindles and grows warm when he sees him. Were he thousands and millions of miles from God, yet aiming to come, he sees him, and had compassion; he sees with moved bowels, and ran, how swift is Christ's love! and fell on his neck and kissed him. O what expression of tenderness! and to all these, is added a new robe, and a ring for ornament, and a feast, the fat calf is killed, and the Lord sings, and dances, ver. 23, 24, 25, Peter's denial of Christ, brought him to weeping, flowing from the Spirit of grace poured on David's house, Zech. 12:10. And Peter had the more grace, that he losed grace for a time. As after drawing blood and cutting a vein, more cometh in the place; and after a great fever and decay of strength, in a recovery, nature repaireth itself more copiously. And often in our sad troubles, we have that complaint of God, which he rebuketh his people for; Isa. 40:27. Why sayst thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from God? that is, the Lord takes no notice of my affliction, and he forgets to right me, as if I were hid out of his sight: and David, Psal. 31:22. I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes. 'Tis not unlike a word which Cain spake, with a far other mind, Gen. 4:14. From thy face shall I be hid. But this is, 1. To judge God to be faint and weak, as if he could do no more, but were expiring, Isa. 40 ver. 28. He will be both weak and wearied, if he forget his own; and our darkness cannot rob the Lord of light, and infinite knowledge; he cannot forget his office as Redeemer. God is not like the stork, that leaves her eggs in the sand, and forgets that they may be crushed and broken. When Christ goes away, he leaves his heart and love behind in the soul till he return again himself; if the young creation be in the soul, he must come back to his nest, to warm with his wings the young tender birth.

Asser. 16. Nor is Christ so far departed at any time, but you may know the soul he hath been in, yea he stands at the side of the sick-bed, weeping for his pained child; yea your groans pierceth his bowels, Jer. 31:20. For since I spoke against him (saith the Lord) I do earnestly remember him; 'tis not the less true, that the head of a swooning son, lieth in the bosom, and the two arms of Christ; that the weak man believeth, that he is utterly gone away.

Asser. 17. Nor will Christ reckon in a more legal way, for the slips, misjudgings, and love-rovings of a spiritual distemper, than a father can whip his child with a rod, because he misknoweth his father, and uttereth words of folly in the height of a fever. Christ must pardon the fancy, and sins of sick love; the errors of the love of Christ, are almost innocent crimes, though unbelief make love-lies of Jesus Christ. There be some over-lovings, as it were, that foams out rash and hasty jealousies of Christ, when acts of fiery and flaming desires do outrun acts of faith; as hunger hath no reason; so the inundations and swellings of the love of Christ, flow over their banks, that we so strongly desire the Lord to return, that we believe he will never return.

Asser. 18. Though hid jewels be no jewels, a losed Christ no Christ, to sense; yet is there an invisible, and an undiscerned instinct of heaven, that hindered the soul to give Christ over.

Shall we, upon all this, extend all these spiritual considerations to all men, whether they be in Christ, or not? Some* teach us this, as the great gospel-secret concerning faith; "That none ought to question, whether they believe God to be their Father, Christ their Redeemer, or no; but are to believe, till they be persuaded, that they do believe, and feel more and more of the truth of their faith, or belief; righteousness being revealed from faith to faith: the first ground of this is, Christ's command to believe; now commands of this nature are to be obeyed, not disputed."

But this is so far from being a gospel-secret, that it is not a gospel-truth; and sends poor souls to seek honey in a nest of wasps, the path-way to presumption. For tho' these who truly believe, ought not to doubt of their belief, yet these who have lamps of faith, and no oil, ought to question, whether there be oil in their lamps or no, and true faith with their profession; else the foolish virgins were not far out, who never questioned their faith, till it was out of time to buy oil; and that these virgins should believe, they had oil in their lamps, when they had none, till they should be persuaded, that empty lamps were full lamps, and a bastard faith true faith, were to oblige them to feed upon the east-wind, till there should be a faith produced in the imagination, that the east is the west. 2. All the scriptures that charge us to try ourselves, 1 Cor. 11:28. To examine ourselves whether we be in the faith, and to know ourselves, that Jesus Christ is in us, except we be reprobates, 2 Cor. 13:5. and to know the things that are freely given us of God, 1 Cor. 2:12 and so to know our faith, Phil. 1:29 do evince that we are to try, and so far to question, whether we believe or not; as multitudes are obliged to acknowledge their faith is but fancy, and that there is a thing like faith, which is nothing such; and that we are not to deceive ourselves with a vain presumption, which looketh like faith, and is no faith. And, James 2 many who believe there is a God, and imagine they have faith, being void of good works, and of love, in which the life and efficacy of faith is much seen, have no more faith than devils have, ver. 18, 19, 20. (2.) It is true, that we are to believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, without any disputing concerning the equity of the command of believing, or of our obligation to believe; for both are most just: and to dispute the holy and just will of God, is to oppose our carnal reason to the wisdom of God; but we are not, because we cannot dispute the holy command of God, nor to reason our duty, not to examine, whether that which we conceive, we do as a duty, be a bastard and false conception, or a true and genuine duty; nor, because I may not reason the precept of believing, given by Jesus Christ, am I therefore to believe, in any order that I please, and to come to Christ, whether I be weary and laden with sin, or not weary and laden. Christ commandeth me to believe; ergo, remaining in my wickedness, regarding iniquity in my heart, without despairing of salvation in myself, I am to believe: I shall deny this consequence. It is all one, as if Antinomians would argue thus; all within the visible church are obliged to believe and rest on Christ for salvation; whether they be the elect or reprobate; whether their whorish heart be broken with the sense of sin, or whole: ergo, they are obliged to presume, or to rest on Christ their righteousness, whether they distrust their own, or not.

†Object. 2. "We find not any, in the whole course of Christ's preaching, or the disciples, that asked the question, whether they believed or not; or whether their faith were true faith or no. It were a disparagement to the Lord of the feast, to ask, whether his dainties were real or delusions.—The way to be sure of the truth of good things, is tasting and feeling: Eat, O friends, drink, yea drink abundantly, O Beloved."

Answ. This reason would infer, that there is not a saint on earth capable of such a sin, as to doubt whether they believe or not; because we read not of it in any of the hearers of Christ, or the apostles: this is a bad consequence, except you say, all the various conditions of troubled consciences are set down in particular examples, in the New Testament; which is contrary to all experiences of the saints. 2. It is one thing to doubt of the truth of the promises, and another thing to doubt whether my apprehension of the promise be true or false: the latter is not always sin; for it may be my apprehension of the truth of the promises be beside the line, and off the way; and then I question not Christ's dainties (which to do, were unbelief) but my own deluded fancy, which may appear to be faith, and is nothing else; the former is indeed unbelief, not the latter. 3. 'Tis true, tasting makes sure the truth of the Lord's good things, that are inclosed in the promises; but then, an unconverted sinner, who is void of spiritual senses, cannot be the beloved, nor the friend that Christ speaketh to, Cant. 5:1. We do not say, a believer ought to doubt, whether he hath true faith or no: but because the command of believing obligeth the non-converted, as well as the converted, shall the natural man eat as a friend and a beloved, he remaining in nature, and not yet converted, and this man in nature ought not to doubt whether his fancy be faith or not, but he is obliged to believe, that is, to imagine that his fancy is faith? 4. I see not how, if the faith of the saints be tried as gold in the fire, they may not through the prevalency of temptation be shaken in their faith, as Peter was, when he denied his Saviour; and Paul, who 2 Cor. 1:8 was pressed out of measure, above strength, despaired of life, had the sentence of death, 2 Cor. 7:5. was troubled on every side, fightings without, and fears within: and the sons of God, who may sear that they have received the spirit of bondage to fear again, opposite to the spirit of adoption, Rom. 8:15 but that they may faint in their tribulations, Eph. 3:13 and may be surprised with fear, which hath torment, and must be cast out, 1 John 4:18. and may be ready to faint and die, Rev. 3:2 and turn lukewarm, be wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked, and yet believe the contrary of themselves, Rev. 3:16, 17. All these may come, and often do come to that low condition of spirit, after justification, as to say and think that all men are liars; their faith is no faith; that they are forsaken of God, to their own sense, and cast out of his sight, and question whether they ever did believe, or no: and why would the apostle say, patience bringeth forth experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, Rom. 5:4 if experience that ever God loved me, or that ever I believed, to my present sense, cannot be removed? But this is but the doctrine of (a) Familists, who teach, "That after the revelation of the Spirit, neither devil nor sin can make the soul to doubt. And, (b) to question whether God be my dear Father, after, or upon the committing of some heinous sins, (as murder, incest, &c.) doth prove a man to be in the covenant of works." Do not they then teach us a way of despairing, who say, "That (c) we find not in the whole course of Christ's preaching, or the disciples, that any asked the question, whether they believed, or no; whether their faith, were true faith, or no?" What then shall thousands of smoking flaxes and weak reeds do, who often ask this question, and say and think, Ah, I have no faith; my faith is but counterfeit metal? And then, by this doctrine of despair, believers ought to conclude, I am not under grace, but under the law, and a covenant of works, and so not in Christ; yea, whatever lustres were in me before, I am in no condition of any we read of in the New Testament, who were hearers of Christ and the apostles; for Libertines, never true believers, doubted whether their faith was true, or not.

*Object. 3. 'For any to doubt whether they believed or no, is a question, that Christ only can satisfy, who is the author and finisher of our faith. Who can more properly shew one that he sees, than the light which enlightens him?

Answ. Christ solves not questions that no man ever made: S. thinks, that believers never doubt, whether their faith be true faith, or not; which is a strong way of believing: and those must be so strong in the faith, who doubt not of this, as they are above all temptation. But this will be found against the experience of all believers. It is most true, none can work faith, but the only Creator and author of faith; but will the author hence infer, no man, the most wicked, or any that ever heard Christ or his apostles preach, doubted of their faith? 2. The sun, with all its light, cannot persuade a blind man who seeth not, that he seeth; believers often think they see, when they see not; and think they are blind, when they see; as experience and scripture, Rev. 3:16, 17; John 9:38, 39 teach us.

†Object. 4. 'Faith is truly and simply this, a being persuaded more or less of Christ's love: and therefore it is called a believing with the heart. Now, what infallible sign is there to persuade any that they are persuaded, when themselves question the truth of their persuasion? God only shall persuade Japhet. Who can more principally, and with clearer satisfaction, persuade the spouse, of the good will of him she loves, but himself? Can all the love-tokens, or testimonial rings and bracelets? They may concur and help in the manifestation, but it is the voice of the beloved, that doth the turn: my beloved spake and said unto me, Rise, my love, my fair one; faith the spouse.'

Answ. 1. Faith may be a persuasion in some sense, but that it is a persuasion, that my faith or persuasion is true, not counterfeit, and so formally, is utterly denied. How many believe and love Christ with the heart, who are not persuaded that they do so, yea, much doubt, whether they believe with the heart, and would give a world to know (if it were possible) that they truly love God? No divine, who knoweth that a direct act of faith, and to believe, is, when there is no reflex act, can deny this. 2. Arguments or signs, inaccurate speech, are not called infallible, actu secundo; the word of God is in itself infallible, actu primo: but to Aristotle, this, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, is not infallible, actu secundo: nor are the promises, He that believeth shall be saved; knock, and it shall be opened; he that overcometh, shall inherit all things; actu secundo; to a believer, who, under a distemper, doth doubt of them, infallible. So, The love of the brethren, 1 John 3:16. The keeping of the commandments, and the word of Jesus, is infallible in itself. That I know Christ savingly, and that he dwelleth in me, 1 John 2 v. 3, 5 but that it infallibly concludeth so to me, actu secundo, is not sure, except the wind blow fair from heaven, and the Spirit act in me. So, the love-tokens and testimonial rings and bracelets of the husband, my love to the saints, my keeping of his word, my holy walking in Christ, being the works of the Spirit, which dwelt in Jesus Christ, are actu primo, in themselves, as infallible signs of the Bridegroom's love to me; as the Beloved's word, who spake and said, arise, my love: and if the spirations and breathings of the Spirit go not along, both the voice and the love-bracelets (for Christ is no more counterfeit in his love-tokens, than in his word, when he speaks as a husband) are alike ineffectual to persuade the soul. I see no reason to call the works of sanctification inferior helps in the manifestation, more than the voice of the Beloved; for both, without the Spirit, are equally ineffectual; and if the Spirit breathe and move with them, both are effectual, & actu primo, & secundo, and they infallibly persuade. It is then a weak argument, none can simply persuade Japhet but God; ergo, the word of the Bridegroom can only infallibly persuade: or, therefore love-bracelets cannot infallibly persuade: for, the word not quickened by the Spirit of Jesus, cannot simply persuade; and the Lord's persuading of Japhet, is the Lord's work of converting Japhet, not his enlightening of Japhet, to know his faith to be true faith. Hence, for that which infallibly persuadeth us, I say,

1. Our act of believing doth no more persuade of itself that we do believe, except the Spirit breathe with the act of believing; for actual illumination and persuasion, than any other act of loving Christ, his saints, or universal intention, or sincerity of heart to obey, doth prove to us, that we believe; for many believe, who know not, yea doubt of their believing, because the Holy Ghost maketh not the light of faith effectual to persuade, that they truly believe.

2. Asser. The testimony of the Holy Spirit is the efficacious and actual illumination and irradiation of the Sun of Righteousness and his Spirit, assuring us, that we are the sons of God. This light cometh from inherent acts of grace in us, 1 John 2:3, 4, 5. chap. 3:14. (2.) From the testimony and rejoicing which resulteth from a good conscience, 2 Cor. 1:12; 2 Tim. 4:6, 7, 8; 1 Tim. 6:17, 18; Heb. 13:18. (3.) From the experience they have had of the Lord's dealing with their souls, and the love of God spread abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost, Rom. 5:3, 4, 5. (4.) From a sincere aim, and respect to all the commandments of God, Psal. 119:6; Acts 24:16; 1 John 3:20, 21; 1 Thess. 5:23; Phil. 4:12; Rev. 22:14, 15. (5.) From the positive marks that Christ putteth on his children, as marks of true blessedness, Matth. 5:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; Psal. 119:1, 2; Psal. 32:1, 2. (6.) From the judgment that the saints make of themselves, and their own begun communion with God, Psal. 73:25; Psal. 18:20, 21, 22; Psal 26:3, 4, 8; Psal. 40:9, 10; Psal. 7:8; Job 31; Job 29; Isa. 38:3; Psal. 42:1, 2; Psal. 63:1, 2, 3, 4, 8; Psal. 84:2, 3, 4, 5; Psal. 119:30, 31, 40, 46, 50, 57, 60, 62, 63, 81, 82, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 111, 112, 125, 127, 128, 136, 139, 145, 148, 162, 164; Cant. 1:5. chap. 2:4, 5, 6, 16. chap. 3:1, 2, 3, 4, 5. chap. 5:6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. All which were needless flourishes, if they had neither peace, consolation, nor assurance from these, as from marks and signs, which do infallibly convince, (the light, breathings and irradiations of the Holy Ghost concurring with them) that they are in a saving condition, who have these qualifications in them. (7.) Because by holy walking, the saints make their calling and election sure and firm, not to God, but to themselves, 2 Pet. 1:10, 11, 12 v. 5, 6, 7.

Asser. 3. As there is in the eye, lumen innatum; in the ear, aer internus; a certain inbred light, to make the eye see lights, and colours without; and a sound and air in the ear within, to make it discern the sounds that are without: so is there a grace, a new nature, an habitual instinct of heaven, to discern the Lord's Spirit immediately testifying, that we are the sons of God, Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 1:12. Grace within knoweth Christ speaking without, The voice of my beloved. As the Lamb knoweth, by an internal instinct, the mother; but for wakening and quickning of the instinct to apprehend this, there is need of opened eyes, and the presence of the mother to the eye, or of the bleating of the mother, to a waking ear; for instincts cannot work in the sleep: if the spirit speak, and the voice behind be heard, the soul knoweth what sound it heareth, but not other ways. It is but curiosity, so to compare the evidence by signs and marks of sanctification, with that evidence that cometh from the Spirit's immediate voice, or testimony, so as the former should be less sure, fallible, conjectural; and the latter infallible, sure and efficaciously convincing. For, the evidences are both supernatural, certain, divine, and strongly convincing, if there be any deception in either, it is because of the dulness of our apprehension, or our imagination, which sancieth, we see what we see not; or from our unbelief, who will not be convinced. For the Holy Ghost speaketh the same thing, by his operations of grace, in holy walking, that he speaketh by either the word preached, or by the word, and immediate voice of the Spirit, witnessing to our spirits; and there is the same authority revealing to us a thing hid, and the same thing revealed. It may be, there be a variation of the degrees of light, and divine irradiation; or, the one may carry into the soul a more deep impression of God than the other, and the radiation of light in the subject, may be more strong in the one, than in the other: but of themselves they are both infallible, supernatural, and convincing.

It is doubted which of these evidences be more free, and partake more of the nature of grace. Antinomians conceive that an evidence by marks in ourself is more selfy, less free, and nearer to a seeking of assurance in ourself, than that evidence which resulteth from the immediate testimony of the Spirit. But the ground they build on is false, and the superstructure is less sure. If it were a matter of giving and receiving, or of wages and work, it were something; but 'tis a matter of mere knowledge, God revealing our condition to us one way, not another. Possibly the more external, the more immediate, and farer a thing be from a condition, even of grace, the more free; as the election to glory, the paying of the ransom of Christ's blood, or the act of atonement are most free, for they require not so much as the condition of faith wrought by the free grace of God: but justification (say our divines) requireth faith, as a condition. And here God may keep his hands free of any knot, or obligation of a condition; and it would seem that the immediate testimony of the Spirit, is more free than evidence from inherent marks: the wind seemeth to be freer in its motion, which hath not a restriction to fixed causes, rather at this hour, than at that; the sea again in its ebbing and flowing, and the sun in its rising and going down, are more fettered to set times, and condition of natural causes: yet all these detract nothing from the freedom of God the Creator, in his concurring with these causes; nor do conditions, that are wrought in us irresistibly by the grace of God, lay any tie on that independent, sovereign, and high freedom of grace, which doth no less justify, and save us freely, than chuse us to glory, and redeem us with the same freedom, without price and hire: only I will mind Libertines, who deny that justification, the covenant of grace and salvation, have any the most gracious conditions in us; for that should obscure the freedom of grace. They say, all within the visible church, without any preparations, are immediately to believe salvation and remission of sins to themselves in particular. But I hope, faith is a work of free grace, and must presuppose conversion and a new heart, as an essential condition; else, with Pelagians, they must say, that, out of the principles of nature, all are to believe; and this obscureth far more the freedom of the grace of God working faith in us, than all the conditions of grace, which we hold to be subservient, not contrary to the freedom of grace.

*Object. 5. "We ought to believe, till we be persuaded that we believe. Eph. 1:13. In whom, after ye believed, ye were sealed. The way to be warm, is not only to ask for a fire, or whether there be a fire or no, or to hold out the hands a little toward it, and away, and wish for a greater; but to stand close to that fire, and gather heat."

Answ. 1. That believing bringeth persuasion, I doubt not; but not such a sealing with the broad and great seal of heaven, as excludeth all doubting, as Antinomians teach; nor doth the place prove it. For these who can flee with such strong wings, and are above all doubting, (1.) Need not Christ's intercession, that their faith fall not, they are above, and beyond the sphere of all obligation to grace: Nor (2.) need they pray, lead us not into temptation. Nor (3.) need they bear in meekness, the overtaken weak ones, who trip and stumble unawares, considering, lest they also be tempted, Gal. 6:1. (4.) The faith of the strongest is not full moon, or uncapable of growing, Phil. 3:12. (5.) There is need of praising of grace, for the prevailing victory of a faith beyond doubting. (6.) Nor need such pray Christ to increase their faith. Judge then of Libertines, who talk of a broad seal, of perfect assurance, and say, (a) There is no assurance true and right, unless it be without fear and doubting.

2. The way to be warm at a painted fire, such as is the immediate revealing of Christ to an unconverted sinner, never humbled, nor despairing of himself, which is the Libertine's dead faith, is not the way to be warmed; nor are we to believe in Christ, but in Christ's own way and order: and it is safe to call in question, whether such a painted fire be fire; nor are we to go on in this believing, till we be persuaded that we believe. Truly this is no gospel-secret.

If Libertines say, It is impossible to believe, but we must despair in ourselves. I answer, So I believe; but then it must follow, that Libertines deceive, and are deceived, when they teach, That sinners, as sinners, are to believe, because sinners despairing of salvation in themselves, must be fewer in number, than sinners as sinners; for sinners, as sinners, comprehendeth Pharisees, and all secure and malicious slaves of hell, but self-despairing sinners include not any such, far less include they all sinners; they be only such sinners as are half-sick, looking afar off, with half an eye to Jesus Christ, not daring fully to make out to Jesus Christ: proud Pharisees despair not of salvation in themselves, for then they should not be proud Pharisees in so far. But Libertines teach us, that Pharisees, remaining Pharisees, without any preparations going before, are immediately to believe in Christ. If they say, Self-despair is an essential part of faith, not a preparation going before faith; they err: Judas, Cain, despair of salvation both in themselves and in Christ, yet have they not any essential part of saving faith, nor can any essential part of saving faith be in such; nor can any come to Christ, and believe in him, while first they know sin by the law, and their mouth be stopped, that the law cannot justify nor save them, Rom. 3:19, 20, 21. And Mr. Eaten and the Antinomians that are not mere Familists and enthusiasts, rejecting all written scripture, do also grant this; then it must be impossible, that any can believe, but some preparation foregoing there must be; and because all sinners, as sinners, have not such preparation, all sinners, as sinners, are not at the first clap, to believe in the soul-physician Christ, but only such as in Christ's order are ploughed, ere Christ sow on them, and self-condemned ere they believe in Christ.

*Object. 6. "We are no more to question our faith, than we ought to question Christ the foundation of our faith; for salvation to the soul in particular, is destroyed by unbelief: they entered not in, because of unbelief; the word profited not, being not mix'd with faith."

Answ. 1. We cannot question Christ, more than we can question whether God be God; but we may examine Paul's doctrine, as the Bereans did; we may try our own faith, if it can hold water. If some would wash their false coin, and bring it to the touchstone, the false metal would be seen. 2. The unbelief in weak ones doubting of their faith, is not that which destroys salvation, and excludeth men out of the holy land: they are cruel to weak reeds, who exclude them out of heaven, because in their misjudging distempers they exclude themselves: were Christ as cruel to a saint believer, who is sick of misgivings, as he is to himself, who would be saved? But a believer may appeal from himself, ill informed, and doubting groundlessly, to meek Jesus well-informed, and judging aright a weak reed, to be a reed; a sick believer, and a swooning faith to be a believer, and a faith, that will bear a soul to heaven. A weak hackney, if spirity, may accomplish a great journey.

*Object. 7. "Satan puts us clean back here; we are proving our faith by our works, when as no works can be proved solidly good, but by our faith; for without faith it is impossible to please God. We know that every piece of money is valued according to the image and superscription; it Cæsar be not there, tho' it be silver, yet it is not coin, it is not so current: so there is not any thing of sanctification current, and of true practical use and comfort to a believer, if Christ be not there. Crispe (a) saith, sanctification and good works are litigious grounds of our faith." This bordereth with the language of Libertines, (b) It is a fundamental and soul-damning "error, to make sanctification an evidence of justification. And (c) Christ's work of grace can no more distinguish between an hypocrite and a saint, than the rain that falls from heaven, between the just and the unjust. And (d) The Spirit gives such full evidence of my good estate spiritually, that I have no need to be tried by the fruits of sanctification; this were to light a candle to the sun."

Answ. 1. That which the Spirit of God calleth saving knowledge, 1 John 3:14. Hereby know we, &c. 1 John 2:3, 4, 5 that do Libertines affirm to be a policy of Satan, leading us back again, and a soul-condemning error. (2.) 1 John 3:10. In this are the children of God manifest, and the children of the devil: Whosoever doth not righteousness, is not of God, neither be that loveth not his brother. This is some other difference than the rain can make between the just and the unjust. And, 1 John 5:8. And there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one. And that we may know that the Spirit is in us, is evident, 1 John 4:12, 13. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby we know that we dwell in him, and he in us; because he hath given us of his Spirit. Now, 1 John 3:3. Every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure. And, Rom. 8:1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, which walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2 Cor. 7:1. Having therefore these promises (dearly beloved) let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Hence we argue, whoever walketh after the Spirit, must know his guide that leads the sons of God, Rom. 8:14. And whoever purgeth himself, and loveth his brother, and perfecteth holiness in the fear of God, he must know that he so doth: but he that doth walk so, knoweth that he is in Christ, freed from condemnation, and that God dwelleth in him; for it is express scripture: he that is holy, may know he is chosen to be holy, Eph. 1:4. Now, Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's chosen? It is God that justifieth, Rom. 8:33. He that is conformed to the image of his Son, and called, may know that he is predestinated thereunto, Rom. 8:29, 30 and shall be glorified. Now, Crispe (a) laboureth to prove, that these which commonly go for marks and infallible signs of our justification and interest in Christ, which are universal obedience, sincerity, love to the brethren, are either found in no man in their perfection, or they be such marks as agree to good and bad, to hypocrites and saints, and so are not infallible marks; just as the falling of rain, and the shining of the sun, doth not difference between just and unjust men, because both have a like portion and share in sun and rain. Now, for the former reason; faith and the light of it is imperfect, capable of accession, and so tainted with sin: and if this be a strong reason, it cannot give assurance; which Libertines do not all hold. The other is the saying of papists, teaching us to doubt of our salvation, because there be such shifts, wiles, circuits, lurking-places in a man's heart, that he can give no infallible judgment, with any divine certainty, of himself or his own spiritual state. But is there not so much darkness, so much night and blindness in our mind, as in admitting of the light of immediate witnessing of the Spirit, (which they call, the broad-seal of heaven) we may no less be deceived, than we are in the light that resulteth from our signs of sanctification? There is a like darkness, and no less delusions, from the white spirits, the day-light-ghosts and angels of enthusiasts, and dumb and scriptureless inspirations, than in black spirits. But sure we walk not in the ways of sanctification sleeping, nor doth the Spirit perfect holiness, in the saints, as in a night-dream; we being led with fancy as frantic men are. Shall the saints, when they attest the Lord of their sincere desire and unfeigned intentions, tho' mixed with great weakness, bring before God their integrity, and their rejoicing of a good conscience, as Paul, the apostles, Peter, John, James; Lord, thou knowest that I love thee; David, who desired God might try him; Job, Hezekiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, &c. hold forth to God their conjectures, fancies, and such moth-eaten and rotten signs of their justification, as Crispe and others say may be, and were in Pharisees, in Papists, hypocrites, and bloody oppressors, carnal Jews following the righteousness of the law, publicans, heathens, harlots, all the wicked sects? For Crispe faith. All these have your marks (b) of sanctification, such as are universal obedience, sincerity, zeal for God, love to the brethren. Zechariah and Elisabeth were righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless, Luke 1:6. Was this such a righteousness, attested by the Holy Ghost, as is in Paul a persecutor, in heathens, Pharisees, in carnal Jews? I grant it was not that righteousness of God through faith, Phil. 3 yet it was a fruit and infallible sign a of that righteousness, and such as did prove them to be in Christ. And, 2. All our acts of sanctification are no acts, no infallible marks of justification to my soul, except they be done in faith; yea, without faith they are sin, Rom. 14:23 but when I find they are done in faith, they add a further degree of evidence and certitude, that they argue me to have saving faith and interest in Christ, as in the Lord my Righteousness, Jer. 23:6 for that is his name. And this reason doth conclude, 'tis unlawful to seek any ground of assurance in sanctification, except we would with Papists argue in a circle, thus, 'How know ye that your works are signs of justification? Because they are stamped with faith. And how know you that your justification and faith are not counterfeit? by your works.'

But this is not the Papists' circle, because works, to my sense and spiritual discerning, may, and do add evidence and light to faith, and faith addeth evidence and light to works; as we prove the cause from the effect, and the effect from the cause, especially under desertion, without the fault of circular arguing; but Papists believe the scripture to be the word of God, because the church faith so, else it should be no word of God, to them, more than the Turk's Alcoran; and they believe that the church saith, that the scripture is the word of God, because the scripture faith, that the church saith so.

This is no proof at all, and a vain consequence, without faith, it is impossible to please God; no work can be proved solidly God's, without faith; but how then followeth it; ergo, we cannot prove faith to be true from good works. Saltmarsh can make no logic out of this; nothing followeth from the antecedent, but ergo, by hypocritical works done without faith, we cannot prove our faith to be true faith, valeat totum, the conclusion is not against us. We acknowledge, except good works carry the stamp and image of faith, they are not good works; but if they carry this stamp, as we presuppose they do, in this debate, because works are more sensible to us than faith, it followeth well, then we may know our faith by our works; and a believer doing works in faith, and out of warmness of love to Christ, and a sincere sense of his debt, he may be ignorant that he doth them in faith, but a coal of love to Christ, smoaking in his soul, and a sincere sense of the debt that love layeth on him to do that, yea, and to swim through hell to pleasure Christ, are ordinarily more sensible than faith, and lead us to know, there must be faith where these are.

3. Nor are ours litigious and disputable marks, except when our darkness raiseth disputes, more than the gospel itself, is litigious; for men of corrupt minds, raise doubts against the gospel, and weak believers sometimes would argue themselves out of faith, Christ out of imputed righteousness, election of grace and effectual calling; yet are not these litigious points, and say, that the evidence of the Spirit be as light and evident as the sun-light in itself: so is the gospel; yet are we to seek evidences for our faith and peace, in such marks as the Holy Ghost has made way-marks to heaven; by this we know, &c. but we build our knowledge and sense on these marks, as on secondary pillars and helps, which a divine, and supernatural certitude furnisheth, tho' without the influence of the Spirit, they shine not evidently to us: but our faith resteth on the testimony of the Spirit, witnessing to our hearts; and this is not to bring a candle to give light of the sun; but to add the light of supernatural sense, to the light of divine faith; else they may as well say, that the confirming evidence, that comes to our sense from the sacraments, addeth something to the word, which is a light, and a sun-light to our eyes. If we did confide in them, as causes of our justification, it were pharisaical: but divine motives, and secondary grounds, tho' they be mixed of themselves with sinful imperfections, may be, by divine institution, helps and confirmatory grounds of our faith and joy; and the scripture faith so, as we heard alledged.

The question proposed by F. Cornewell, I shall not father upon that learned and godly divine, Mr. Cotton: Whether a man may evidence his justification by his sanctification? He should have added, whether he may evidence to himself, or his own conscience, his justification; for that so he may evidence it in a conjectural way to others, no man doubts. 2. The question is mistated; as if sanctification did formally evidence justification, as justification, in abstracto, and faith in its actual working: it is enough against Antinomians, if it evidence to the sense of the person, that he is in the state of justification, and that he hath faith to lay hold on Christ's righteousness, when he esteems the saints precious, and placeth his delight in them. Sanctification does not, as Libertines would imagine, evidence justification, as faith doth evidence it, with such a fort of clearness, as light evidenceth colours, making them actually visibles; no light is no sign or evident mark of colours. Love and works of sanctification do not so evidence justification, as if justification were the object of good works; that way faith doth evidence justification, but sanctification doth evidence justification to be in the soul, where sanctification is, tho' it doth not render justification actually visible to the soul, as light maketh colours to be actually visible; or as faith, by the light of the Spirit, rendereth justification visible: for, even as smoke evidenceth there is fire there, where smoke is, though smoke render no fire visible to the eye; and the moving of the pulse evidenceth that there is yet life, though the man be in a swoon, and no other acts of life do appear to the eye; and the morning star in the east, when it is dark, evidenceth that the sun shall shortly rise, yet it maketh not the sun visible to the eye; and the streams prove there is a head spring, whence these streams issue, yet they shew not in what part of the earth the head spring is, so as to make it visible to the eye; so doth sanctification give evidence of justification, only as marks, signs, and gracious effects, give evidence of the cause: as when I find love in my soul, and care to please God, in all things; and this I may know to be in me, from the reflex light of the Spirit, and from these I know there is faith in me, and justification, though I feel not the operation of faith in the mean time, yet the effect and sign makes a report of the cause. As acts of life, eating and drinking, and walking in me, doth assure me, that I have the life of nature: so the vital acts of the life of faith do, as signs and effects, give evidences of the cause and fountain; yet there is no necessity that with the same light, by which I know the effect, I know the cause; because this is but a light of arguing, and of heavenly logic, by which we know (by the light of the Spirit's arguing) that we know God, by the light of faith; because we keep his commandments, and know, arguitive, by God's logic, that we are translated from death to life, because we love the brethren: in effect we know, rather the person must be justified, in whom these gracious evidences are, by hearsay, report, or consequence; than we know, or see justification itself, in abstracto, or faith itself; but the light of faith, the testimony of the Spirit, by the operation of free grace, will cause us, as it were, with our eyes, see justification and faith, not by report, but as we see sun-light. A third error there is in the state of the question, that never a protestant divine (Arminians and Socinians I disclaim, as no protestants) made either 'sanctification a cause of justification, but an effect; nor common sanctification that goeth before justification, and union with Christ, void of all feeling of our need of Christ; an evident sign of justification.' If Mr. Cornewell dream, that we thus heighten preparations before conversion, as he seems in his arguments, against gracious conditions in the soul before faith; he knows not our mind; and as other Antinomians do, refutes he knows not what. And, 4. We had never a question with Antinomians, touching the first assurance of justification, such as is proper to the light of faith. He might have spared all his arguments, to prove, that we are first assured of our justification by faith, not by good works: for we grant the arguments of one sort of assurance, which is proper to faith; and they prove nothing against another sort of assurance, by signs and effects, which is also divine. To Antinomians, 1. to be 'justified by faith; 2. and to come to the sense and knowledge of justification, which either was from eternity, as some say; or when Christ died on the cross, as others; or when we first take life in the womb, as a third sort dream:' and 3. to be assured of our justification, are all one. And so to be justified by faith, should be, to be justified by works, which they in their conscience know, we are as far against, as any men. But they should remember, that the peace and comfort that the saints extract out of their holy walking, is a far other peace, than that peace which is the natural issue of justification, of which Paul faith, Rom. 5:1. Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν with God through Jesus Christ our Lord; and the peace that issueth from our holy walking; or at least, if they be the same peace, it comes not one and the same way. For, 1. Peace, which is the fruit of justification, is a peace in the court of God, as the peace that a broken man hath in the court of justice, when he knoweth his surety hath paid the debts; he dare look justice in the face without any war, having assurance that war is removed, and enmity with God cried down, and all sins are freely pardoned: the peace that issues from our holy walking is in the court of conscience, and sense of sincerity, and straightness of walking; and is grounded on holy walking, as on a secondary help; and if there were not some confidence, that the sinfulness of these works, are freely pardoned, there should be little peace at all. 2. The former peace is immediately from pardon, that is the true cause of peace; the latter from signs, which dwell as neighbours with pardon; and is only peace, as it hath a necessary relation to pardon, and is resolved in some promise of God, and not as it is a work of our own: as hungering for Christ, as 'tis not the ground of pardon, so 'tis not the ground of peace that issueth from pardon; yet it is the ground of a comfortable word of promise, Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. And the like, I say, of assurance, comfort, joy, that result from holy walking, and from justifying faith; we never placed good works in so eminent a place, as to ascribe these same effects to them, and to faith in Christ.

Then Mr. Cornewell loseth his labour to prove, that 'God doth not first declare and pronounce us righteous, upon sight and evidence of our sanctification, which is a righteousness of our own.' For to pronounce us righteous, is to justify us; and doth Mr. Cornewell know any protestant divines, who teach that God, either first or last, doth justify us for our inherent sanctification?

Then Mr. Cornewell does confound evidence and assurance of justification, as if they were both one. For many saints have assurance of justification, so far as they are assuredly justified; and doubt much of their estate, through want of evidence: as many believe, and many times doubt, whether they believe or no. Therefore the argument to prove Abraham's assurance of justification, Rom. 4 cannot conclude, that Abraham had not divine evidence and assurance, that he was justified, by his holy walking, as by signs and fruits of faith. The assurance of Christ's righteousness is a direct act of faith, apprehending imputed righteousness: the evidence of our justification we now speak of, is the reflect light, not by which we are justified, but by which we know that we are justified: and the argument that proves the one, cannot prove the other.

*Object. 3. If the promise be made sure of God unto faith, of grace, then it is not first made sure of faith unto works:

But the promise is made sure of God, to faith, out of grace, Rom. 4:5. To him that worketh not, but believeth: the opposition between grace and works, Rom. 11:6; Rom. 4:4 is not only between grace and the merits of works, but between grace and the debt due to works: now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt, Rom. 4:4 right of promise maketh work to be of a debt, not of grace.

Answ. The promise is made of righteousness and free justification by the grace of Christ; by the promise, and that is by the promised seed, Rom. 4 but these places speak not one word of the reflect evidence that a man hath in his own soul, by which he knows in himself he is justified. The disputer knows not what he says: he proves we have no promise to be justified by works, nor any assurance thereof from working; that is not the question now; but he should prove that we cannot know and make evident to our own souls that we are assuredly justified, and that we believe, when we bring forth the fruits of faith: there is one cause why there is life in this tree, and another cause, why all that pass by, and the tree itself, (if we suppose it to be capable of reason, as man is) doth know it hath life and sweet sap: this latter is known to the tree and to others, by bringing forth good fruit. As if there may not be sundry causes, του ἐιναι and του γνωαι, of the being of a thing, and to know the being of a thing: bringing forth fruit is not the cause of the life of the tree, good works are not the cause of our justification; but we know well the tree hath life, when we see it brings forth fruit; as we know we are justified, and in Christ, when we walk after the Spirit, and not after the flesh. The whole argument is of a direct assurance, called certitudo entis, or of the object: The question is, touching reflect certainty, how persons may be sure in their own conscience, called certitudo mentis; and so it concludeth not the question.

2. 'Tis Antinomian doctrine, to make opposition between the gospel-promise, and the debt of the promise; the debt of works, Rom. 4 and Rom. 11 is law-debt due to the worker, as an hireling is worthy of his wages, because he hath done the work perfectly, according to a covenant made with his master: in which case, no man says the wages of the labourer is a free gift. But if whatever the Lord promise to us in the gospel, make God a debtor, and the thing promised to be debt, then let Antinomians speak out; for they say, (a) The whole letter of scripture, (and so of the whole gospel promises) hold forth a covenant of works, contrary to Gal. 4 where there be two covenants, one of works, another of grace; and contrary to the promises of grace in the gospel, John 3:16; Heb. 8:10, 11, 12; Matth. 11:28; 1 Tim. 1:15. (2.) All the promises of the gospel must make salvation debt: was not Christ promised in the prophets to the lost world? Rom. 1:2. The inheritance is not by law, but by promise, Gal. 3:17, 18; Rom. 9:8, 9; Luke 1:45, 54, 55, 68, 69, 70. Is Christ come to save sinners by debt, or by grace? Is salvation debt? 'tis promised. Is not righteousness promised to him that believes, Rom. 4:5 then righteousness must be debt, and so not of grace; for Cornewell telleth us, page 13. 'The right which a man hath by promise to a work, maketh the assurance of the promise but of debt unto him; and then the promise is not sure to him out of grace.' Then all the promises of an established kingdom to David and his seed, if they should keep God's commandments, all the blessings and salvation promised to believers in the Old and New Testament, so they bring forth the fruits of a lively faith, are mercies of debt, not of free grace. I well remember that the Familists (b) say, "It is dangerous to close with Christ in a promise." And (c) "There can be no true closing with Christ in a promise, that hath a qualification or condition expressed." I rather believe the Holy Ghost, Ho, every one that thirsteth, come to the water, come buy wine and milk without money and without price, Isa. 55:1. And if any man thirst, let him come to me and drink, John 7:37. And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely, Rev. 22:16; Mark 1:15. If Cornewell can free willing, thirsting, desiring, from working, he hath much divinity: yet the water of life and salvation promised to such cannot be debt, but free grace; for they are promised to these freely, and to be bestowed without money. Of the same strain is the fourth argument of Cornewell.

*Object. 5. 'When sanctification is not evident, it cannot be an evidence of justification:

But when justification is hidden and doubtful, sanctification is not evident;

Therefore sanctification cannot be our first evidence of justification.

The minor is proved, because when faith is hidden and doubtful, sanctification is not evident: but when justification is hidden and doubtful, faith is hidden and doubtful; therefore when justification is hidden and doubtful, sanctification is not evident.

The proof of the major is, 1. Faith is the evidence of things not seen; and so makes all things evident: then, when faith is hidden, what can be clear?'

2. 'Because no sanctification can be pure and sincere, but when it is wrought in faith; and so it cannot be evident, but when it clearly appeareth to be wrought in faith.'

Answ. 1. There is in the conclusion (first) the first evidence of justification, that is not in the premises, against all art. The proposition, 'When sanctification 'is not evident, it cannot be an evidence of justification,' is weak, and weakly proved: for there is a twofold evidence, one of sense and feeling spiritual, another of faith. When sanctification wants the evidence of faith, that I cannot believe salvation from mine own christian walking, yet may the soul have evidence of feeling and sense, that we trust we have a good conscience in all things, willing to live honestly, Heb. 13:18 and we dare say, Lord, we delight to do thy will, and long for thee, O Lord, as the night-watch watcheth for the morning; and, Whom have we in heaven but thee? &c. and can out of sense give a testimony of ourselves, yea, and can place all our delight in the excellent ones, Psal. 16:3 and 119:62; 1 John 3:14 so as the heart warms, when we see the saints; and in this case sanctification is evident, when remission of sins may be under cloud; else this argument does conclude, if it have any feet, that sanctification ever and at all times is dark, when justification is dark; and so sanctification is never an evidence of justification, but when justification is evident: so the wisdom of God is taxed, as if he would never have us to know that we are translated from death to life, because we love the brethren, but when we evidently know, we are thus translated, though we had no love to the brethren: then the Lord hath provided a candle for his weak ones, by this argument, when it is day-light; but hath denied any candle-light, moon-light, or star-light, when it is dark night. 2. The major is not proved: faith is not the evidence of all things, as that it maketh all things evident to our spiritual sense; for Cornewell granteth, faith may be hidden; then it can evidence nothing when it is hidden. Love to the brethren, keeping of his commandments, yield sensible evidences that we are justified, even when faith is not evident; and how many are convinced they have undoubted marks of faith and justification, who doubt of their faith and justification? And so the minor and probation of it is false; for it is most false, that when faith is hidden and doubtful, sanctification is not evident: this is asserted gratis, not proved: as if ye would say, ever when the well-head is hidden, the streams are not seen; when the sap and life of the tree is not seen, but hidden, the apples, leaves and blossoms are not evident. This is a begging of the conclusion: for then should a man never, neither first nor last, 'know that he is translated from death to life, because he loves the brethren:' Why? Because when translation from death to life, or when faith and justification is hidden, the love to the brethren, and all the works of sanctification, are hidden, saith this author.

3. The second proof of the major is lame; 'sanctification is never pure and sincere, without faith,' (saith he;) Ergo, 'It cannot be evident, but when it appeareth to be wrought in faith.' The consequence is null; just like this, sweet streams cannot flow but from a sweet spring; ergo, It cannot be evident and clear to my taste that the streams are sweet, except I taste the water at the fountain-head, and see it with mine eyes; and my taste cannot discern the sweetness of the fruit, except my senses were within the trunk or body of the tree, to feel, see, and taste the sap of life, from whence the fruit cometh. Yea, the contrary consequence is true, because I smell sincerity, love, single intentions to please God in my works of sanctification; therefore I know they came from faith; so the Holy Ghost should delude us, when he saith, 'We know, we know, or believe in Christ, because we keep his commandments.' Ergo, We cannot know this, except it be evident, that our keeping his commandment come from faith, and the knowledge of God.

†Object. 6. "Such a faith as a practical syllogism can make, is not a faith wrought by the Lord's almighty power; for the conclusion followeth, but from the strength of reasonings, not from the power of God, by which alone divine things are wrought, Eph. 1:19, 20; Col. 2:20.

But faith wrought by a word and a work, and the light of a renewed conscience, without the testimony of the Spirit, is such a faith as practical syllogism can make: Ergo, such a faith, so wrought, is not wrought by the Lord's almighty power.

The minor is proved, because all the three, the word, the work, and the light of conscience, are all created blessings and gifts, and therefore cannot produce of themselves a word of almighty power; and the word of itself is a dead letter, the work is less: for faith cometh by hearing a word, not by a work."

Answ. When Mr. Cornewell saith, By the power of God alone, divine things (such as faith that layeth hold on Christ's righteousness) are wrought, Eph. 1:19; Col. 2:20 he excludeth the ministry of the gospel, and the promises thereof, for they are created things, and so they have no hand nor influence in begetting faith. Antinomians will have us believe, that Paul, Ephes. 1:19, 20; Col. 1:20 thinks no ministry of the word, nor any hearing of the preached word, begetteth faith; contrary to Rom. 1:16; Rom. 10:17 but by the only immediate power of the Spirit we are converted without the word. Nor is here that which is in question concluded; never protestant divine taught, that without the actual influence of omnipotent grace, can faith or spiritual sense that we are justified, be produced by the word, work, or created light alone; nor can the corn grow alone by power in the earth, clouds, or rain; nor any creature move without the actual influence of the omnipotent Lord, in whom we move: therefore by this reason we could not know that the sun shall rise, by the rising of the morning star; nor can we have any supernatural sense, by our holy walking, contrary to scripture, 1 John 2:3; John 3:14. But we know by this; all faith is ascribed by Antinomians, to the immediate testimony and enthusiastical inspiration of the Spirit. As for the searching of scripture (say* they) 'tis not a sure way of searching and finding out Christ, 'tis but a dead letter,† and holds forth a covenant of works in this letter;' and therefore, with the old Anabaptist, they'll have no teaching by scripture, but only teaching by the Spirit. We hold that conditional promises are made to duties of sanctification, therefore we may have comfort and assurance from them, in our drooping condition. Cornewell answereth, page 23, 24, 25. 'The promises are not made to us, as qualified with such duties of sanctification; for then they should belong to us of debt, not out of grace, Rom. 4:4. But in respect of our union with Christ, in whom they are tendered to us, and fulfilled to us, satisfaction is made to the thirsty, not for any right his thirst might give him in the promise, but because it directeth to Christ, who fulfilleth the condition, and satisfieth the soul; and the soul must first have come to Christ, and gotten his first assurance from faith in Christ, not from these conditions and duties.'

Answ. 1. This is a yielding of the cause. We say, there be promises of the water made to thirsty souls, not as if the right, Jus, law, merit, debt, that we have to them, belonged to us, for the deed done, but for Jesus Christ only. 2. Not as if we upon our strength, and the sweating of free-will, did conquer both the condition and reward. 3. But yet we have comfort and assurance, when we by grace perform the duty, that our faithful Lord, who cannot lie, will fulfil his own promise. 4. He knoweth nothing of the gospel, who thinketh not God by his promise cometh under a sweet debt of free-grace are consistent. But Antinomians breath smell of fleshly liberty; for they tell us, (a) conditional promises are legal, contrary to the gospel, Rom. 10:9; John 3:16; John 5:25. That (b) 'tis not safe to close with Christ in a conditional promise; if (c) any thing be concluded from water and blood, 'tis rather damnation than salvation. That (d) 'tis a sandy foundation to prove that Christ is mine, from a gracious work done in me by Jesus Christ, were it even faith; for we are (e) completely united to Christ, without faith wrought by the Spirit. (f) 'Tis incompatible with the covenant of grace, to join faith with it. To be (g) justified by faith, is to be justified by works. That (h) to say there must be faith on man's part to receive the covenant, is to undermine Christ.' Neither Cornewell nor Saltmarsh oppose these blasphemies, but extol the patrons of them in New-England.

Father, save me from this hour.

Father is a word of faith. But, had Christ need of faith?

Answ. Not of faith of confiding in him that justifieth the sinner, except he had faith of the justifying of his cause, in God's acquitting him of suretiship, when he had paid all; but he had faith of dependency on God in his trouble, that God would deliver him; and he was heard in that which he feared.

And, Quest. 2. How could there be a faith of dependency in Christ, for he was the same independent God with the Father?

Answ. There were two relations in Christ; one as Viator, going toward glory, and leading many children with him to glory; another as Comprehensor, seeing and enjoying God. 2. There were two sights in Christ, one of vision, another of union; the sight of union of two natures, is the cause of the sight of vision. Christ being on his journey travelling toward glory, did with a faith of dependency rest on God as his Father, seeing and knowing that the union could not be dissolved; but as a comprehensor, and one at the end of the race, enjoying God in habit, there was no necessity that Christ should always, & in omni differentia temporis, actually see and enjoy God, in an immediate vision of glory.

For, 1. This implieth no contradiction to the personal union, even as the seeing of God habitually, which is the most joyful fight intelligible, and by necessity of nature does produce joy and gladness, may, and did consist in Christ, with groanings and sadness of Spirit, even before his last sufferings: so the interruption for a time, of the actual vision of God, might stand with Christ's personal happiness, as God-man. 2. If we suppose there were just reasons, why God should command that angels and glorified spirits should not actually see God for a time, there were no repugnancy in this to their true blessedness, so it fell not out through their sins; no more than the sun should lose any of its nature, if we suppose God should command it to stand still, and to be covered with darkness many days, as in Joshua's time it stood still in the firmament some hours, and for a time was covered with darkness at the suffering of Christ. What an interposed cloud of covering it was, or what a skreen did interrupt the flux of the beams and rays of the Godhead from actual irradiation on the soul, and faculties and powers of the soul of the man Christ, is more than I can determine. Certain it is, God was with the manhood, and so near as to make one person, but there was no actual shining on the powers of the soul, no heat and warmness of joy, but as if his own infinite sea of comfort were dried up, he needed a drop of the borrowed comfort of an angel from heaven. Now, whether this angel, Luke 22:43 did wipe the sweat of blood off his holy body, and really serve him that way; or if the angel was sent with good words from the Father, to comfort him, and say to this sense, O glorious Lord, courage, peace, and joy, and salvation, shall come; thy Father has not forsaken thee utterly; it cannot be known: but Luke faith, An angel appeared from heaven ισχυων ἀυῖον, strengthening him. But it was admirable, that the Lord of all consolation should stand in need of consolation, and a good word from his own creature; or that the great Lord, the lawgiver, should need the comfort of prayer, or any ordinance. O what a providence! what a world is this! that God-man, sweet Jesus, is put to his knees, and his prayers with it! Come see the Lord of life at a weak pass; he is at, God help me; at tears and sighing, God save me. This is more than if the whole light of the sun were extinguished, and it behoved to borrow light from a candle on earth; and the whole sea and rivers dried up, and they behoved to beg some drops of dew from the clouds to supply their want.

2. Christ himself refused comfort to himself: there was a sea of joy in Christ, within him; but not one drop can issue out on the powers of his soul: joy is sad, fairness black, faith feareth and trembleth; the infinite all, lieth under the drop of the comfort of a creature nothing. Riches beggeth at poverty's door; the light is dark, greenness withereth and casteth the bloom, life maketh prayers against the death of deaths, the glory and flower of heaven standeth sad and heavy at the jaws and mouth of hell. Mat. 26:39. He prayed to this sense, fallen on his face to the earth once, O my Father, remove this cup; but he is not answered: he knocketh the second time, O my Father, if it be possible, remove this cup. O but here is a hard world! the substantial Son of God knocking and lying on his face on the earth, and his Father's door of glory fast bolted, the Son cannot get in. The like of this providence, you never read nor heard of. The natural Son of God crieth, with tears and strong cries, with a sad, heavy and low spirit, to his Father; he cannot get one word from heaven, or half a glimpse of the wonted glory that was natural and due to him as God. O rare and sad dispensation! He must cry the third time, O my Father, remove this cup. We storm, if the Lord do not open his door at the first knock: O what hard thoughts have some of God, if a flood of love issue not from his face at the first word! but the Lord's saints are not to look for a providence of the honey-drops of the fattest consolations of heaven, in every ordinance of prayer and praises. O what a sad administration! Psal. 22:2. O my God, I cry in the day-time, and thou hearest not; and in the night-season, and am not silent. The church speaketh sadly to God. What can be worse than this? Lam. 3:7. He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out; he hath made my chain heavy. Yet to open a sad heart in the bosom of a friend, far more to God, is much ease; but here is worse, verse 8. Also, when I cry and shout, he shooteth out my prayer. Psal. 69:3. I am weary of crying, my throat is dried; mine eyes fail, while I wait for my God. It is grace to put a construction of love and faith on the Lord's not answering our desires. These experiences may silence us; 1. It may be good that the Lord answer, and not good that he answer now: the saints are often ripe for praying, when they are unripe for the mercy of a real answer and help from God. Two things necessitate prayer, (1.) Our duty to worship. (2.) Our necessity and straits. But on our part we are not ripe for an answer for any of these, being yet not humbled, and praying with slow desires, little fervour of faith. 2. 'Tis possible it be our duty to pray, as supposing a real necessity of what we need, and yet it is not our good that God hear us now. No doubt Abraham and Sarah both prayed for a son, many years before the one was an hundred, the other ninety and nine years old; but it was not good that God should hear them, till it be a miracle, and a new way, and more than ordinary providence they were answered. 3. God refuseth never to hear us, for favours that are non-fundamentals toward everlasting life, but when it is better be not heard, than heard: Moses might possibly not know a reason, but it was better for him that he saw afar off the good land, (more for faith and mortification, and heavenly-mindedness, which he saw not) than that he should enter with the people into that land, which he prayed for. 4. Not any of the saints, considering that all things work together for good to them that love God; but as they praise God that he hath heard their prayers, so they praise God in some things that their prayers lie at a fast bolted door, and take it well in other things that he was displeased with them, and so that they have cause to be humbled that God did grant their desire. Let it be that David prayed for a son, and God gave him Absalom; it is a question, if David had not cause to wish he had never been born. 5. God hath equally regulated and limited our desires to be heard, and our willingness, faith, submission and patience, and our praises according as we are heard or not heard; yet we are less in praises when we are heard, and our desires fulfilled, and in submission, when we are not heard, than we are forward to praise; because necessity and straits can more easily obtain of us to pray, and to set on moving the wheels of our affections, than grace can keep our spiritual affections in heat of motion, or limit and border our natural affections in praising, when they take them to their wings. David, Psal. 21; Psal. 69. O my God, I cry night and day, till my throat be dry in asking; but where doth he say, O my God, I will praise night and day, till my throat be pained in praising, and my heart and eyes are wasted and spent in submissive waiting for thee, and praising for not hearing me in some things? 6. God is equally gracious to his own, in not hearing and granting, as in fulfilling their desires. 7. No man should take it hard, not to be answered at the first, when the prime heir Christ was kept knocking at his Father's door. 8. Heard or not heard, the prayers of faith have a gracious issue, tho' the dross of them be cast away. 9. As praises have no issue, but to give to God, not to ourselves; so prayers in faith are to be offered to God, as God, tho' nothing return in our bosom, that God may be extolled. Christ knew deliverance from this hour cannot be granted, yet he prays. 10. Faith is required no less to believe the good that the Lord mindeth us in not hearing us, than the good he intendeth in hearing and fulfilling our desires: no condition of providence can fall wrong to faith, which can fly with any wings, and fail with every wind, so long as Christ liveth.

Father, save me from this hour.

Christ bottometh his prayer on the sweetest relation of a Father and a Son; Father, save me. So, John 17. Father, glorify thy Son. v. 5. And now, Father, glorify me. Six times in that prayer he useth this style. Mat. 11:25. I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, Mat. 26. O my Father, remove this cup. His Father was great in his esteem; none like his Father. It is a strong argument to Christ, to persuade an hearing and a deliverance; and he was heard in that which he feared: he had no end in his coming into the world, but to do the will of his Father, John 5:30. (2.) Love is a sweet ingredient in prayer: the beloved disciple John, who only, of all the evangelists, setteth down Christ's love-prayer, chap. 17 useth it more frequently than any of the other three evangelists. (3.) Propriety, interest, and covenant-relation is a sweet bottom, and a strong ground for prayer: so in praying, hath Christ taught us to say, Our Father which art in heaven. And, Psal. 5:2. Hearken to my voice, my King, and my God. 2 Kings 19:19. Now therefore, O Lord, our God, I beseech thee, save us out of his hand. Ezra bottometh his prayer on this, chap. 9:6. O my God, I am ashamed and blush. And Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. 20:12. O our God, wilt thou not judge them?

Use. In prayer, consider what claim and interest you have to God, if you be a Son, and he a Father: bastards cannot pray; strangers without the covenant, and heathen, having no right to God, as their God and Father, may petition God, as a subdued people do their conqueror, or as ravens cry to God for food, and as some bowl upon their beds for corn and wine, Hos. 7:14 but they cannot pray; for in praying aright to God, there is required not only gracious ingredients in the action, but also a new state of adoption and filiation: many speak words to God, who do not pray; many tell over their sins, who confess not their sins to God; many speak good of God, who do not praise God; many sigh and groan in praying, and have no deep sense of God, or their own sinful condition. Trees growing together make not always a wood. Ah, our prayers, God knows, are often out of their right wits. Many cry, Father, to God, but lie; for they are not sons, and their words are equivocation. Thousands claim Fathership in God, where there is no Sonship, nor fundamentum in re, no ground in the thing itself. A new nature is that only best bottom of praying, that taketh it off from being a taking of the name of God in vain. All creatures speak of God, and, in their kind, to God; but only a son can speak to God in prayer, as to his Father: calling upon God, with a pouring out of the soul to him in Christ, is essential to sons.

Father, save me from this hour.

Christ had no means of refuge safer and surer in his trouble, when he knew not what to do, than prayer Christ had never a greater business in hand, than now he was to transact with God, and divine justice, the law of God, in the weighty bargain of paying a ransom of dearest and preciousest blood, to open the new way to heaven; he had to do with devils, principalities and powers, and hell: to subdue devils, an death and hell, and to redeem his catholick church from the second death; and he was to offer himself sacrifice to God, through the eternal Spirit, for the sins of the whole elect; and he must use prayer in all this great work. The greatest works have been thus effectuated. For the dividing of the Red-sea, Moses cried to the Lord, and it was done. Hezekiah obtaineth fifteen years lease of his house of clay from Jehovah his landlord: and how! 2 Kings 20:2. He turned his face to the wall, and prayed. Jonah broke the prison of hell by prayer. Jeremiah had many against him, chap. 20:12. Unto thee (saith he to the Lord) I be opened my cause. Daniel, in his captivity; Ezra, when the people were under wrath; Esther and her maids, when the church's destruction is warped, and in weaving, by prayer loose the captive-bands, and break death's jaws. So low a man as Job, chap. 7:20 was, What shall I say to thee, O preserver of man? David looketh back to his prayers, Psal. 34:6 and when he is overwhelmed, Psal. 61:2. From the ends of the earth will I cry to thee, when my heart is overwhelmed. To Elias, this is the key that openeth heaven. The last great work, the perfecting of mystical Christ, the judging of the world, the putting crowns on the heads of so many thousand kings, must have prayer to bring it to pass: Even so come, Lord Jesus. The putting and keeping on the crown on Christ's head, is by prayer: his sword, crown and sceptre, stand and prosper by this prayer, Thy kingdom come. 2. Tho' Christ knew of his own deliverance, and was sure of it, yet he will not have it but by prayer. Christ had Son-right to heaven, yet he will take a new gift of heaven by prayer-right: Christ maketh prayer his new charter, Job 17:5. Father, glorify me, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. Christ will have his spouse, tho' his by conquest, and the law of buying and ransom, made over to him by a de novo damus, Psal. 2:8. Ask of me, (pray to me) and I will give thee the heathen. His kingdom's pillar, is prayer, Psal. 72:15. Prayer also shall be made for him continually, that his throne may stand, and he may bear the crown. What, must we pray for Christ, he prays for us? Yea, we pray for mystical Christ, and his crown. It is better to hold lands of Christ by prayer, than by conquest or industry, by right of redemption of heritage; even the rich, who have broad lands, when the bread is at their lip, and on the table before them, are to pray, Give us this day, our daily bread. Have you wisdom, honour, learning, parts, eloquence, godliness, grace, a good name, children, peace, ease, pleasure, wife, houses, lands, see how ye got them; if not by prayer, in so far they are unjustly purchased: the next best, is to get a new charter of them by prayer. I grant, conversion is not obtained by my praying, because an unconverted man cannot pray, no more than the birth can pray itself out of the mother's womb; yet 'tis gotten by Christ's prayer. Some after sickness have health, as robbers have the traveller's purse, they have them by spoil, not through Christ, or any prayer-right: victories, and subdued cities, are better taken and enjoyed by prayer, than by bribes or money.

Use. They know not the use of prayer, who teach, that we are not to pray against that which cannot be avoided: so, Libertines (a) say, That we are not to pray against all sin, because it cannot be avoided; but the old man must be in us, so long as we live. The Lord hath so decreed the end, as that he hath ordained prayer to be a necessary way to accomplish his end, yea, Paul, 1 Thess. 5:23 prayeth, That the very God of peace may sanctify the Thessalonians throughout ὁλοτελεις. And we know, that we cannot be free of temptations in this life; yet pray we, not to be led into temptation: which is not so much, that the body of sin may be fully rooted out in us, and inherent sanctification may be perfected in this life, as that we may be delivered from guilt and damnation, and from the power and dominion of sin, and that prayer may be stairs up to the laying of the last stone of the new building. Yea, tho' it was revealed to Peter, and the disciples, that they should deny Christ, and as sheep be scattered away, when the sword should awake against the Shepherd; and this was unavoidable, in regard of the decree of God, and fulfilling of the scripture, Zech. 13. Yet were the disciples to pray, they might be so guarded against that temptation, as they might not leave, and forsake Christ in his sufferings.

Father, save me from this hour, ἐκ το ὥρας ταυτης

That which Christ deprecateth, hath two things considerable, 1. That his sufferings were so timed, and defined, as they should endure but for an hour, 2. But it was a sad hour; there is an emphasis put on it, this hour.

1. Christ's sufferings are but hour-sufferings, we behoved to suffer eternally.

Object. Ergo, Christ suffered not that same punishment, that we were to suffer for sin, if Christ had never died for us.

Answ. 1. He suffered not all, according to every accident and circumstance, that we were to suffer; it is true, we should have suffered sinful despair, and there could be no mixture of sin in his cup. 2. We should have suffered for ever; he exhausted all the pain, and the curse, in some few hours. But he suffered all that we were to suffer, according to the due equivalency, worth, and substance of the suffering. Christ paid (as we say) as good: a debtor oweth ten thousand millions to a prince, to be paid in silver, at so many several terms; the surety of this broken debtor paid the whole sum at one term, and in gold, the excellentest metal: it is the very same debt, and the same bond acquitted, as if the sum had been paid by the chief debtor. Christ, by paction, paid all in cumulo, at one term, and in excellent metal and coin, being the dear blood of God. A traitor is to die, and suffer hanging or heading for such a high point of treason; the prince's son will die the same death for him; only, by paction, he hath because of the eminency of his person, a privilege, which the principal man had not: what, if he be hanged in a chain of gold, and a crown on his head, or beheaded with a silver axe; it is the same satisfactory death for law and justice, as if the other had died like himself. There were some sparkles of the Majesty and crown of heaven, or some glistering rubies and diamonds did shine in Christ's death, which could not have been in ours, and it was convenient it should be so.

2. Christ's time-sufferings are more than our eternal sufferings, because of the dignity of his person. It is true, a poor man's life is as sweet and dear to him, physically, as the life of a prince, in the court of nature, in curia naturæ; it is alike taking to every man; but in curia fornesi, if we speak legally, and in relation to many. David a king is more, for his royal place, to save and judge many thousands, than ten thousands of the people. 2. A prince shamed and disgraced, shall lose more honour, than a man of a low, poor and base condition; the honour of a free, and just prince, is by a thousand degrees more than the loss of honour in a wicked and base slave. Sinners had little to lose in comparison of the Prince of Life, like us in all things, except sin.

3. The more noble privilege that life hath, as the more immediate communion with God, the loss of life is a greater loss. It is more for glorious angels to lose their happy and blessed life in the fruition of God, than for damned devils to lose their being, who are in chains of darkness. It is more for the spirits of just and perfect men, who are now before the throne, to be made miserable, to lose life, and such a life, glory, and such a glory; than for slaves of hell, living in wickedness, to be thrust down to hell with everlasting shame. It is more that the whole sea and all the rivers be dried up, than that one water-fountain be dried up. Christ had more to lose than all angels and men; even to be suspended of the vision of God, for a time, was more than all that angels and men could lose for ever.

4. It is true, the influence meritorious from Christ's person on his suffering is not real, but infinite in a moral estimation. But give me leave to think it disputable, whether or no, it dependeth not on the free decree and pleasure of God, that the punishment of sin be infinite in duration; or if it depend on the nature of sin, and of divine justice; so as essentially God be necessitated, not from any free decree (that is not properly necessity) but essentially from that spotless and holy justice, which is essentially in him, to punish those who equally sinned on earth, with equal torments in hell, and all with eternal punishment. Yet, notwithstanding all this, Christ, by his death, not only exhausted the infinite punishment due to us; as infinite mountains of sands can drink up all the finite seas, rivers, brooks and fountains of the earth; but he purchased to us an infinite and eternal weight of glory, by the worth of his merit. Now, by this, there must be more in Christ's death, than we can easily conceive; as it is less to bring Israel out of Egypt only, and divide the Red-sea, and to present them living men on the shore, than to do that, and also to give them in peaceable possession, that good land which floweth with milk and honey: and it is much to deliver a slave from perpetual poverty, misery and bondage; and not only that, but positively to make him a rich, honourable, and glorious king; all which, Christ by his blood purchased to us: I leave it then to be disputed, whether Christ's sufferings had not only a moral, meritorious and legal worthiness, from the free act of God's acceptation, or also an intrinsical worth and weight, real, and intrinsically congruous, and proportionable to the pain and shame he delivered us from, and the glory that positively he conquested for us. It is more to pay a poor man's debts, than to make him rich.

Quest. 1. If Christ's sufferings were limited, in regard of time, and hours, why then could he suffer infinite punishment? It involveth a contradiction, to limit that which is infinite; and if an angel was sent to comfort him, it is like, God did extend mercy, and not unmixed and satisfactory justice, to him.

Answ. Moderation in suffering, as an angel to comfort him, that not a bone of him shall be broken; that he should not lie three full days in the grave; that his body should not see corruption: all these may well stand with sufferings that are infinite, morally, and from the worth of his noble and glorious person, who is God blessed for ever. And it proveth that all the exactest justice that the Lord followed, in the pursuing Christ to the second death for our sins, was not in inflicting punishment on Christ intensively, and intrinsically infinite, and which should be infinitely satisfactory, if we lay aside all supposition of the punishment of the person suffering, who was infinite, and of the free and voluntary acceptation of God.

Quest. 2. But then was not all the infiniteness of justice in punishing Christ, not in inflicting pain infinitely and intensively extreme on him, but in that the person was infinite, but the pain finite, both in time and otherwise.

Answ. We hold that the suffering for the time, was so extreme, that he, and he only, could endure the infinite wrath of God; but whether all the infiniteness of pain slow from this, that the person was infinite, or that the pain was intrinsically infinite, we desire not too curiously to determine: sure, the infiniteness of his person conferred infiniteness of worth to his merit; so as he purchased a church by the blood of God, Acts 20:28. The Lord Jesus gave himself for his church, Eph. 5:25, 26. and a ransom for many. Matth. 20:28; 1 Tim. 2:6. But I see no reason why Christ's sufferings should be thought finite, because he suffered in some few days; then the Lord's acts of creating the world, of raising the dead, working of miracles, should be finite acts, because absolved in a short time.

Hence we cannot say, what an obligation is on us to Jesus Christ. Love for love is too little; because our drop of dew can bear no proportion to his infinite and vast sea of tender love to us. As Christ gave himself an infinite ransom, by law, for us; so he brought us under an infinite debt of love and service to him. Christ paid all our debts of law to infinite justice, but we shall never pay all our debt of love to him. O! how many thousand talents are we owing to Christ? And because glory is a love-engagement to Christ, the longer we enjoy the glory of heaven, through millions of ages, the debt to the Lamb, to him that sitteth on the throne, will be the greater, and shall grow infinitely: praises for eternity shall take nothing down of the debt. Know, you are the sworn and over-engaged and drowned debtors of Jesus.

Use 2. The sufferings of mystical Christ are but for an hour; for a night, and joy in the morning, Psal. 30:5. a little season, Rev. 6:11. Three days, Hos. 6:1. A short time, and the vision will speak, and will not tarry, Hab. 2:3; Heb. 10:37. It is but tribulation ten days, Rev. 2:10. And, which is shorter than all, a moment, 2 Cor. 4:17 and the shortest of all, Isa. 54:7. a little moment. All the generations of the first-born, that were in great tribulations, and in the womb and belly of the Red-sea, are now come off safe, and landed on the shore, and are now up before the throne in white, triumphing with the Lamb; the hour is ended, some of them two thousand years ago are eased of burning quick, of the sword, of the teeth of lions. Job's face now is not foul with weeping; David's soul droopeth away, and melteth no more with heaviness, as Psal. 119. The traces of tears on Christ's fair face, are fifteen hundred years ago washed off, and dried with his Father's hand, Paul is now beyond fears without, terrors within, and the sentence of death. All the martyrs now are above the fire, the faggots, the rack, the gibbet, the axe. What thoughts hath John Baptist now of beheading? or Stephen of stoning to death? The gashes and wounds of the stripes of the apostles, scourged for the name of Jesus, are over now: there is not one sigh, nor one tear, nor one cry, nor one death, now in heaven; all the former things are gone. Afflictions are but a short trance, for an hour; our short-living sufferings will be over quickly: we are near the shore. Our inch of winter shall wear out, there is but a little bit of sour death before us; the ceremonies of death is approaching, of the noise of its feet, of its awful and dreadful gloom, the train of little images of death, the aching of bones, the stitches of heart, the pain of the side, and such soft passing accidents, and the name, are more than death itself; and all these shall pass over quickly. We have not centuries, nor millions of years to suffer; he who limited a time to the head Christ's sufferings, hath set so many sand-glasses, and determined so many hours for all our sufferings. Yea, 2. The gall in our cup must be weighed by God's own hand: not a man killed more in the two kingdoms, nor a house burnt, nor a scratch in the body, nor one wound in the poor soldier of Christ, but all are numbered; all go by ounces, grains, and scruples in heaven: there is a pair of just and discreet balances before the throne. Crucify Christ, and pierce his side, but not one of his bones can broken; there be broken bones of two, one at either side of him, within the breadth of five fingers to him. Cast Joseph in the dungeon, but he must not die there. Cast Moses in the river, when he is an infant, to die there, but Pharaoh's daughter must bring him up as a prince. Let job's body be afflicted, but save his life. Imprison and scourge the apostles, but there is more to do by them, ere they be killed. Make the kingdom of Judah weeping captives in Babylon, but the dry bones must live again. Let David be sore afflicted, but he cannot be delivered unto death, Psal. 118. Let Daniel be a captive, and meat for the lions, but he must be saved and honoured. Appoint a day for the destruction of the Jews under Ahasuerus, let death be shaped, warped, but they shall not die. Love, even the love of Christ, whose seven spirits full of wisdom are before the throne, is a straight line, a just measure, and weigheth all to the tempted souls, that nothing shall go above their strength; no burden more than their back, no poison, no death in their cup, no gall more than their stomach can endure. You may, O redeemed ones, refer your hell to Christ's love, and make over all your sorrows to his will; see if he will destroy you. Let Christ be a moderator to brew your cup, and free grace be judge of your portion of Christ's cross; and the cross may bruise your shoulder, it shall not grind you to powder. Had I ten eternities of well or woe, I durst refer them to the bowels of Christ's boundless mercy and free love. Shall I be the first that Christ's warm love over-killed, and over-destroyed? Christ's love is infallible, and above error. Fatherly Providence determines all so equally, measureth all so straightly, tempereth all so sweetly, that black death is sugared with white heaven, the sad grave a palace-royal for a living and victorious king: apples of life grow on the saddest cross that the saints bear. The love of Christ hath soft and silken fingers: love measureth out strokes, Rev. 3:19. And can love kill and destroy a son of God's love?

Use 3. The sufferings of Christ and the saints, be measured by hours: God is the creator of time, and tempereth the horologe. My times are in thy hands, Psal. 31. How long Ephraim a raw cake shall be in the oven, is decreed from eternity. 2. Put away your scum, your froth, and the ill blood, and you have a diet-drink from Christ the shorter while. 3. You think long to have Britain's hour, or the ten days of pestilence and sword on Scotland, or the vastations of Ireland, the wars, divisions, and new blasphemies of England, gone and over; but tho' we lose much time, and have bidden farewel to yesterday, and shall never see it again, yet the Lord of time loseth not one moment: if through acquaintance and familiarity you may become good friends with the cross, and bear it patiently; do for Christ, what you will do for time; the former is an act of grace, the Lord will thank you for it; the latter is the work of a carnal man, and will yield you no thanks. 4. Life is a burden to you, when it hath such a sour and sad convoy as heavy afflictions; and the soul looks out at the windows of the clay-prison, O when will the jailor come with the keys, and enlarge a prisoner? But why should you will out with a friend, for a foe's cause. Christ hath sewed them together for a time; The vision will not tarry. Christ is on his journey, wait on, let patience have its perfect work; it is a flower that lieth long under ground; it is a long quarter between sowing and tiring, yet faith hath ay a good crop.

This hour

Among all the hours that Christ had, this was the saddest. 1. Christ saw that his life in this hour would be taken from him; it was convenient that Christ, who as a man, like us in all things except sin, should not be a stock in dying, but have actual pain and sense in the losing of his life; for Christ had as much nature, tho' no corruption, as any man: and life is a sweet inheritance, its nature's excellent freehold; and no man is willingly, and without one sigh or tear, cast out of this freehold; and Christ's nature was not brass or iron. Sorrow and sadness sound a kindly lodging in him. 2. He had a clay tent of flesh and blood, as the children have, that, Heb. 2:15. he might deliver them, who through the fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage. He must in our nature put on actual fear, to deliver the saints from habitual fear. Nature cannot, without horrour, and a wrinkle on the brow, look straight out on the breadth of death's black face. The martyrs kissed death, because the joy of heaven took lodging in their soul, by anticipation before the term-day, to confirm the truth of God; but death has a four bite, and sharp teeth, with all its kind kisses. Yea, but Christ must read in the face of death more millions of curses (a curse for every elect, single man, Deut. 27:26; Gal. 3:10.) than would have affrighted millions of angels. O but there was black and doleful paintrie, hell; and thousand thousands of deaths in one, all written on the visage of death, which was presented to Christ now; and when there was a sad, dark, and thick curtain drawn over Christ's heaven, it must be a sour kiss, to lay his holy mouth to such a black face as death now had. Christ was in sad earnest, when he said, Mat. 26:38. My soul is περὶγυπος, extremely out of measure, heavy, even to the death. 3. Christ having well tempered affections, his soul never being out of joint with sin, was not in dying fool-hardy or bold-life-wasting; for casting away the soul for a straw, is forbidden in the sixth commandment. He saw sad and bloody bills given in against him. O how many thousand of sins, were all made his sins, by imputation? And justice was to sell all the elect over to Christ, and to deliver them all, by tale, to free grace, at no cheaper rate, than the rendering of the soul of Christ to harder than ten thousand millions of ordinary deaths. Christ behoved to earn heaven at the hardest cost, for all his own, with no less than the noble and eminent life and blood of God; such a sum was never told down in heaven, before or after. 4. There is much weight on this hour, in regard of Christ's opposites: three hosts came against Christ, heaven, hell, earth; any adversary but God; the enmity of men cannot make me, or any man formally miserable. There be great edges and emphasis in these words, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Not a point, not a letter of them can be wanting, they are all so full and emphatic. 1. My God, my God; the forsaking of angels is nothing; that men, all men, friends, all my inward friends, forsake me, is not much; they do more than forsake, they abhor Job their friend, Job 19:19 that father and mother, and all my mother's sons forsake me, is hard, yet tolerable, Psal. 27:10; Psal. 31:11; Psal. 88:18. Yea, that mine own heart and flesh forsake me, is an ordinary (may be) amongst men, Psal. 73:26. But God's forsaking of a man is sad. 2. If he be a God in covenant with me; both God, and then my God, that is a warm word, with a child of love; if he forsake me, it is hard: when our own leave us, we forgive all the world to leave us. 3. In forsaking there is a great emphasis; any thing but unkindness, and change of heart and love, is well taken; this speaketh against faith; tho' Christ could not apprehend this; the Lord cannot change, Christ could not believe such a blasphemy, yet the extremity of so sad a condition, offered so much to the humane and sinless and innocent sense of Christ, a change of dispensation. 4. Me, why hast thou forsaken me, the Son of thy love, thy only begotten Son, the Lord of Glory, who never offended thee? But the relation of Christ to God, was admirable; he was as the sinner, made sin for us; in this contest, the enmity of a lion and a leopard is nothing, Hos. 13:7, 8 the renting of the caul, of the web that goeth about the heart, is but a shadow of pain, to the Lord's running on a man as a giant, in fury and indignation. 2. Hell, and all the powers of darkness, came against Christ in this hour, Col. 2:14, 15. (3.) All the earth, and his dearest friends, stood aloof from his calamity; there was no shore on earth to receive this ship-broken man.

In regard of that which was taken from Christ, it was a sad hour; which I desire to be considered thus. 1. The most spiritual life that ever was, the life of him, who saw and enjoyed God in a personal union, was vailed and covered. (1.) Possession in many degrees was lessened: but in jure, in right, and in the foundation, not removed. 2. The sense and actual fruition of God, in vision, was over-clouded, but life in the fountain stood safe in the blessed union. 3. The most direful effects, in breaking, bruising, and grinding the Son of God, between the millstones of divine wrath, were here; yet the infinite love and heart of God, remained the same to Christ, without any shadow of variation or change. God's hand was against Christ, his heart was for him. 4. Hence his saddest sufferings were by divine dispensation and economy. God could not hate the Son of his love; in a free dispensation, he pursued in wrath the surety, and loved the Son of God. 5. It cannot be determined, what that wall of separation, that covering and vail was, that went between the two united natures, the union personal still remaining entire, how the Godhead suspended its divine and soul-rejoicing influence, and the Man Christ suffered to the bottom of the highest and deepest pain, to the full satisfaction of divine justice. As it is easy to conceive how the body in death, falleth to dust, and ill-smelling clay, and yet the soul dieth not; but how the soul suffereth not, and is not sadned, is another thing. How a bird is not killed, and doth flee out, and escape, and sing, when a window is broken, with a great noise in the cage, is conceivable: but how the bird should not suffer, or be affected with no affrightment, is harder to our apprehension; and how ship-broken men may swim to the shore and live, when the ship is dashed in an hundred pieces, is nothing hard; but that they should be nothing affrighted, not touch the water, and yet come living to shore, is not so obvious to our consideration. Yea, that the soul should remain united with the body in death, and the ship sink, the passengers remaining in the ship, and not be drowned, is a strange thing. The Lord suffered, and died; the ship was broken and did sink, the soul and body separated, and yet the Godhead remained in a personal union, one with the manhood, as our soul and body remain together, while we live and subsist entire persons.

Use 1. Christ hath suffered much in these sad hours for us: he hath drunken hell dry to the bottom, and hath left no hell behind for us, Heb. 12:2. Jesus the author and finisher of our faith: He hath not only suffered so much of the cross, but he hath suffered all the cross; he hath endured the cross, despised the shame. In the original, the words are without any article, ὑπέμεινεν σταυρὸς αἰσχύνης καταφρονήσας. It is as much as he hath left no cross, no shame at all to be suffered by us: and; Phil. 2:8. He was obedient to the Father; he faith not to the death, but to death, even the death of the cross, με χρὲ θανάτου. It holdeth forth to us, that Christ suffered so much for us, as he hath taken up to heaven with him the great cross, and hath carried up with him, as it were, the great death; and hath left us nothing, or very little to suffer: and indeed Christ never denied, but affirmed, he himself behoved to die; but for the believer, he expresly denieth he shall die, and that with two negations, John 11:26. οὐ μὴ αποθὰνη ἐις τὸν ἀιῶνα, He shall never, in any sort, die. And for our sufferings, Paul calleth them, Col. 1:24. τὰ ὑστερήματα τῶν θλίψεων τοῦ Χριστοῦ, the remnants, the leavings, the dregs, and after-drops of the sufferings of Christ, the sips and dew-drops remaining in the bottom of the cup, when Christ hath drunken out the whole cup; so are our afflictions, and being compared with what Christ suffered, they are but bits, fragments, and small pieces of death, that we suffer; for the first death that the saints suffer, is but the half and the far least half of death, 'tis but the lips, the outer porch of death; the second death, which Christ suffered for us, is only death, and the dominion, lordship and power of death is removed Why do ye then murmur, fret, repine under afflictions, when you bear little wedges, pins, and chips of the cross? Your Lord Jesus did bear for you the great and only cross, that which is death, shame, and the cross, κατʼ εξοχήυ, by way of excellency so called. It is true, the spouse of Christ, since the beginning of the world, and since Christ's time these 1600 years, hath been crying as a woman travailing in birth of a man-child, and the dragon near pursuing her, and is not yet brought to bed. Lord Jesus, when will the man-child be born, and thy spouse be eased of the birth? Yet is not this disease deadly; Zion, as soon as she travailed, brought forth her child, Isa. 66:8. All her shadows of sufferings shall be quickly gone: the spouse cannot die of child-birth pain; Christ will save both the mother's life, and the babe.

Use 2. Sin is a dear and costly thing: in heaven, in the count-book of justice, it goeth for no less than the blood of God, the shaming of the Lord of glory; justice, for the request of all the world, and the prayers of Christ, could not abate one farthing. A man's soul is a dear thing: exchange of commodities, of silks, purple, sine linen, is much; exchange of sapphires, diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones, for baser commodities, is much more; and that ships-full of the gold of Ophir should be given for bread, and things obvious, is a rich trafficking: but the market and value of souls, as it hath not, since God made man on earth, fallen or risen; so it is ever above a world, Mat. 16:26. What hath a man profited, if he lose this? God will not take silks, nor purples, nor sapphires, nor rubies, nor navies loaden with fine gold, nor any corruptible thing, 1 Pet. 1:18 for souls. The price is one and the same: souls were never bought, nor sold, nor exchanged, nor ransomed, but once; and the price is one, and as high as the soul and blood of the Lord of life. Job 27:8. What is the hope of an hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh his soul from him? Let him cast up his accounts, and lay his charges, he stands a poor man, a man without a soul. What madmen are we, who sell souls daily for prices so far below the Lord's price? A man that would wadset a lordship of many thousands yearly, for a base sum, some pence, or for a night's sleep in a straw-bed, and bind himself not to redeem it, what a waster were he? how worthy to beg? Satan is going through the world, and he gives some pence in hand: O how sad a reckoning, when the devil the cozening creditor comes at night, with his back counts, pay me for your sweet lusts I gave you; answer my bill for your idle oaths, your lies, oppressions, cozening, covenant-breaking, your unjust judging, your starving, and murdering of the widow, and the fatherless, by detaining of the wages of the soldier, your slighting of Christ, and reformation, and the price is referred to God, and the market known! Satan can abate nothing, thy soul he must have, and within few days the body too: is this wisdom to earn hell? and to make away a noble soul for a straw?

3. What are we to give for Christ? what bonds of love hath he laid on us, who earned our heaven for us at so dear a price? I desire only these considerations to have place in our thoughts.

1. As God had but one Son, and one only begotten Son, and he gave him for sinners; so Christ had two loves, one as God, and another as man, he gave them both out for us; and two glories, one as God, one as man and mediator; the one was darkened for us, ἑαυτὲν εκένωσε; he emptied a sea of glory for us, he poured it out for us; and for his other glory, he laid it down, as it were in hell, endured infinite wrath for us.

2. He went to death and the grave, made his testament, and left his love, grace, and peace in legacy to us.

3. Greater love than this hath no man; but he faith not, greater love than this hath no God. That God did let out so much love to men, is the wonder of the world, and of heaven. We may find words to paint out creatures, and the garment may be wider than the thing; but should angels come and help us to find out expressions for Christ's love, words should be below and in this side of Christ.

4. Behold the man, faith an enemy of Christ; but behold him more than a man, behold the Lord in the garden, sweating out of his holy body, great blobs and floods of love, trickling down upon sinners of clay. Men and angels, come see, and wonder, and adore.

5. Love was Christ's cannon-royal, he battered down with it all the forts of hell, and triumphed over principalities and powers: Christ was judgment-proof; he endured the wrath of God, and was not destroyed: he was hell-proof, and grave-proof; he suffered, and rose again; but he was not love-proof, (to borrow that expression) he was not only love-sick for his church, but sick to death, and died for his friends. Cant. 2:4. His banner over his church, was love. Saints, be sworn to his colours, die and live with Christ: and take Christ in the one arm, his cause, and the gospel in the other, and your life between both, and say to all enemies, take one, take all. The midst of Christ chariot is paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem, Cant. 3:10. Christ's royal seat, both in the gospel, in which he is carried through the world as a conqueror, Rev. 6:2 and in the souls of his children, is love. From the sense of this, it were our happiest life, to live and love with Christ; for he hath carried up to heaven with him, the love, and the heart, and the treasures of the sons of God; so as all ours are with him above time.

6. We are not to fear death extremely, nor hell at all. Christ feared both for our comfort: he hath taken away the worst of death; in that, 1. He hath subdued hell and sin, and there remained to us but the outer side of death. 2. The believer but half-dies, and swooneth, or rather sleepeth in the grave. 3. He dieth by will, because he chooseth to be with Christ, Phil. 1:23 rather than by nature or necessity. 4. As dying and sufferings are the cup that Christ drank; so are we to love the cup the better, that Christ's lip touched it, and left the perfume of the breathings of the Holy Ghost in it. In common inns, by the wayside, princes, and common travellers, and thousands lie in one bed; the clothes may be changed, but the bed is the same. Christ tasted of death, Heb. 2 for us; but there was gall in his cup, that is not in ours: Christ's wormwood was bitter with wrath, ours sweetned with consolation.

7. All the saints are in Christ's debt of infinite love. When we grieve the Spirit purchased by Christ, we draw blood of his wounds afresh, and so testify, that we repent that Christ suffered so much for us. The Father hath sworn, and will not repent, that he is an eternal priest, and stands to it, that his blood is of eternal worth; and when the Father sweareth this, Christ is the same one God with him, and swears, that he thinketh all his blood well-bestowed, and will never give over the bargain: his bride is his bride, tho' dear bought; and his intercession in heaven speaketh his hearty Amen, and fullest consent of love to our redemption.

8. All this was done by Christ for nothing; grace fell from God, on the creature, by mere grace. Grace is the only hire of grace.

9. When ancient love looked first on sinners, how ugly and black did the Lord see and foresee us to be? But Christ loved us, not according to what we were, but to what grace and love was to make us; and that was fair and spotless. And this love was so free in the secret of eternal election, that it was not increased by Christ's merits and death; but the merits, death, and fruit of this love, had being and worth from Christ's eternal love; and Christ's love hath no fountain and cause, but love.

10. The law of gratitude tieth us to love Christ, for he hath loved us. If the love of Christ be in us; it worketh nothing in order to merit or hire; (Libertines need not weaken Christ's love from doing, upon this fear;) but love doth all in order to the debt of love, and obliged expressions to love, which excludeth not law, but the law's rigid cursing and imperious commanding. Christ's love is most imperious, but is no hireling, and looks not to the penny wages, but the free crown.

But for this cause came I to this hour

Here is the fifth article in this prayer; a sort of correction, in which Christ doth resign his will, as man, to the will of God; as Mat. 26:39; Luke 22:42. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.

In this there is offered to us a question, whether or no there be in this prayer any repugnancy in the human will of Christ to the will of God? For, 1. A correction of the human will, seemeth to import a jarring and a discord. 2. Christ desired that, the contrary whereof, he knew, was from eternity decreed of God. 3. The law of God is so spiritual, straight and holy, that it requireth not only a conformity to it, in our will, actions, words and purposes; but also in all our affections, desires, first motions, and inclinations of our heart, that no unperfect and half-formed lustings arise in us, even before the compleat consent of the will, that may thwart or cross the known law and command of God; and by this, Thou shalt not lust, Rom. 7 and the duty of the highest love we owe to God, to love him with all the heart, soul, mind, and whole strength, Mat. 22:37; Mark 12:33; Luke 10:27. Some Arians and Arminians, John Geysteranus at the synod of Dort, have said blasphemously, That there was concupiscence and a will repugnant to God's will in the second Adam, as in the first. But this they spoke against the consubstantiality and deity of the Son of God. To which we say,

Asser. 1. Jesus Christ, that holy thing, Luke 1:35 was a fit high priest, holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, Heb. 7:26. Which of you (saith Christ to the Jews) convinceth me of sin? John 8:46. There could not be a spot in this Lamb sacrificed for the sins of the world, no prick in this rose, no cloud in this fair sun, no blemish in this beautiful well beloved.

Asser. 2. An absolute, resolved will or desire of heart, to lust after that which God forbiddeth in his law, must be a sinful jarring between the creature's and the Creator's will. Now Christ's will was conditional, and clearly submissive; it lay ever level with his Father's holy will.

Asser. 3. I shall not with some affirm, that which in the general is true, a will contrary to God's revealed command and will, called Voluntas signi, which is our moral rule to oblige us, is a sin; but a will contrary to God's decree, called Voluntas bene placidi, which is not our rule-obliging, except the Lord be pleased to impose it on us, as a moral law, is not a sin. Peter and the apostles, after they heard that prophecy of their denying of Christ, and their being sinfully scandalized, and their forsaking of Christ, when the shepherd was smitten, were obliged to have a will contrary to that decree, and to pray that they might not be led into temptation, but might have grace to confess their Saviour before men, and not flee, nor be scattered: here is a resolute will of men lawfully contrary to the revealed decree of God; yet not sinful. But the Lord's will that Christ should die for man, as it was a decree of the wife and most gracious Lord, pitying loft man, so was it also a revealed commandment to Christ, that he should be willing to die, and be obedient to the death, even the death of the cross; Phil. 2:8. Yea, a rule of such humble obedience, as we are obliged to follow; as is said, verse 5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, &c. If the Lord's will that Christ should die, be nothing but his mere decree, it could not oblige us in the like case to be willing, as John faith, To lay down our life for the brethren. Yea, John 10:18. Christ hath a commandments of God, and the revealed will of God, to die for us; No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, I have power to take it again: this commandment have I received of my Father. Here is an express commandment given to Christ, to die for sinners; and the Father loveth Christ for obedience to this commandment.

Asser. 4. A conditional and a submissive desire, though not agreeable to a positive law and commandment of God, is no sin; nor doth the law require a conformity in all our inclinations, and the first motions of our desires, to every command of God, tho' most contrary to nature, and our natural and sinless inclinations.

1. If God command Abraham to kill his only begotten son, and offer him in a sacrifice to God, which was a mere positive commandment; for 'tis not a command of the law of nature (nor any other than positive) for the father to kill the son; if yet Abraham retain a natural inclination and love, commanded also in the law of nature, to save his son's life, and to desire that he may live: this desire and inclination, tho' contradictory to a positive command of God, is no sin; because the fifth command, grounded on the law of nature, doth command it. Nor did God's precept (Abraham, kill now thy son, even Isaac thine only begotten son) ever include this, Abraham, root out of thine heart all desire and inclination natural in a father to preserve the life of the child. So the positive command of the Father, that the Son of God should lay down his life for his sheep, did never root out of the sinless nature of the man Christ a natural desire to preserve his own being and life, especially he desiring it with special reservation of the will of God commanding that he should die.

2. A martyr, dying for the truth of Christ, may have a natural and conditional desire and inclination to live tho' his living be contrary to the Lord's revealed will, commanding him to seal the gospel with his blood, and to confess Christ before men.

If the brother, son, daughter, wife or friend, that is as a man's own soul, Deut. 13:6. blaspheme God; yea, if father or mother do it, Deut. 33:8, 9 yet is a father obliged to stone the son or daughter; the son being a magistrate, or a Levite and priest, to judge according to law, (the priests lips should preserve knowledge, Mal. 2:8) that his father or mother ought to be stoned to death; yet ought not father or son to lay aside the natural desire of being and life to son, father, brother, which the law of nature in the fifth command doth require; especially the desire being conditional, with submission to God's will, as the desire of Christ is here: and the command to stone the blasphemer, that the father stone the son, the son the father, being positive, and tho' founded on the law of nature, that a man prefer his Lord Creator and God before son, or father and mother, yet are they not precepts of the law of nature, such as is the precept of nature, that a man desire his own life and being, the father the life and being of the son.

Asser. 5. The apparent opposition (for it is not real) is rather between Christ's sensitive and his sinless mere natural desire and affection, and his reasonable will, than his will, and the will of God: nor can any say there is a fight or jarring between the conditional desire of Christ, subjected, in the same act of praying, to the Lord's decree, and the resolute and immutable will of God. The law of God, because holy and spiritual, doth require a conformity between all the inclinations and motions of our soul, and the law of nature; but an absolute conformity between all our inclinations and every positive command of God, such as was the Lord's command that Christ should die for sinners, is not required in the law of God. If Adam submit his natural hunger or desire to eat of the forbidden tree, to God's law, and eat not, there is no sinful jarring between his will and God's positive law, Thou shalt not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

It becomes us, as Christ's example goeth before us, to submit in the hardest and most bloody providences, to the straight and holy will of God. 1. Christ professeth he hath no will divided from God's will; he layeth down his glory, his heaven, his life, his fruition of the sweet influence of an highest vision, love, presence, feeling of God in a personal union, at the feet of God, that the Lord may carve and cut add dispose of him, and his blood, as he thought good. 2. All the difficulty in us, in whom dwelleth a body of sin, is to answer the objections that flesh and blood hath against a sad providence; which I will labour to do, and then give some rules for direction.

Ob. 1. This is a bloody and rough way that the Lord leadeth his people, that they drink wormwood and gall of blood, and not tears only.

Answ. Providence is full of mysteries; let the way be shame, the crown is glory; and the present condition be hell, the end is heaven: providence is a hand-writing of mercy, tho' we cannot ever read it, more than Belshazzar could read his bill of justice. We see a woman with child, but cannot tell whether it be a living or a dead birth she shall bring forth; or whether the child shall be base and poor, or honourable and renowned, ere he die. The births in the womb of providence are invisible to us; out of the ashes of a burnt and destroyed church, the Lord raiseth up a phenix, a king's daughter, a princess that shall rule the nations with a rod of iron, a Zion that hath the strength of an unicorn; yea, Jacob's seed shall be in many waters, his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted: God brought him out of Egypt, Num. 24:7, 8. Christ breweth the water of life, out of drink of gall, wormwood, and blood; if the head be gold, as Christ is, the body cannot without great incongruity be base clay.

Ob. 2. But all go wrong, confusion and vastation lie on the people of God.

Answ. To him who sitteth on the throne, and gives law and judgment to the most unconstant things imaginable, the waves of the sea, and orders them, and rules a sea of glass, a brittle and frail thing, and a sea of most unnatural confusions, a sea mingled with fire, nothing can be out of order; hell, the beast and dragon that make war with the Lamb, the laying waste the holy city, the killing of the witnesses, are all orderly means, ranked by the Lord, whose armies cannot reel, nor spill their march; when he draws them up to the execution of his wife decrees, the confusion is to our eye; but judgment, law and order there are, tho' not visible to us. Who can pull him out of his invisible and high throne of wisdom, counsel and power? It may be, be sits not always on his throne of justice.

Ob. 3. 'But what a providence is it, that those that open their mouth against heaven, are fat, and shine, and prosper; and those that fear God, are plagued every day, and killed all the day long, and counted as sheep for the slaughter?'

Answ. 1. Offend not against the generation of the children of God, as if it were lost labour, and as good to sow wheat in the sea, as serve the Lord, and walk mournfully before him: you see their work, but not their wages. 2. It is painful to trace providence in all its ways, circuits, bout-gates, lines, turnings. But, 3. Surely in the end God turneth the tables, he maketh all odds equal, the empty bucket goeth down, the full cometh up. 4. The Lord hath set the wicked in a chair of gold, but on the top of a house, and rolling stone above the mouth of a pit ten hundred fathom deep: this is a jogging and slippery condition. 5. They slip away to eternity and to hell in a moment. 6. Their happiness is a golden dream, Psalm 73:12, 13, &c.

Ob. 'Means fail, men change, creatures are weak.'

Answ. So long as Christ changeth not, and your head liveth, and steereth the helm of heaven and earth, all must be well. If all life, all health, and so much as eternal life be in the head, how can the heart ake or quake, except it first create, and then fancy fears, and do not really suffer.

Ob. 5. 'Our kingdom's strength is gone, we cannot subsist.'

Answ. Col. 1:17, 18. In Christ all things subsist, be is the head of the body the church. Faith is the substance; Budeus, the boldness and fortitude; Beza, the firm and constant expectation; the Syrian and Arabian, the confident gloriation of, or in things hoped for, and a convincing light and evidence of things not seen. There is good reason to believe that God will lift up a fallen people, who desire to fear him, and wait for his help.

Ob. 6. They plow upon Christ's back, and make long and deep furrows on Israel from her youth, Psal. 129:3.

Answ. True, plowing is a work of hope; but have you not seen enemies digging a grave for Christ, and preparing a coffin for him ere he be dead? and they have been fain to fill up the living man's grave; and they plow, but Christ cometh in and soweth joy in the hot furrow, and reaps the crop, and the quiet fruits of righteousness. The enemies plant, but the vintage is Christ's; One sows, but another reaps.

Ob. 7. 'But the souls under the altar do cry to God, and their blood is not avenged: their blood, and their graves in their kind, make supplications before the throne for justice, yet the enemies prosper.'

Answ. Hath not the Lord appointed a time for fighting and suffering, and a time for triumphing, when these that have gotten the victory over the beast, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God, singing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb: There was a time when the Lamb did weep, and in the days of his flesh, offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death. Rev. 15:3; Heb. 5:7. It is a sin to carve a date of our own for justice.

Ob. 8. 'But he delays his coming.'

Answ. 'But he is not slack, as some count slackness.' If general justice to a world must be measured by thousands of years, as but one day to God; particular judgments may have hundred of years: and when the saints are killed, Christ surviveth them, to redeem them from blood and disgrace; when they are dead, when their cause is judged, and they rotten into powder in the grave, they are redeemed, even when the souls under the altar are avenged on their murderers.

Ob. 9. 'It stumbleth many, that wicked men are fat, and their faces shine, as if God were with them.'

Answ. If they be fat on common mercies, the more shame to the saints, if they be not fat, and their bones green as an herb, upon the same fare, and the same mercies, perfumed with Christ; and there is more fatness and marrow in the higher than in the lower house. Saints are lean through their own unbelief.

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