The Son of man came to seek and to save

The Son of man came to seek and to save

The Son of man came to seek and to save

The fifth particular is touching the faith required of the elect, and of the reprobate, within the visible church: which ere I enter in, let this one necessary doctrine, clearing that point much, be observed; that if Christ draw all men to him,

Doctrine, "He must have a singular and special good-will and liking to save sinners, in that strongly and seriously, he draweth all sorts of men to himself.

1. The promises and good-will of Christ are not concluded or locked up, as touching the revealed damnation of any sort of persons: Christ is no ingrosser, and never loved to make a monopoly of grace; he sets down his will in positive comfortable positions, John 6:39. This is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but raise it up at the last day. John 5:24. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth in him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall never come to condemnation.

2. Christ had so good mind to save, that, 1. He did not send only, but the King came in person, 1 Tim. 1:15; Luke 19:10. The Son of man came to seek and to save, &c. 2. He cried not afar off, but came near-hand to draw; he came so near as within the reach of his arm to save us. 3. When a rope is cast down to prisoners in a pit, if it come not within the compass of their reach, and if it be too far for a short arm, it can do no good for the help of the prisoner; therefore he came below us, and under all our infirmities, to put his shoulders under the lost sheep, Luke 15:5. Love must sweat, and stoop low, to save.

3. Christ's good-will is held forth in as large terms, having the Lord's liberty of election and reprobation, as can be; and that in six wide expressions, that no man should complain, Oh, I am a dry tree, because we are inclined to forge forced quarrels against the Lamb of God, as if he loved not us; and 'tis an answer to those that naturally complain of absolute election; as, 1. The weakest are readiest to move doubts.

Object. 1. "I am sinful, and sinfully sick, and I have jealousies of the physician."

Answ. The Physician came to force himself on the sick, Mat. 9:12, 13. Sick of body, are often sick of mind, and passions of the soul rise with humours of the body; the sick are soon angry and jealous. Christ saith, he hath a tender soul for a sick sinner.

Object. 2. "But I have little grace or goodness."

Ans. I, Can ye have less (saith Christ) than a reed? 'tis far below a tree and a cedar; and I will not break a reed. But a broken reed is out of hope, it cannot do any more good; a reed is weak, but a broken reed, sure, can never grow: yea, but he cannot break the bruised reed, but pours in oil at the root of the broken reed, and makes it green, and causeth it to blossom. So the fire or light in flax must be less than the fire in timber or wood; but he will not throw water on flax that hath fire, yea, nor on smoking flax, that seems to have fire, and hath but smoke.

Object. 3. "A broken bone in a living man may be splinted and cured; but the heart is ultimum moriens, the last thing of life; if it be broken, the man is gone; he dies, when the last seat of life, the heart, is broken." Yea, but saith Christ, I can bind up the broken heart, Isa. 61:1; Psal. 147:3.

Object. 4. "If the man be dead and buried, then farewell he, there is an end, no more of him." Yea, but Christ, 2 Cor. 1:9; John 5:25. Raiseth the dead, and giveth life to dry bones, Ezek. 37.

2. Some fear they have nothing but an empty profession.

Answ. Then the scripture holdeth forth the promises to visible saints, 2 Cor. 7:1. Can ye come in among the crowd of visible saints? This is preached to all within the wide gospel-net, and Christ's visible court, Whosoever believeth, shall be saved, John 3:16; Rom. 10:9; John 5:24.

3. Say thou canst not come so near as visible professors, but thou art nothing but a publican and a sinner, and that may be thought to be without Christ's line of mercy; yet, 1 Tim. 1:15. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Be what thou wilt, as unbelief estrangeth a sinner far enough from Christ, thou mayest claim blood and kin to a sinner; then Christ came to call sinners, and to save sinners. Canst thou deny thyself to be a sinner?

4. Canst thou crowd in amongst the We, that are the godly party? There is here room for thee, not to cast off Christ, but that thou mayest let out a warm look, and half an hope thou mayst be one of his; the gospel-grammar is fair and sweet. Art not thou amongst an Us, that there may be hope? 1 John 4:9. In this was the love of God toward us, because God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

5. The scripture casts out a longer rope yet, that thou mayest reach to Christ. Art thou not a man? If thou be not a sinner, nor a visible saint, nor a bruised reed, thou art one of mankind; see, the gospel will not have thee to despair, or to foment and harbour strange and far off thoughts of Christ, Tit. 3:4. But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour, to man appeared —— he saved us. 1 Tim. 2:3. God our Saviour will have [Gr. pántas anthropous sothênai] all men to be saved.

6. The farthest from Christ, must be creatures that are nothing, but bits of the world; now the name world, is a srameder and a farther-off word, than the name of man, or sinners, 'tis the farthest off word; for fallen angels are members and citizens of the world, therefore the gospel is preached to the world: Christ is brought in in the gospel, as a world-lover; as if he were a whole world-saviour, He takes away the sins of the world, John 1:29. He so loves the world, John 3:16. He giveth his flesh for the life of the world, John 6:51.

In this grammar of the Holy Ghost, observe we, by the way, for resolution, The wisdom of God, in framing the words of the gospel. It cannot be said that God loved all the world, in Christ his beloved; and all, and every sinner, and all the race of mankind. Yet, laying down this ground, that God keepeth up in his mind, the secrets of election and reprobation, till he, in his own time, be pleased to reveal them; the Lord hath framed the gospel-offer of Christ in such indefinite words, and so general (yet without all double-dealing, lying, or equivocating; for his own good pleasure is a rule both of his doings and speeches.) As, 1. seldom doth the Lord open election and reprobation to men, till they, by grace, or in the order of his justice, open both the one and the other, in their own ways; and therefore he holdeth out the offer of Christ, so as none may cavil at the gospel, or begin a plea with Christ. 2. Seldom doth the gospel speak, who they be that are elect, who reprobate; yet doth the gospel offer no ground of presuming on the one hand, or of despairing on the other. For if thou be not a believer, nor a weak reed, nor a saint, yet thou art a sinner; if not that, thou art a man; if not that, thou art one of the world: and tho' the affirmative conclude not, I am a sinner, I am a man, I am one of the world, but it followeth not, therefore I am elected to glory, or, Ergo, I am ransomed of the Lord; Yet the negative, touching reprobation, holdeth, I am a sinner, I am of the world, I am a man; hence it followeth not, therefore I am a reprobate, and therefore I have warrant to refuse the promise, and Christ offered in the gospel. It followeth well therefore, I must be humbled for sin, and believe in Christ. There is room left for all the elect, that they have no ground of standing aloof from Christ, (and the rest never come, and most willingly refuse to come) nor have the reprobate ground to quarrel at the decrees of God; tho' they be not chosen, yet they are called, as if they were chosen; and they have no cause to quarrel at conjectures, they have as fair a revealed warrant to believe, as the elect have; they are men, sinners of the world, to whom Christ is offered: why refuse they him upon an unrevealed warrant?

4. The fourth ground of Christ's good-will to draw all men, is, That Christ goeth as far in the dispensation of free-grace, as sinners, as the chief of sinners; grace journeys all along, and can go no further than hell and damnation, Luke 19:10. The Son of man came to seek and to save that which is lost; as if Christ would say, Is any man a sinner? (and who are not?) and a lost sinner? See and behold, I am a Saviour for that man. Christ went as low down to hell, in the freedom of grace, to save, as Zaccheus, in evil-doing, to destroy. Mary Magdalene, went as far on toward hell, as seven devils; grace in Christ went as far on, as to redeem from seven devils. Manasseh, as if he had intended to make sure work for hell, runs on to empawn soul and salvation, and gives himself to witchcraft, observing of times, to cause the streets of Jerusalem run with blood, to all abominable idolatry: mercy in the Lord went as near hell to save him. Paul goeth so far on the mouth of the furnace, as to waste the church of God, and [Gr. lumainein] Acts 8:3 to make heaps of dead men in the church, and there came nothing out of his nostrils for breathing and respiration, Acts 9:1 but threatnings, that is, ripe purposes of blood; yea, murdering of the saints came out of his mouth, with every word he spoke: but Christ's free-grace pursues him hard, and outruns him. 1 Tim. 1:14. And the grace of our Lord, (saith he) was more, or over-abundant in me, through faith and love. Jer. 3:1. And thou hast played the harlot with many companions, or lovers; yet return to me, saith the Lord. 'Tis here, as if Christ's rich grace, and our extreme wickedness should strive, who should descend to the lowest room is hell, the latter to destroy, the former to save; and here Christ desires the sinner to be more wicked, than he can be gracious.

5. Christ in the gospel, as a great conqueror, sends our writs signed under his excellency's hand, come and meet me, who will, and be saved: as far as graced will can go, as far goeth the good-will of the conquering Prince, Rev. 22:17. 'Tis much worthy of observation, how that sweet evangelic invitation is conceived, Isa. 55:1. Ho, every one that thirsts; the Heb. word, Hui, is alas, or ah, every one that thirsts, come to the waters; and he that hath no silver, come, buy, and eat; as if the Lord were grieved, and said, Wo is me, alas, that thirsty souls should die in their thirst, and will not come to the water of life, Christ, and drink gratis, freely and live. For the interjection, [Heb. Hui.] Ho, is a mark of sorrowing; as ah, or wo; every one that thirsts, Isa. 1:4. Ah sinful nation; or wo [Heb. Hui]. to the sinful nation. Verse 24. Ah, I will ease me, or alas, [Heb. Hui] I will ease me of my adversaries. Jer. 22:18. They shall not say of Jehoiakim, Ho, or alas, or wo to my brother, ah sister. It expresseth two things, 1. A vehemence, and a serious and unfeigned ardency of desire, that we do what is our duty; and the concatenation of these two, extremely desired of God, our coming to Christ, and our salvation: this moral connection between faith and salvation, is desired of God with his will of approbation, complacency, and moral liking, without all dissimulation, most unfeignedly. And whereas Arminians say, we make counterfeit, feigned, and hypocritical desires in God; they calumniate and cavil egregiously, as their custom is. 2. The other thing expressed in these invitations, is a sort of dislike, grief, or sorrow; ('tis a speech borrowed from man, for there is no disappointing of the Lord's will, nor sorrow in him for the not-fulfilling of it) or an earnest nilling and hating dislike, that these two should not go along, as approved efficaciously by us, to wit, the creatures obedience of faith, and life eternal. God loveth, approveth the believing of Jerusalem, and of her children, as a moral duty, as the hen doth like to warm and nourish her chickens; and he hateth, with an exceeding and unfeigned dislike of improbation and hatred, their rebellious disobedience, and refusing to be gathered: but there is no purpose, intention, or decree of God holden forth in these invitations called his revealed will, by which he saith, he intendeth and willeth that all he maketh the offer unto, shall obey and be saved. But 'tis to be observed, that the revealed will of God, holden forth to all, called voluntas signi, doth not hold forth formally, that God intendeth, decreeth, or purposeth in his eternal counsel, that any man shall actually obey, either elect or reprobate; it formally is the expression only of the good liking of that moral and duty conjunction between the obedience of the creature, and the reward; but holdeth forth not any intention or decree of God, that any shall obey, or that all shall obey, or that none at all shall obey. And what Arminians say of Christ's intention to die for all, and every one; and of the Lord's intention and catholic good-will, to save all and every one; to wit, That these desires may be in God, tho' not any be saved at all, but all eternally perish; which maketh the Lord's desires irrational, unwise and frustraneous: that we say with good reason of God's good-will, called voluntas signi, it might have its complete and entire end and effect, tho' not any one of men or angels obey, if there were not going along with this will of God, another will, and eternal decree and purpose in God, of working by free-grace in some chosen ones, what the Lord willeth in his approving will; and another decree, in the which the Lord proposeth to deny his saving grace, upon his absolute liberty, to others; that being left to the hardness of their own hearts, they may freely disobey, and be the sole authors of their own damnation. Now, because Arminians deny any such two decrees in God, but assert only such as depend wholly, in their fulfilling, on the free will of men and angels, and all the decrees of God may be frustrated and disappointed by men and angels; as if the poor short sighted creature, not the sovereign Creator, were carver and Lord of the decrees, and master of work in fulfilling of these counsels. We reject their catholic intentions and decrees, to save and redeem all and everyone, which they vainly fancy to be God; as repugnant to his will which is irresistible, and cannot miss its end. 2. To his immutability, which cannot be compelled to take a second port, whereas he cannot fail the first. 3. To his omnipotency, who cannot be resisted. 4. To his happiness, who cannot come short of what his soul desires. 5. To his wisdom, who cannot aim at an end, and desire it with his soul, and go about it, by such means, as he seeth shall be utterly uneffectual, and never produce his end; and not use these means, which he knoweth may, and infallibly doth, produce the same end in others. Now this desire of approbation is an abundantly sufficient closing of the mouth of such as stumble at the gospel, being appointed thereunto; and an expression of Christ's good-liking to save sinners expressed in his borrowed wishes, Deut. 5:29. O that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep my commandments! Psalm 81:13. O that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel walked in my ways! Which wish, as relating to disobeying Israel, is a figure, or metaphor borrowed from men, but otherwise sheweth how acceptable the duty is to God, how obligatory to the creature. 2. By the Lord's expostulations, Ezek. 18:31. Why will ye die, O house of Israel? Verse 32. For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies. 3. In the Lord's crying to sinners. Prov. 1:20. Wisdom cries, she uttereth her voice in the streets. The Hebrew word, rinnah, is to cry with strong shouting, either for joy, Psalm. 81:2 or sorrow, Lam. 2:19 which expresseth Christ's desire to save sinners.

6. For the ground and warrant of Christ's willingness to save and draw sinners, do but consider, 1. The words of the text, I will draw all men to me; It is as if he would say, I will baulk no nation, nor any man, upon a national respect; the first covenant to the Jews, suffered a mighty exception. What, is God the God of the Jews only? Have all the nations of the earth done with their part of heaven and salvation, but only the narrow trinket, and bit of the earth, in poor little Judea? This made the gospel despised, and liable to sad and heavy calumnies; Christ must have narrow bowels, and must be ebb, short, and thin, in free grace, if the matter be so. Nay, but Christ hath mercy for all men; I will draw all men, that is, multitudes of Jews and Gentiles: for, that Christ draweth all and every one without exception, and that by his death, is against scripture, and experience; but he hath an all that he draws, Tit. 2:11. The grace of God appeared to all men [Gr. pâsas anthropois] what grace? the teaching grace of God, that teacheth us to wait for the blessed hope, and the appearance of the glory, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ: sure, this must be the preached gospel: now, the gospel, by scripture, experience, consent of Arminians, never appeared, in the least sound, to all and every son of Adam; then Christ must have another all, a fair and numerous multitude, whom he saves and draws; and this saith, he had a good will to save all, and that his elect ones believe, Rev. 5:11. And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, v. 12. Saying, Worthy is the Lamb. Rev. 7:9. After this, I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palms in their hands. It is true, in civil assemblies and judicatures, Christ hath a few number; yet he hath a fair and numerous offspring of children, and when they are gathered together, they are a fair beloved world. In the Hebrew many and great, are often one and the same. As one ruby is worth ten hundred, one sapphire worth thousands of common stones; so, one saint is more than ten thousand wicked men: then all together they must be an all, a world, a whole world of ransomed ones, hidden ones, Psal. 83:4. of the Lord's jewels, Mal. 3:17 and of Christ's precious ones, Isa. 43:4 they are the flower, and the choice of mankind.

2. Christ is willing to take away all heart-exceptions of unbelief from men: as, 1. "Can God be born of a woman, to save men, not angels?" Believe it, saith the Lord's Spirit with a sort of oath, Heb. 2:16. Verily, he took on him the seed of Abraham, not the nature of angels. Halt not at Christ's man-kindness, and not angel-love, to the excellenter child by nature, the angel when he fell: and it is to remove our doubts, that God is brought in promising, and swearing the covenant; Christ is a sworn covenanter, Heb. 6:13. When God made promise to Abraham; because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself. Ezek. 33. The people slandred the Lord, he delighted so to have the people pine away in their iniquities, that he would punish them for no fault; but the children's teeth should be set on edge, for the sins of the father, and the grapes that they ate not themselves. The Lord answers that calumny, Ezek. 18 and here, As I live, I delight not (so as you slanderously, and blasphemously say) in the death of a sinner; by my life, I desire you may repent and live; nor have I pleasure to punish innocent men, for no sin at all.

And the second exception is, "But Christ's heart is not engaged with a heart-burning purpose, or desire to save man; the purpose of saving came upon him but yesterday." Yea, but (saith Christ) it was not a yesterday's business, but was contrived from eternity, Prov. 8 before the Lord made sea, or land, v. 30. I was by him as one brought up (as a son nourished) with him, I was daily (when there was neither night nor day) his delight, rejoicing in the habitable earth, and my delights were with the sons of men. Two words express Christ's old and eternal love to men, his delights were with the sons of men. As Christ was his Father's delight, from eternity; so was Christ feasting himself on the thoughts of love, delight, and free-grace to men; sure not to Pharaoh, Judas, and all the race of the wicked, and with such a love as (if free-will please) should never enjoy one son of Adam. 2. I was (saith Christ) playing and sporting, in the habitable earth; the Hebrew word schahak, is to play in a dance. It is, 2 Sam. 6:21 spoken of David's dancing before the ark; & 1 Sam. 18:7. The women in Israel playing, answered one another in their songs. It holds forth this, that it resolves the question, that Augustine loosed to a curious head, asking what the Lord was doing before the world was; he was delighting in his Son Christ, and the thoughts of the Lord Jesus, in that long and endless age, were solacing him; and they were skipping, and passing time, in loving and longing for the fellowship of lost men; and since God was God, (O boundless duration!) the Lord Jesus, in a manner, was loving, and longing for the dawning of the day of the creation, and his second coming again to judgment; the marriage-day of union with sinners. Christ was (as it were) from eternity with child of infinite love to man; and in time, in the fulness of time, it blossomed forth, and the birth came out, in a high expression of love; the man-child, the love of Christ was born, and saw the light, Gal. 4:4; Tit. 3:4 when Christ was ripe of love, to bring forth free salvation; glory, glory to the womb and the birth!

And a third exception is, "But sinners disobliged Christ, and provoked him as his enemies: can it be, that in time, seeing how undeserving we were, he could heartily and seriously die for man, offer himself to all? God may have mercy on the work of his hand, but he cannot have mercy on sinners."

Answ. 1. It is true, the gospel is contrary to nature, and not one article more thwarteth and crosseth carnal wisdom, than that of imputed righteousness; that crosseth moral philosophy so much, as we can more easily believe the raising of the dead, or any the greatest miracle, the drying up of the Red-sea, than believe the gospel; for we believe the gospel for miracles as motives, not as causes of faith, not miracles for the gospel; and if at the first we believe the gospel for miracles, then we naturally rather believe miracles, & the dividing of the Red-sea, and the raising of the dead, than we can believe that Christ came to die for sinners.

2. Consider with what a strong good-will Christ died, Luke 9:51. And it came to pass, when his time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. He hardned his face, he emboldned himself to go to Jerusalem to suffer; he mended his pace, and went more swiftly, with a strong fire of love, to expend his blood. Luke 12:50. I have a baptism to be baptized with, [Gr. kai pôs synechómai] how am I fettered or besieged (as the word is used, Luke 19:43) till it be perfected?

3. What could move Christ to lie and fancy? Were his weeping and tears counterfeit? Were his dying, bleeding, sweating, pain, sorrow, shame, but all shews for the market, and to take the people? Isa. 53:4. [Heb. achen] Surely, really, he bare our sorrows.

4. His offer must be real, John 7:37 for with vehemency he speaks [Gr. eistéke kai ekraxe] He stood and shouted in the temple, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. Here is a dear fountain to all thirsty souls, and most free: Christ thirsteth and longeth to have thirsty sinners come gratis and drink.

"But I doubt he bears not me in particular at good will; are the promises made for me? Did he love me before the world was? Did Christ dying intend salvation for me?"

This doubt draweth us to the fifth particular, (that so I may hasten to the uses) which is, what sort of faith it is that God requireth of all within the visible church, for the want whereof reprobates are condemned.

Asser. 1. Saving faith, required of all within the visible church, is not, as Antinomians conceive, the apprehension of God's everlasting love of election to glory of all and every one that are charged to believe. Saltmarsh, in an ignorant and confused treatise, tells us, "To believe now, is the only work of the gospel,—that is, That ye be persuaded of such a thing, that Christ was crucified for sins, and for your sins. —— So as salvation is not a business of our working, and doing, it was done by Christ with the Father. —— All our work is no work of salvation, but in salvation we receive all, not doing any thing, that we may receive more; but doing because we receive so much, we and because we are saved; and yet we are to work as much, as if we were to be saved by what we do, because we should do as much, by what is done already for us, and to our hands, as if we were to receive it for what we did ourselves: so here is short work, (saith the man*) believe and be saved —— There are yet these grounds why salvation is so soon done, 1. Because it was done before by Christ, but not believed on before, by thee, till now. 2. Because it is the gospel way of dispensation, to assure, and pass over salvation in Christ, to any that will believe it. 3. There needs no more on our side to work or warrant salvation to us, but to be persuaded that Jesus Christ died for us, because Christ hath suffered, and God is satisfied; now suffering and satisfaction is that great work of salvation." And the man† taking on him to determine controversies of Arminians touching the extent of free grace, whether Christ died for all, (in which questions I dare make apology for his innocency, that he is not guilty of wading too deep in them) he would father on the reformed churches of Protestant Divines, that we make this a rational way of justice, "That God will meerly and arbitrarily damn men, because he will, so as God hath put every one under a state of redemption and power of salvation; and they are damned, not from their own will, but from God's." The opinion by Arminians is fathered upon that apostolic light of the church of Christ, eminent and divine Calvin; and Saltmarsh will but second them, that he may appear a star in the firmament, with others of some great magnitude.

But (saith he*) the other way is, "Christ died only for his, but is offered to all, that is, who are amongst this all, might believe; and tho' he died not for all, yet none are excepted," (that is, as he saith, all and every one to whom Christ is preached, elect or reprobate are to be persuaded that Christ died for them in particular) "and yet none are excepted but they that believe, and none believe but they to whom it is given." And having shown some dreams of his own touching these controversies, he concludeth with a truth I believe easily, "Thus have I opened, tho' weakly, the mystery." Weakly, but wilfully and daringly.

But faith is formally no such persuasion, as to be persuaded, every man is loved with an everlasting love, chosen and redeemed in Christ; for it changeth the whole gospel in a lie, Christ obligeth no man to believe an untruth: now, all are charged to believe in the Son of God, and elect and reprobate (as there be of both forts within the net of the kingdom) are not loved with an everlasting love, nor did Christ die for them all.

2. 'Tis meer presumption, not faith, that all hypocrites, fleshly men, slaves to their lusts, idolaters, covetous men, remaining such, never broken with any law-work, should immediately believe Christ is their Saviour, died for them, and the Father loved them to salvation, before the world was. True it is, before a sinner believe, he is an unpardoned, an ungodly and guilty sinner; but that he is broken, yea, or unconverted before he believe, (I speak of order of nature) 'tis as impossible, as that a thistle can bring forth sigs; for then he should believe, having no new heart in him, which is the only principle of faith.

3. 'Tis a more ingenuous opinion, that Christ died for all and every one, tho' it have no truth in itself, than to hold that he died for the elect only, and yet oblige men (as Antinomians do) against their conscience to believe he died for all and every one that are in the practice of believing.

4. He that believeth not, maketh God a liar; then that which is to be believed, must be an evangelic truth.

5. Faith layeth bands on all within the visible church, to be knit together in love, unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ, Col. 2:1, 2 to be persuaded that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ, Rom. 8:37, 38, 30. To full assurance, Heb. 10. without wavering or declining or bowing like a tottering wall. Now, sure all and every one of the visible church, to whom the command of believing comes, reprobate or elect, are not holden to have a full assurance that they are chosen in Christ to salvation, and redeemed in his blood.

Asser. 2. The object of saving faith, required of all within the visible church, is, 1. Christ's faithfulness to save believers, Heb. 10:23. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; and the apostle backs it with an argument, that saving faith must lean upon, (for he is faithful that hath promised) and Paul, 1 Cor. 1:9 presseth the same, God is faithful, by whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

2. We do not read in the Old or New Testament, that the decree, purpose, or intention of God to save and redeem persons in particular, is the object of that saving faith required in the gospel. For the second object of this faith is the truth and goodness of that mother-promise of the gospel, John 3:16 and 5:25 that gospel-record, 1 John 5:10, 11, 12. He that believeth, hath life eternal; and Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, 1 Tim. 1:15. To seek and to save the lost, Luke 19:10. That he came to save me in particular, is apprehended by sense, not by faith; for the election of me by name to glory, and the Lord's intention to die for me, is neither promise, nor precept, nor threatning; if it be a history that I must believe, 'tis Good, shew me histories of particular men now to be believed, except of the Antichrist, the second coming of Jesus Christ to judge the world. Election to glory is not held forth as a promise, If ye do this, ye shall be elected to glory; nor is the contrary holden forth as a threatning, If ye believe not, ye shall be reprobated; nor does the Lord command me to be chosen in Christ to salvation, before the foundation of the world; nor doth he command all men within the visible church to believe they are chosen to salvation, or that any one elect person should believe a thing as revealed, which is not revealed. When he is pleased to give to any elect person the white stone, and the new name, and to give him faith, by which he chuseth Christ for his portion, he is then, and never till then, to believe; or rather by spiritual sense to apprehend that he is chosen to salvation from eternity. So election is neither precept, nor promise, but a truth of God's gracious good-will and pleasure hid in God's mind, till he be pleased to reveal it by the fruits thereof.

There can be no such imaginable double-dealing in the world, as Arminians lay upon God: for they make the Lord to say thus, as imagine a king should speak to twenty thousand captives, "I have a good-will, purpose, hearty intention, and earnest desire to make you all and every one free princes; and I pray, wish, obtest, and beseech you subscribe such a writ of grace for that end, but I only can lead your hand at the pen, and give you eyes to see, and a willing heart to consent to your own happiness; and if you refuse to sign the bill of grace, you shall be tormented for ever and ever in a river of fire and brimstone: again, I have a like good-will to my own justice, and purpose so to carry on the design, as that sixteen thousand of you shall have the benefit of my hand, or of one finger to lead your hand at the pen, or any efficacious motion to act upon your will, to obtain your consent to subscribe the writ: yea, by the contrary, though I, of exceeding great free-love, will, intend, decree, and purpose you be all princes of glory; yet I purpose that these sixteen thousand, whose salvation and happiness I extremely desire, shall for their former rebellion, which I with the like desire of spirit could, and I only might have removed, never be moved to consent to this bill of grace." Now, were not this the outside of a good-will? And should not this prince be said rather to will and desire the destruction of these sixteen thousand, and not their honour and happiness.

Asser. 3. This is the mystery of the gospel in which I must profess ignorance; and that the Lord's thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor his ways as our ways: he hath by preaching of the gospel, engaged thousand thousands within the visible church, to the duty of their fiducial adherence and heart-resting in Christ, as they would be saved; and yet hath the Lord never purposed to work their hearts (and he only can do it) to this heart-resting in Christ by faith, nor hath he purchased either remission of sins or pardon for them. If any object, How can Christ in equity judge and condemn them for not believing pardon and salvation in his blood, when as neither pardon nor salvation are purchased in this blood to them, nor purposeth he to give them faith? Yet we may plead for the Lord: we conceive of the decree of God, as of a deep policy and a stratagem and snare laid for us; whereas the Lord lies not in wait for our ruin, nor carries he on a secret design in the gospel to destroy men. If Christ should say in the gospel-precepts, promises, or threatnings, I decree, purpose, and intend to redeem all and every man; but I purpose to carry on the design so, as the far greatest part of mankind inevitably shall be lost; it should be a stratagem: but the gospel, as the gospel, revealeth not any decree or intention of God, touching the salvation or damnation of men, intended from eternity; indeed, the gospel, as obeyed or disobeyed, reveals God's intentions and decrees; the gospel revealeth nothing but the Lord's complacency, approbation, and good-liking of the sweet connexion between faith and salvation; the just contentation between unbelief, disobedience, and eternal damnation: so the gospel reveals duties, but not the persons saved, or damned; the Lord's working with the gospel, or the efficacy of the gospel (which is a far other thing) reveals the persons.

Now the difficulty is, How the Lord can command the reprobate to believe life and salvation in Christ, when there is no life and salvation either intended to them, or purchased for them?

To which I answer, 1. God gave a law to all the angels created in the truth, If ye abide in the truth, ye shall be eternally happy: ye cannot say that the devils in that instant were to believe that God intended and decreed them for eternal happiness, and to give them efficacious grace, by which they should abide in the truth, as their fellow angels did; God's command and promise did reveal no such intention of God. So the Lord said to Adam and to all his seed, If ye keep the law perfectly, ye shall have life eternal; according to that, Do this and live: yet was not Adam then, far less these that are now under the law, to believe that God ordained them from eternity, to eternal life, legally purchased; or that any flesh should be justified by the works of the law.

Arminians tell us, That there be numbers judicially blinded and hardned within the visible church, who cannot believe, and whom the Lord hath destined for destruction; yet the word is preached to them, they hear and read the promises of the gospel, and the precepts: whether are they to believe that God intended from eternity to them salvation and grace to believe? I think not: for they teach, that Christ neither prayeth for, nor intendeth to die for the unbelieving and obstinate world as such, nor decreed their salvation. And except men may fancy senses on the words of God's Spirit; where learned they to expound the word world (when it makes for them) for all and every one of mankind; and when it makes against them, for the least part of mankind, and that either within the visible church only, or yet without the visible church? For in both, Satan's world of disobedient ones is the far greatest part, seeing the whole world lies in sin, as John saith. Let it be also remembred, when Arminians say, The Lamb of God taketh away the sins of the world, that is, of all and every mortal man, they mean Christ takes not away, nor sheddeth he his blood, for the sins of the rebellious world; so the world's rebellion, contumacy and infidelity against Christ, must be pardoned without shedding of blood: and if Christ did bear all the sins of the world on the cross conditionally, and none of them absolutely; then our act of believing must be the only nearest cause of satisfaction for sins: but why then, if Christ satisfied on the cross for the final impenitency and unbelief of the rebellious world conditionally, so they believe and be not rebellious; but Arminians should say right-down, Christ died for the rebellious and contumacious world, and he prays for the contumacious world as such, but conditionally; for he prays and dieth for the not-rebellious world of all mortal men, not absolutely, but conditionally, so they believe in Christ; if they believe not, neither the prayers of Christ, nor his death, are more effectual for them, than for devils.

To all these we may add, That the Lord, in commanding reprobates to rest on Christ for salvation, though no salvation be purchased for them, deals sincerely and candidly with them: for, First, He commands them to believe no intention in God to save them by the death of his son, nor saith he any such thing to them, but only commandeth them to rely on Christ as an all-sufficient Saviour. Secondly, God commands all the reprobate, even by their way, to believe that Christ in his death intended their salvation, justification, conversion: and yet, whereas God taketh ways effectual, and such as he foreseeth shall be effectual for the efficacious working of justification and conversion, and actual glorification of some few; yet he taketh ways which he knoweth shall be utterly ineffectual for the salvation, justification, and conversion of all these reprobates, and yet commandeth them to believe that he decrees and intendeth their salvation and conversion, with no less ardency and vehemency of serious affection, than he doth intend the salvation and conversion of all that shall be glorified. Sure this we would call double-dealing in men; and the scripture saith, He is a God of truth, Deut. 32 and the Lord who cannot lie.

Object. "If a rich inn-keeper should dig a fountain in his field for all passengers, thirsty and diseased, which were able to curethem, and quench their thirst; and invite them all to come and drink and be cured, upon condition they come and believe the virtue of the water to be such; and yet should intend and decree absolutely and irresistibly the tenth man invited, should never be cured; this inn-keeper should not deal sincerely with them. So you make God to deal with sinners in the gospel: he doth all, in inviting sick sinners to come and drink life and salvation at Christ the fountain of life, which expresseth with men who speak as they think, their sincere intention; but he intendeth no such thing."

Answ. Make the comparison run as it should do, and it maketh more against Arminians; say that this inn-keeper had dominion over the heart and will, as the Lord hath, Prov. 21:1; Psal. 119:36, 37; Heb. 13:20, 21; Mat. 6:13 and that he could and doth, without straining of the heart, work in all the passengers, a sense of their disease, grace actually to come and drink, and yet he taketh a dealing with the souls of some few, and causeth them come to the waters and drink, and healeth them, and he useth such means, and so acts upon the will of the far most part, that they shall never come, never be sensible of their disease, and yet he invites them to come to the waters and drink; 'tis clear, this inn-keeper never intended the health of all and every one of the passengers, but only of these few that come and drink; nor doth invitations with men, upon condition which the party invited is obliged to perform, but doth never perform, and which the inviter only of grace can work in the invited, but doth not work them, as being not obliged thereunto, speak any such intention.

Again, let it be considered, that here, 1. God lies in wait for no man's destruction. 2. God is not obliged to reveal his eternal purpose and intentions touching men's salvation and damnation, but in the way and manner seems best to him. 3. God never saith in all the gospel, that from eternity he hath passed a resolve to save all mankind, if they will; and to yield them the bridle on their own necks, that they may be indifferent and absolute lords of heaven and hell. 4. Nor should the gospel be framed in such wisdom, if the Lord had set down particularly the names of all the elect and reprobate in the world, and have proponed salvation upon condition of obedience and faith to some few; it should evidently have raised a hard opinion in the minds of thousands touching Christ.

Asser. 4. The third object of faith, is, the sufficiency and power of Christ to save. 1. The scripture maketh the object of coming, which is believing, John 5:40; John 6:35; Mat. 11:27 to be Christ's ability and power, Heb. 7:25 to save them to the uttermost, that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. What the scripture presseth us to believe savingly, that we must be inclined to misbelieve; and for the misbelieving thereof, the reprobates are condemned, and not because they believe not the Lord's intention to save all, or his decrees of election and reprobation. But the scripture presseth faith in the power of mercy, Rom. 4:21. Abraham staggered not, but was strong in the faith, giving glory to God, being fully perswaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. Now, Abraham is commended for that he savingly, and for his justification, believed the power of God in the gospel promise, that God was able of his mercy to give him the son of promise in his old age; otherwise, to believe simply the power of God to give a child to a mother who is past the natural date of bearing children, is but the faith of miracles, which of itself is not saving, and may be in workers of iniquity, Mat. 7:21, 22. So this power, then, is the power of saving, conjoined with the mercy and good-will of Christ. 2. The scripture holds forth to our faith the power of God to graff in the Jews again in Christ, Rom. 11:23 to make a weak believer stand, Rom. 14:4 to keep the saints from falling, and to present them faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, Jude v. 24. 3. The good land was a type of the heavenly rest, Heb. 4:1; Heb. 3:19. some entred not in through unbelief: why, what unbelief? The story sheweth us, Psalm. 93:1; Numb. 14:9; Numb. 13:28 they doubted of the power of God, and believed the report of the unbelieving spies, who said, The people be strong that dwell in the land, the cities are walled and very great, and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. Joshua and Caleb, chap. 14:9 said, They should be bread for them, and their strength was gone; then the question was, whether God was able to give them that good land? So then, men enter not into the heavenly rest, because they believe not that Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those that come through him to God, Heb. 7:23. 4. The scripture is as much in proving the all-sufficiency, power, and perfection of Christ our Saviour, to save, as in demonstrating his tenderness of mercy and good-will to save; as in the epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle laboureth much for to prove the Godhead of Christ his excellency above angels, and that the angels were to adore him; his dignity and greatness above Moses and all the mortal and dying priests; the virtue of his blood above all the bloods of bulls and goats, to purge the conscience from dead works, to expiate sin, to sanctify his people, to open a way, a new and living way to the holy of holiest, by his blood, that we with full assurance may draw near to God; that he with one sacrifice, never to be repeated, did that which all the thousands of reiterated sacrifices were never able to do; that he is no dying priest, but lives for ever to interceed for us at the right-hand of God. And for what is all this, but that we should believe the all-sufficiency of Christ to save, and because we have too low thoughts of Christ, as conceiving him to be but a man, or less than an angel, or a common priest, that can do no more by his blood, as touching remission of sins, than dying priests could do with the blood of beasts; and that he is dead, and now, when we sin, he cannot advocate for us at the right-hand of God; and that his redemption he brings in, is not eternal? Yea, all this saith, that saving faith rests upon Christ as God, as able and compleatly perfect and sufficient to save, tho' sinners do not, in the formal act of faith, believe his good-will, decree, and intention to redeem and save them by name. 5. I should think, that these who have high and precious thoughts of the grace, tender mercy, perfection and sufficiency of Christ to save all that believe, and fiducially rely on Christ as a Saviour sealed for the work of redemption, though they know not God's mind touching their own salvation in particular, have such a faith as the gospel speaks of, and do savingly believe that Christ came to seek and to save that which is lost, to save sinners; that Christ is the Son of the living God, the Saviour of mankind: and this no devil, no temporary believer, no hypocrite can attain unto.

Object. 1. "But I believe not then that I am in particular redeemed: and, without that, I am a stranger to Christ; for devils and reprobates may believe all the general promises of the gospel."

Answ. 1. 'Tis true, in that act formally you believe not you are redeemed in particular; yet virtually and by good consequence you believe your own redemption in particular, and so you are not a stranger to Christ. 2. 'Tis true, devils and reprobates may yield an assent of mind to the general promises, as true: but 'tis denied that they can rest on them as good, as worthy by all means to be embraced; or that in heart and affections they can intrust the weight and burden of their soul on these general promises, or that there is any taste of the honey and sweetness of Christ in these promises to their soul, as it is with the souls that fiducially rest upon Christ in these promises.

Object. 2. "Suppose I know of a ship offering to carry all to a land of life, where people are never sick, never die, have summer and day-light, and peace and plenty for ever, upon condition I should believe the good-will of the ship-master to carry me to that land; if I know nothing of his good-will to me in particular, I have no ground to believe I shall ever enjoy that good land: so here, if I know nothing of Christ's good-will to me, how can I believe he shall carry me to the heavenly Canaan?"

Answ. Yea, suppose, what is in question, that to be persuaded of the good-will of Christ the owner of the ship to carry you in particular, is the condition upon which he must carry you, but that is to be proved; there is no other condition, but that you rest on his good-will to carry all who so rest on him, and that is all.

Object. 3. "But I cannot believe."

Answ. You are to believe you cannot believe of yourself, and of your own strength; but you are not farther from Christ, that you are far from yourself.

Object. 4. "'Tis comfortable that Christ the Physician came to heal the sick; but what is that to me, who am not sick, nor of the number of these sick, that Christ came to heal, for any thing I know?

Answ. 'Tis true, 'tis nothing to you that Christ came to heal the sick, and to cure the distemper of sin that is on them; you want nothing but that the Spirit working with the law, let, you see your lost condition, and the gospel-offer be considered, and compared with your estate. But whether you be of the number of these sick that Christ came to heal, is no lawful doubt, and comes not from God; for what that number is, or whether you be one of that number or no, is a secret of the hid counsel of election to glory: a negative certainty, that, for any thing ye know, you are not of the contrary number, nor are ye excluded out of that number, is enough for you to father kindness upon Christ, though he should say, from heaven, Thou art not a son.

Object 5. "I shall never have a ground of assurance to believe Christ's good-will, nor either hope or comfort in the gospel-covenant or promises, if Christ died for a few elected and chosen absolutely to glory: for all must be resolved on doubtsome, hopeless, sad and comfortless grounds, by your way, thus:

These for whom Christ laid down his life, and have ground of assurance of hope and comfort in Christ's death and in the gospel-promises, are not all men and all sinners, but only some few handful of chosen ones, by name, such as Abraham, David, Peter, Mary, Hannah, &c. and not one more, not any other.

But I am not of these few handful of chosen ones by name, I am Abraham, David, Peter, Mary, Hannah, &c. and of no other number; therefore I have ground of assurance of hope and comfort in Christ's death and in the gospel-promises.

Now, the proposition is poor, comfortless, and a very hopeless field to all within the visible church? and the assumption to the greatest part of mankind evidently false, because many are called, but few are chosen: and so the syllogism shall suggest a field of comfortless and hopeless unbelief and doubting, yea, of despairing, to the far largest part of mankind; whereas the doctrine of the Lord's good-will to save all and every one of mankind, and of redeeming all, and covenanting in Christ with all, removes all ground of unbelief and doubting, from any; offereth grounds of faith, hope and comfort in the gospel, of peace to all."

Answ. 1. We shall consider what certainty and assurance of faith Arminians furnish to all and every one from the gospel.

2. What the scripture speaks of the assurance, hope and comfort of all and every one. And,

3. The argument shortly shall be answered. As for the first, That Arminians may make their syllogism of assurance, hope, and comfort in Christ's death, as large as Christ's death; they must extend the gospel-comfort and hope to the heathen, who never heard of these comforts: now, how this can be, let us judge. A very learned and eminent divine (a) sheweth from the matter itself, and confession of Amayrald (b) an Arminian, that twelve apostles could not in so short a time have gone through the whole world; yea, they must have passed many particular nations, who never by any sound heard of the gospel: and Arminians yield to us, that this was done arcana Dei dispensatione, by the secret and unsearchable providence of God; they would say, if they would speak truth, by the Lord's absolute, highest, independent and unsearchable good pleasure, in his decrees of absolute election and reprobation. 2. Again, they are made excusable, and freed from all guiltiness of unbelief, and hopelesness of comfort or ground of comfort in the gospel-promises, who never heard of the gospel; yea even these who heard but the gospel, as the Athenians, Acts 17 who judged Paul to be a babler, and Festus, who thought him mad, and the Grecians, who esteemed the preaching of the gospel foolishness, 1 Cor. 1 and so most have heard the gospel, yet are not condemned so much for doubting of the sufficiency of Christ's death, seeing they believed Christ to be a false prophet, as for their not hearing men sent of God, Christ and the apostles, speaking with the power of God, and endued with the power of working miracles. 3. But what assurance, hope and comfort of salvation do Arminians give? One Thomas Moore has written a book, intituled, The universality of God's free grace in Christ to mankind; that all might be comforted, encouraged, every one confirmed and assured of the propitiation and death of Christ for the whole race of mankind, and so for himself in particular: hear then what Arminians, and Mr. Moore faith, "comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord; comfort and encourage with the joy of the Holy Ghost, with the lively hope of eternal life, with the comforts of the scripture, Scipio, Aristotle, Cato, Regulus, Seneca, all the Turks, Americans, Indians, Virginians; such as worship the devils, the sun and moon; such as have no hope, and are without God, and without Christ in the world; bid them be assured Christ died for them, prays and interceeds for them, intends and wills their salvation upon good condition, no less than the salvation of his chosen people."

But, 1. The object of this faith, hope, and comfort, may stand and consist, though all and every one of the race of mankind should believe it, with no less certainty of eternal damnation than Indians, all the reprobate and condemned devils are under: now, saving faith removeth all hazard of damnation, John 3:16; John 5:25; John 11:26; 1 Tim. 1:15, 16; Gal. 2:10 but thousands believe, yea, the damned devils, who assent to the letter of the gospel, and gave testimony that Jesus is the Son of the living God, by the judgment of the Arminians, believe that Christ died for all and every one of the race of mankind. Ergo, all the reprobates may have this faith, assurance, comfort and hope. 2. Saving faith, bringing peace, justification, rejoicing in tribulation, purifieth the heart: but I am not a whit nearer peace, that I believe that Christ intendeth to redeem, save, justify all and every one of mankind, upon condition they believe; for this remaineth ever a hole in the heart; God either efficaciously intendeth to save all, or inefficaciously, committing the event to the good guiding of free-will, which once lost all mankind: now the former neither can be known to any living; 'tis a doubt to Arminians, if it be known to God himself: Arminius (Anti-Perkins) saith, "Deum posse excidere fine suo, quia non semper intendit sinem secundum praescientiam; God may fail and come short of his end, because he doth not, especially in events that fall out freely, and may not fall out, intend the end according to foreknowledge." See then here the Arminian courage, hope and comfort: God intendeth to redeem and save me in Christ; but ah! it is as the blind man casteth his club, or shoots his arrow, he winks and draws the string; it may come up to the white, but it runs a hazard to fall short and wide. Again, 'tis false that God intendeth efficaciously to save all; therefore Bellarmine and Arminius say, the Lord doth here, as politicians, who have two strings in their bow: for God (say they) lieth at the wait between two ends, and intendeth either the obedience, conversion and salvation of all; or, if he miss, he has another string in his bow, and intends, the declaration of the glory of his justice, if free-will shall thwart and cross the former intention of God; and this is the latter intention, all and every man is to believe that God intends his conversion and salvation ineffectually; but ah! this is cold comfort, and dubious, hazard some and far-off hope; the poor man is here between hope to be saved, (if the fortune, or loose contingency of free-will be lucky) and fear to be eternally thrice more miserable than if God had never borne him any good-will (if free-will miscarry, as it doth in the far greatest part of mankind) for Arminians do not say, one man is more saved, by their pendulous and venturous good wishes and doubtsome intentions to save all and every one, than we do by the Lord's most wise, stayed, poised, fixed, and absolute decrees; so it is but a toom and an empty spoon, they thrust in the mouths of the whole race of mankind, when they will them thus to hope for salvation.

2. By this means, God intending two ends, either the salvation or damnation of all and every one, he puts all mankind upon large as great fear and despair, as upon comfort and hope; and he intends and wills the destruction of all mankind more efficaciously, and with far greater success, than he wills their salvation: only, here is a comfort men may take to hell with them, and an east-wind hope they may feed on; God primarily, antecedently, and first wills my salvation, but secondarily and with better certainty of the black event, he wills, in justice, my damnation, and the eternal destruction of the far greatest part of mankind; and this is he Arminian comfort, and white hopes that the tenet of Arminian universal grace, liberally bestows on all; much good do it them.

3. They stand not to make God to fluctuate between two ends; either this or that, justice or mercy: mercy is the port, God desires to fail to, and to carry all to heaven; but because he cannot be master of tide and wind, and free-will bloweth out of the east, when God expecteth a fair west-wind, the Lord is compelled to arrive with a second wind, as a crossed seaman must do, and to land his vessel in the sad port of revenging justice, and make such a sea voyage, as against the heart of God (what will ye say of the destiny of free-will's ill luck?) must cast the far greatest part of mankind, as ship-broken men, into an eternal damnation; and except God would have strangled free-will, and destroyed the nature of that obedience which is obnoxious to threatnings and rewards, he could not for his soul mend the matter. And here, good reader, you have the Arminian hope and consolations, if you list to hearken to the Arminians of England, now risen to comfort all mankind in these sad times. 3. Saving faith layeth hold on salvation, righteousness and everlasting redemption, as proper heritage; faith being a supernatural instinct, that layeth a peculiar claim to Christ, as the natural instinct in the lamb claimeth the mother: 'tis property that faith pursueth. Let experience speak, if there be not a peculiar warmness of heart in a believer at the sight of Christ: now, to believe a common salvation hanging in the air, the heaven of Turks and Arminians, and the righteousness, and redemption of Indians; of Seneca, and Catiline, Clodius, and Camillus, I confess must be far from such a property.

4. Saving faith is the first dawning, the morning-sky and the first day-light of the appearance of election to glory, Acts 13:48. The man never hath a fair venture of heaven, nor cometh in handy grips with eternal love revealed, till he believe; because the poor man's believing is his act of chusing God for his portion, and so cannot be an assent to a common good, general to all men, Heathens, Pagans, Jews, Turks, and believers: faith makes him say, I have now found a ransom, I have found a pearl of great price, I make no other choice, my lot is well fallen on Christ; whether Christ cast his love or his lot upon me from eternity, I cannot dispute; but sure, I have chosen him in time. Now, for the second, the scripture sheweth us of an hope of righteousness by faith; this we wait for through the Spirit, Gal. 5:5 and of the hope laid up for the saints in heaven, Col. 1:15 and Christ in the saints the hope of glory, v. 27 and of the hope of the appearing of our life Christ, Tit. 2:13. Which hope maketh a man to purge himself, and to be holy, 1 John 3:3 and of a rejoicing in hope of the glory of God, Rom. 5:2; Rom. 12:12 the hope to come, for which the twelve tribes of Israel serve God instantly, Acts 26:7 and that lively hope unto which we are regenerated by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Pet. 1:5 and the hope that we have through patience and comfort of the scripture, Rom. 15:4 and the hope which is not confined within the narrow sphere and region of time and this corruptible life, 1 Cor. 15:19 the hope which experience bringeth forth, Heb. 5:4. Now, whether we take hope for the object of hope, the thing hoped for, or the supernatural or gracious faculty of hoping; in neither respects have Seneca, Scipio, Regulus, Jews, Turks, Americans; and such as never by any rumour heard of Christ any hope from scripture: Paul saith of them, and of the Ephesians in their condition, Ephes. 2:12. At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the common-wealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world; and for the grace of hope, the scripture saith, 'tis an anchor cast in heaven by these who upon life and death make Jesus their city of refuge, Heb. 6:19, 20 it is a fruit of the Spirit, Gal. 5:5. Wherever it is, it makes a man purify himself, 1 John 3:2. 'tis a lively hope; and a fruit of predestination, and of the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, 1 Pet. 1:3, 4, 5. Now, such a hope as Arminians allow to heathens and Indians, to reprobates, who believe that Christ died for all and every one, and such as perish eternally, we gladly leave to themselves; and if our doctrine of particular redemption furnish ground of despair, as opposite to this hope, we profess it: but let Arminians answer this of their own way; so God must speak to the most part of the christian world, "Be of good courage, hope for salvation in Christ, be comforted in this, that Christ died for you all without exception, and be fully assured and believe there is a perfect ransom given for you; and salvation and righteousness purchased to you in Christ's blood; but I have decreed so to act upon the wills of the far greatest part of you, that you shall have no more share in that redemption and purchased salvation than the damned devils; whereas, if I had so drawn you, as I have done others, as sinful by nature as you are, you should certainly have been eternally saved in Christ's blood;" and the like. And far more I could say, of the dream of the middle science and knowledge of God; for Arminians spoil the Almighty of all grace, compassion, mercy, or power to save: for this is the gospel, and no other, that God must utter, by their doctrine; "I have chosen out of grace and mercy all to salvation, who shall believe; and have given my Son, to give his life and blood a ransom for all and every one; and I will, desire and wish, that all mankind were with me in eternal glory, and that my revenging justice had never been experimentally known to men or angel, and that death, hell, sin, had never had being in the world: but the far greatest part of mankind were to sin, and finally and obstinately to resist, both my general universal grace given to all, and my special and evangelic calling, and that they were to do before any act of my knowledge, free decree, strong grace, or tender mercy; and I cannot bow their wills indeclinably to final obedience, nor could I so powerfully, by moral swasion, draw them to a constant faith and perseverance, except I would act against that which is decent and convenient for a law-giver to do, and destroy the nature of that free obedience that lieth under the sweet droppings of free reward, which must be earned by sweating, and under the lash and hazard of eternal punishments to be inflicted, (which I will not do) yea, though in all things even done by free agents, as translations of kingdoms from one prince to another, and bringing enemies against a land, which are done by free agents, I do whatever I will, and my decree stands and cannot be recalled, Dan. 4:35; Isa. 14:24, 25, 26, 27. chap. 46:10, 11; Psal. 115:3; Psal. 135:6. Yet in matters of salvation or damnation, or of turning the hearts and free actions of men and angels, that most highly concern my glory above all; I cannot but bring all the arrows of my decrees, to the bow of that slippery contingent indifferences of the up and down free-will of men and angels; and here am fast fettered, that I can but dance as free-will pipeth, and say amen to created will in all things good or bad. I cannot out of the abundance of my rich grace and free mercy (though earnestly and vehemently I desire it) save one person more than are saved, or damn one more than are damned, or write one more in the book of life, and bestow on them the fruits of my dear Son's death, than such as, in order of nature, were finally to believe before any act of my middle science, or my conditional free decree, or drawing grace; therefore am I compelled (as a merchant, who against his will casts his goods in the sea, to save his own life, because the winds and storms over-master his desire) to take a second course, contrary to my natural desire, and gracious and mild inclination to mercy, to decree and ordain that all who before the acts also of my middle science, free decree and just will, were finally to resist my calling, shall eternally perish; and to will that Pharaoh should not at the first or second command obey my will, and let my people go: and therefore, with a consequent or constrained will, to suffer sin to be, to appoint death and hell, and the eternal destruction of the greatest part of mankind, to be in the world, for the declaration of my revenging justice, because I could not hinder the entrance of sin into the world, nor master free-will as free, if my dispensation of the first covenant made with Adam in paradise should stand: whereupon I was compelled to take a second harbour, and a second wind, like a sea-man, who is, with a stronger cross wind, driven from his first wished port; and to send my Son Jesus Christ into the world to die for sinners, for that I could not better do, and out of love to save all, offer him to all, one way or other, though I did foresee my desire and natural kindness to save all, should be far more thwarted and crossed by this way; because need force my consequent will must needs prepare a far hotter furnace in hell for the greatest part of mankind, since thousands of them must reject Christ, in resisting the light of nature, and the universal sufficient grace given to all; which if free-will should use well, would have procured to them more grace, and the benefit of the preached gospel. But a heavier plague of hardness of heart, and far greater torments of fire, than these, I foresee must be the doom of such, within the visible church, as resist my calling, or having once obeyed, may, according to the liberty of independent free-will, persevere if they will; and notwithstanding of the power of God, by which they are kept to salvation, the promises of the eternal covenant, the efficacy of Christ's perpetual intercession, of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, that everlasting fountain of life, &c. may fully and finally fall away, and turn apostates: and therefore all their hope of eternal life, their assurance of glory, their joy, their consolation and comforts in any claim to life eternal, and the state of adoption, is not bottomed on my power to keep them, my eternal covenant, my Son's intercession. (I can do no more than I can) but upon their own free-will, if they please (and 'tis too pleasant to many) they may all fall away, and perish eternally, and leave my son a widow, without a wife, a head without members, a king without subjects."

And if Arminians will be so liberal or lavish of the comforts of God, proper to the Lord's people, Isa. 40:1. chap. 49:13 the proper work of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, John 14:16. chap. 15:26. chap. 16:7 the consolations of Christ, Phil. 2:1 the everlasting, the strong consolations, 2 Thess. 2:16; Heb. 6:18 the heart-comforts, Col. 2:2 wherewith the apostles are comforted, 2 Cor. 1:4, 6, 7 coming from the God of all comfort, the Lord that comforteth Zion, Isa. 51:3; 2 Cor. 1:3; Isa. 51:12. Blessing promised to the mourners Mat. 5:4. We desire Mr. Moore and other Arminians to enjoy them; but for us, we allow neither assurance, courage, hope, nor comforts in Christ or his death, but on the regenerate and believers: and this makes the doctrine of universal redemption more suspicious to us, as not coming from God, that they allow to all (even dogs and swine) the Holy Ghost, and the gracious privilege of the saints. Therefore, Thirdly, we answer, That the assumption is not ours, but theirs. Let the assumption be, But I believe, and the proposition be corrected thus, These for whom Christ laid down his life, are some few chosen believers; but I am chosen and a believer: ergo, &c. and we grant all, so the assumption be made sure.

But I have no assurance, hope, nor comfort to rest on a general good-will that God beareth to all, to Judas, Pharaoh, Cain, and to all mankind, no less than to me. For I am of the same very metal, and by nature am an heir of wrath as well as they.

2. The far-off good-will, that all be saved, and that all obey; the Lord from eternity did bear it to the fallen angels, as well as to me. O cold comfort! And it works nothing in order to my actual salvation, more than to the actual salvation of Judas the traitor: it sets on moving no wheels, no causes, no effectual means to procure the powerful application of the purchased redemption to me, more than to all that are now spitting out blasphemy against eternal justice, and are in fiery chains of wrath, cursing this Lord, and his general good-will to save them.

But the fountain good-will of God, to save the elect, runneth in another channel of free-grace, that separates person from person, Jacob from Esau; and sets the heart of God from eternity, and the tender bowels of Christ, both from everlasting, and as touching the execution of this good-will in time, upon this man, not that man, without hire-money or price; 1. Because angels or men can never answer that of Rom. 9:13, 14, 15. As it is written, I have loved Jacob, and have hated Esau, and that before the one or the other had done good or evil. Then the natural Arminian objecteth what our Arminian does this day, that must be unrighteousness, to hate men absolutely, and cast them off, when they are not born, and have neither done good nor evil. Paul answereth, It followeth in no sort that there is unrighteousness with God, because, verse 15 all is resolved on the will of God, because it is his will; for he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion: and upon this he infers, Then the business of separating Jacob from Esau runs not upon such wheels as running and willing, sweating and hunting by good endeavours; Jacob did here less, and Esau more: but all goes on this, on God's free goodness and mercy; all the difference between person and person, is, God has mercy, because he will, not because men will. Now, because Arminians say, This is not meant of election and reprobation, but of temporary favours bestowed on Jacob, not on Esau; he alledgeth the example of Pharaoh, a cruel atheist and a tyrant, who never sought justification by the works of the law: the reason why Pharaoh obtained not the mercy that others obtained, I, saith the Lord, ver. 17 told Pharaoh to his face, For this purpose I raised thee up, that I might make an example of the glory of my power, and name, that is, the glory of justice in thee, to all the world who hears of thee: and then, verse 18 he returns to the Lord's free-will, and unhired and absolute liberty in differencing person from person. Why has he mercy upon this man, and not on that man, if there had been such a conceit, as a general catholic good-will in God, to Pharaoh, to Esau? The apostle should now have denied any absolute will in God to separate one person from another. Arminians can instruct the Spirit of the Lord, and the apostle to say, He has an equal general good-will and desire to save all and every one; Esau as well as Jacob; Ishmael as Isaac, the son of promise; Pharaoh as Moses, or any other man: but then, two great doubts should remain; how then hated he Esau, when he was not yet born, and had not done good or evil? All the Arminians on earth, answer that. 2. But the doubt is not removed: how is it, that God loves Jacob, blesseth, and hath mercy on him, and hateth Esau, and yet Esau has neither done good or ill? Arminians answer, "In an antecedent general good-will, God indeed loved Esau as well as Jacob; Pharaoh, as well as another man: but here is the thing that makes the separation, Jacob runneth and willeth; Esau is a wicked man; Pharaoh, and others like him, bloody tyrants: and God sheweth mercy with another posterior and consequent will on Jacob, because he runs and wills, and has mercy on him, because he pays well for mercy; and has not mercy on Esau, because he neither runs nor wills." Now this is to contradict God; therefore we must bear with it, that men of corrupt minds, destitute of the truth, rising up to plead for universal atonement, contradict us. But Paul resolves all the mercy bestowed on this man, not on that man, v. 18 on this saying, [Gr. Thèlei] he will; therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and hardeneth whom he will. (2.) Unpossible it is, that conversion should be grace, and to Peter rather than to Judas, except the grace of God separate Peter from Judas, by moving effectually the one to believe, and not moving the other. All the wit of men cannot say, but I may glory in my own free-will, that I am efficaciously redeemed and saved, rather than another; except grace efficaciously move me in a way of separating me from another, if he had a like good-will to save me, and Judas and all the world; but he committed the casting of the balance, in differencing the one from the other, to free-will, so as the creatures free-will made the consequent will of God different toward the one and toward the other.

3. The God, who is willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, in enduring with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared to glory, Rom. 9:22, 23 is also willing, because he is willing, to declare these two ends equally; in some, because he will, the glory of power, justice and long-suffering; in others, the glory of grace and mercy, because he will. Nor did I ever see a reason wherefore God should carry on the two great state-designs of justice and mercy, in such an order, as he should incline more to declare and bring to pass the design of mercy than the design of justice; for, out of the freedom of high and deep sovereignty, he most freely intended both these glorious ends. Now, as the attaining of his freely intended end of manifested mercy in some, both angels and men, makes visible in an eminent manner the glory of justice in other some; so the attaining of his freely intended end of pure grace in the elect, doth highly endear Jesus Christ, that we should prize the blood of the covenant, the riches of free-grace to us whom he hath freely chosen, leaving others as good as we to perish everlastingly. And as Arminians cannot deny, but that the Lord might so have contrived the business, as all that are saved, and to praise the Lord that sits on the throne in heaven, might have been damned, and should blaspheme eternally in hell the holy just Judge of the world; as he can make a revolution of all things in heaven and in earth to a providence contrary to that which is now; so they cannot deny an eminent sovereignty, deliberate and fixed free-will in God, before any of the elect and reprobate were placed in such a condition of providence, in which he foresaw all that are saved or damned, should be saved or damned; and that this will was the prime fountain cause of election and reprobation.

4. Paul shewing, Rom. 11 that God concludes all in unbelief, that he might have mercy on all; and shewing a reason why the Lord was pleased to cast off his ancient people for a time, and to ingraff the Gentiles, the wild olive, in their place; saith, O the depth! And another reason he cannot find, but bottomless and unsearchable freedom of grace and free dispensation to some people and persons, and not to others. I confess it had been no such depth, if the Lord from eternity had equally loved all to salvation, but, through the running and willing, or not-running and not-willing of the creature, had been put upon later, wiser and riper thoughts, and a consequent will to save or not save, as men and angels in the high and indifferent court of their free-will shall think good; there had been no other depth than is in earthly judges, who reward well-doers, and punish ill-doers; or in a lord of a vineyard, who gives wages to him that labours, and no wages to him that stands idle and doth nothing: this is the law of nature, of nations, and no depth; 'tis but God rewarding men according to their works, and God shewing mercy in such as co-operate with, and improve well the benefit of God's antecedent will, and not shewing mercy on such as do not co-operate therewith, but out of the absoluteness of indifferent free-will are wanting thereunto. But the great and unsearchable depth is, How God should so carry on the great designs of the declaration of the glory of pardoning mercy and punishing justice, as there should be some persons and nations, the Jews first, and not the Gentiles, as of old; and now the Gentiles, taken into Christ, and the Jews cast off; and again, the Jews, with the riches of the world of elect, both Jews and Gentiles, who are chosen and must obey the gospel, and be called, without any respect to works, but of grace, Rom. 11:5, 6, 7 and when the children had neither done good nor evil, and were not born, Rom. 9:11 and these who were nearest to Christ, and did work more for the attaining righteousness and life, than other strangers to Christ, and Gentiles, Rom. 9:30, 31, 32, 33; Rom. 10:1, 2, 3, 4; Rom. 11:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, &c. rejected; and there should be others, as good as these by nature, that the Lord should have mercy on: now, in both these, First, God is free in his grace: Secondly, Just in his judgments, though he neither call, nor chuse according to works: Thirdly, The damned creature most guilty: and, Fourthly, The Lord both justly severe, and graciously merciful: Fifthly, None have cause to complain or quarrel with God; and yet God might have carried the matter a far other way: Sixthly, The head cause of this various administration, with nations and persons, is the deep, high, sovereign, innocent, holy, independent will of the great potter and former of all things, who has mercy on whom he will, and hardneth whom he will; and this is the depth without a bottom. No creature, angel or men, can so behave themselves to their fellow-creatures, and yet be free, just, holy, wise, &c. But sure, one creature can deal with his fellow-creature according to the rules and road-way of an antecedent and consequent will; so may the king deal with his people, the governor with those he governs, the father with his children, the commander with his soldiers, the lord of a vineyard with his hired servants; all these may order their goodness, mercy, rewards, punishments, in a way level with the use, industry, improvement of free-will, or the rebellion, unjustice, wickedness and slothfulness of their underlings; but no master nor lord can call labourers to his vineyard, and exhort, obtest, beseech them all to labour, and promise them hire, and yet keep from the greatest part of them the power of stirring arms or legs, of free consenting to labour, and suspend his so acting on the greatest part of them, as they shall willingly be carried on to wilful disobedience, and to be the passive objects of his revenging justice, according to the determinate counsel of the lord of this vineyard, because so he willed out of his absolute sovereignty to deal with some, and deal a just contrary way with the least part of the labourers, because he purposed to declare the glory of his grace on them; either there is here an unsearchable depth, or Paul knew nothing: and this calms my mind, and answereth all that reason can say for universal atonement. And the

1st Use I aim at, is, That no doctrine so endeareth Christ to a soul, as this of particular redemption and free-grace separating one from another, Psal. 147:12. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem: and, amongst many grounds, here is one, verse 19. He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments to Israel, verse 20. He hath not dealt so with any nation: And he speaketh not of the measure, as if God had revealed the same grace in nature, but in an inferior degree, to other nations, for he saith, As for his judgments, they have not known them; and then, being full of God, for this separating mercy, he addeth, Praise ye the Lord. Christ esteems this the flower of grace, the grace of grace, and blesseth his Father for it, Mat. 11:25. I bless thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes. Now, because Arminians say, The pride of the self-wise, and the humility of babes, are the causes separating the one from the other, and so free-will is to share with the Father in the praise of the revealed glory of the gospel, and the discovered excellency of Christ to babes, rather than to wise men; a literal revelation no doubt was common to all babes and prudent, the swelled Pharisees, and humbled sinners; Christ praiseth the eminency, the blossom of grace, the bloom of free-love, and that the free-will of the humble and the proud made not the separation, but the good pleasure of God, ver. 27. No man knows the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.

2. That which is common to all, shall never leave an impression of wonder and thankful admiration. (1) and (we) are swelled, losty and proud things; and the Spirit of God commends grace highly, in that it falls upon pronouns and persons, and not on others, 1 Cor. 15:9. [Gr. Ego] I am the least of the apostles, —— ver. 10. By the grace of God I am that I am: and his grace [Gr. eis eme] toward me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all; [Gr. houk ego dè] but not I, but the grace of God [Gr. he sen emoi.] in me. Tit. 3:3. [Gr. Kaì hemeis] For we ourselves also were sometime out of our wits, disobedient, &c. ver. 4. But when the kindness and man-love of God our Saviour appeared, ver. 5. —— [Gr. esosen hemâs] he saved us, 1 Tim. 1:15. [Gr. Ego] I am the chief of sinners; ver. 16. But for this cause I obtained mercy, [Gr. hina en pro ô] that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering. Gal. 2:20. I am crucified with Christ, but I live, [Gr. ouk etì egò] yet not I, but Christ lives in me. [Gr. en emoì] and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who has loved me, and given himself for me; [Gr. mè huper emû] Ephes. 2:1. [Gr. Kaì humâs] And you, who were dead in sins and trespasses, hath he quickned, ver. 4. For his great love wherewith he loved us, [hemâs] ver. 5. Even when we were dead in sins and trespasses, he hath quickned us [hemâs] together with Christ. ver. 13. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off, are made near by the blood of Christ. The passing by my father and mother, and brother and sister, neighbour and friend, and taking me, is a most endearing favour.

Of all in Scotland and England, all in Europe, all Adam's seed, that ever were masters of a living soul, in the womb or out of it; the Lord passed by so many thousands and millions, and the lot of free-grace fell upon me precisely by name, and upon us, and not upon thousands besides, no less eligible than I was. What thoughts will you have of the free lot of love that fell upon you, ever since God was God, when Christ shall lay such a load of love, such a high weight and mass of love on you! Ye shall then think, O how came I hither to sit in heavenly places with Christ! That body, that is trimmed, clothed, and doubly embroidered with pure and unmixed glory, is just made of the same lump of earth, with the body of Judas or Cain, that are now flaming and sinking to the bottom of the black and sad river of brimstone. The Lord faith, Ezek. 18:4. Behold, all souls are mine: and when your soul shall be loaden with glory, and thousands of souls blowing and spitting out blasphemies on the majesty of God, out of the sense of the torment of the gnawing worm that never dies; and ye consider the soul of Judas might have been in my soul's stead, and my soul in the same place of torment that his is now in; what wonder then John cry out, Behold, what love!

4. How much love for extension, and intension; for one man, and every one in covenant! Psal. 106:45. Multitudes of mercies, and Psal. 130:7. Plenteous redemption; one David must have multitudes of tender mercies, Psal. 51:1; Psal. 69:13, 16. 'Tis not one love, but loves, many loves, Ezek. 16:8; Cant. 1:2. He gives many salvations to one, as if one heaven, and one crown of glory, were not enough; Eph. 2:4. He is rich in mercy; and he quickned us, when we were dead in sins, [Gr. dia pollen agapèn] For his multiplied love: every man has a particular act of love, a particular act of atonement bestowed on him. Can ye multiply figures with a pen, and write from the East to the West, and then begin again, and make the heaven of heavens all circular lines of figures; it should weary the arm of angels to write the multiplied loves of Christ. Christ's love desires to engage many: how many millions be there of elect angels and men? Every one of them, for his own part, must have a heaven of love; and Christ thinks it little enough that the first-born's love be on them all, and that they all be first-born: Col. 1:20. It pleased the Father, by Christ, to reconcile all things in heaven and in earth to himself: all the angels are Christ's vassals, and he is their head, Col. 2:10. Then Christ must have two eyes, yea, seven eyes, to see for every one, and two legs for every angel to walk withal; Christ must have a huge host, and numerous troops in his family. (2.) Who then can number the sums of all the debts of free-grace, that angels and men owe Christ, and when they shall be paid? Though sins shall be acquitted, yet debts of undeserved love shall stand for ever and ever. O how unsearchable are the riches of Christ's grace! Know ye, O angels, O glorified spirits, where is the brim, or where is the bottom of free-grace? Yet not one sinner can have less grace than he has, he has need of all; he has no oil to spare, to lend to his neighbour, Mat. 25. Our deep diseases, and festered wounds, could have no less to cure them, than infinite love, and free-grace, passing all knowledge. It was a broad wound, that required a plaister as long and broad, as infinite Jesus Christ.

Paul bows his knee to the master of the families of heaven and earth, for this act of grace, to weigh the love of Christ, Eph. 3:18. I pray (saith he) that ye may comprehend, or overtake the love of God.

2. How many are set on work to compass that love? as if one man could not be able to do it: Yet I pray, that ye with all the saints may comprehend what is the breadth; 'tis broader than, the sea, or the earth: and what is the length of it? 'tis longer than between east and west; though ye could measure between the extremity of the highest circle of the heaven of heavens: and then it hath depth and height more than from the centre of the earth to the circle of the moon, and up through all the orbs of the seven planets, and to the orb of stars and highest heavens: who can comprehend either the diameter or circumference of so great a love? Love is an element, that all the elect, men and angels, swim in; the banks of the river swell above the circle of the sun, to the highest of the highest heavens.

Christ's love in the gospel takes all alive, as a mighty conqueror; his seed for multitude is like the drops of dew that come out of the womb of the morning, Psal. 110 and they are the dew of the youth of Christ; for Christ, as a strong and vigorous young man full of strength, who never fails through old age, brings in the forces of the Gentiles, like the flocks of Kedar, Isa. 60:5, 6.

5. Christ's love outworks hell and devils. Can ye seal up the sun that it cannot rise? or can ye hinder the flowing of the sea? or lay a law upon the winds that they blow not? far less can ye hinder Christ's wilderness to blossom as a rose, or his grace to blow, to slow over banks, or to fly with eagle's wings. O how strong an agent is Christ's love, that bears the sins of the world! John 1:29. It works as fire doth, by nature, rather than by will; and none can bind up Christ's heart, or restrain his bowels, but he must work all to heaven that he has loved.

Use 2. We are hence taught to acknowledge no love to be in God, which is not effectual in doing good to the creature; there is no lip-love, no raw well-wishing to the creature, which God doth not make good. We know but three sorts of love that God has to the creature, all the three are like the fruitful womb; there is no miscarrying, no barrenness in the womb of divine love. 1. He loves all that he has made, so far, as to give them a being, to conserve them in being as long as he pleaseth: he had a desire to have sun, moon, stars, earth, heaven, sea, clouds, air; he created them out of the womb of love, and out of goodness, and keeps them in being; he can hate nothing that he made: now, according to Arminians, he wished a being to many things in their seed and causes, as he wished the earth to be more fruitful before the fall than now it is; so that, against God's will, and his good-will to the creatures, he comes short of that natural antecedent love, that he beareth to creatures: he could have wished death never to be, nor sickness, nor old age, (say Arminians) nor barrenness of the earth, nor corruption. Nay, but though these have causes, by rule of justice, in the sins of men, yet we have no cause to say, God falls short of his love, and wished and desired such and such a good to the creature, but things miscarried in his hand; his love was like a mother that conceiveth with many children, but they die in the womb; so God willed and loved the being of many things, but they could not be; the love of God was like the miscarrying womb that parts with the dead child: we cannot acknowledge any such love in God.

2. There is a second love and mercy in God, by which he loves all men and angels, yea, even his enemies; makes the sun to shine on the unjust man, as well as the just, and causeth dew and rain to fall on the orchard and fields of the bloody and deceitful man, whom the Lord abhors; as Christ teacheth us, Mat. 5:43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48. Nor doth God miscarry in this love; he desires the eternal being of damned angels and men; he sends the gospel to many reprobates, and invites them to repentance, and, with longanimity and forbearance, suffereth pieces of froward dust to fill the measure of their iniquity; yet does not the Lord's general love fall short of what he willeth to them.

3. There is a love of special election to glory; far less can God come short in the end of this love: for, 1. The work of redemption prospereth in the hands of Christ, even to the satisfaction of his soul; saving of sinners, (all glory to the Lamb) is a thriving work and successful in Christ's hands, Isa. 53:10, 11. He shall see of the travel of his soul, and be satisfied. 2. Christ cannot shoot at the rovers and miss his mark: I should desire no more, but to be once in Christ's chariot paved with love, Cant. 3. Were I once assured I am within the circle and compass of that love of election, I should not be afraid that the chariot can be broken or turned off its wheels; Christ's chariot can go through the Red-sea, though not dried up: he shoots arrows of love, and cannot miss; he rides through hell and the grave, and makes the dead his living captives and prisoners. 3. This love is natively of itself active; Hezekiah saith in his song, Isa. 38:17. Behold, for peace I had bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul (delivered) me from the pit of corruption; but in Hebrew it is, Thou hast loved my soul out of the pit of corruption, because thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back: he speaketh of God's love, as if it were a living man, with flesh and bones, arms, hands, and feet, went down to the pit, and lifted up Hezekiah's soul out of the pit; so has the love of Christ loved us out of hell, or loved hell away to hell, and loved death down to the grave, and loved sin away, and loved us out of the arms of the devil: Christ's love is a pursuing and a conquering thing. I shall never believe that this love of redemption stands so many hundred miles aloof on the shore, and the bank of the river and lake of fire and brimstone, and cries afar off, and wisheth all mankind may come to land and shore, and casteth to them, being so many hundred miles from them, words of milk, wine and honey, out of the gospel, and crieth that Christ loveth all and every one to salvation; and if wishes could make men happy, Christ earnestly wishes and desires, if all men were alike well-minded to their own salvation, that all and every one might be saved, that there were not a hell, but he will not put the tip of his little finger in their heart to bow and incline their will; and Christ crieth to the whole world, perishing in sin, I have shed my blood for you all, and wish you much happiness; but if ye will not come to me to believe, I purpose not to pass over the line of Arminian decency or Jesuitical congruity, nor can I come to you to draw your hearts, by way of efficacious determination; if ye will do for yourselves and your own salvation, the greatest part of the work, which is to apply redemption, by your own free-will (though I know you cannot be masters, of yourselves, of one good thought, and are dead in sins) as I have done the other lesser part, purchased salvation for you, or made you all reconcileable and saveable, 'tis well; otherwise, I love the salvation of you and every one, but I will not procure it, but leave that to your free-will; chuse fire or water, heaven or hell, as the counsels of your own heart shall lead you; and I have done with you: oh such a love as this could never save me! If the young heir had wisdom, he should pray that the wise tutor lay not on the falling or the standing of the house on his green head, and raw, glassie, and weather-cock free-will; we shall cast down our crowns at the feet of Him that sitteth on the throne, because he has redeemed us out of all nations, tongues, and languages, and left these nations to perish in their own wicked way: sure, in heaven I shall have no Arminian thoughts, as now I have, through corruption of nature; I shall not then divide the song of free redemption between the Lamb and free-will, and give the largest share to free-will: my soul, enter not into their counsels or secrets, who thus black Christ, and shame that fair, spotless and excellent grace of God.

Use 3. Here is excellent ground of encouragements to the elect to believe; for the fear of reprobation from eternity is no ground that thou shouldst not believe.

Object. 1. I fear that I am a reprobate.

Answ. If thou wilt know the need that a reprobate man has of that saving Saviour Jesus Christ, thou wouldst upon any terms cast my soul upon Christ; which if thou do, now thou hast answered the question, and removed the fear that thou art a reprobate; for a reprobate cannot believe.

Object. 2. But sin and unworthiness inclines more to reprobation, than to be loved eternally of God.

Answ. Not a whit, except the Lord had revealed reprobation to thee; sinful clay, nothing but the great Potter may wash the clay, and frame thee a vessel of honour.

Object. 3. But sin continued in, such as may sin, is the first morning-dawning of reprobation; as faith, and sorrow for sin, is the first opening of election to glory.

Answ. Sin, finally and obstinately continued in, is a sign of reprobation; but say you had obstinately gone on in sin (as I love not to cure spiritual wounds by smoothing and lessening them) yet your duty lies on you, in a sense of your need of Christ, to come to Christ; the event is Christ's. You may say, it is fitting, Lord, I be a reprobate; but many thousands of bad deserving as I am, are singing the praises of free-grace before the throne.

Object. 4. But, if my sin evidence to me reprobation, it is a cold comfort to go to Christ and believe; for sure, I have obstinately gone on against Christ, and resisted his call.

Answ. Tho' we are not to lessen the sins of any, yet a physician may say, it is not so desperate a disease as ye say it is; so may we say, it is a strong disease that overcomes the art of Christ; tho' it falls seldom out, never to my observing, that any finally obstinate can attain to wide, broad and anxious wishes to enjoy Christ, with some seen and acknowledged need of Christ.

Object. 5. But, what encouraging comfort have I to believe, since I have gone further on in obstinacy than any?

Answ. There cannot be such an encouraging comfort in a non-convert as is satisfactory; no work can be in a non-convert, of that strain with such as are in converts. Ye are not to look for so much in yourself as in others; but he is far behind, who may not follow.

Object. 6. Nay, I find nothing in me, that may qualify me for Christ.

Answ. Fit and sufficient qualifications for Christ, is the hire of merit, that we naturally seek in ourselves. Antinomians do not a little injure us, because we teach, That obstinate sinners, as obstinate and proud, are not immediately to believe; not that it is not their duty to believe, but because believing is physically incompatible with these persons that are to believe, since believing is the going of the sinner out of himself to Christ: and a proud, obstinate and rebellious sinner, never broken, nor in no sort humbled, under that reduplication, stays in himself. But, we are far from exhorting any to stand aloof and afar-off from Christ, because they cannot be prepared sufficiently for him, or because they have not a present to bring the King. Yea, come, as ye are bidden, kiss the Son, but tremble and stoop: faith is a lowly thing; merit or hire sufficient, in half or in whole, penny, or penny worth, to give to Christ, before a sinner come to Christ, or after, we utterly disclaim.

Object. 7. But, I have low thoughts of Christ, and am afraid he will cast me away; how then can I have low thoughts of myself, and be humbled, ere I believe?

Answ. There be not any of us, who teach, that saving humility goeth before faith. It is one thing to be broken and plowed; another to be humble and harrowed; the law must break the rocky ground, ere ye believe; but Christ must break the clods, and harrow and soften the soul; true humiliation followeth faith.

Object. 8. But base thoughts of Christ, which I find in myself, are most contrary to faith; I think Christ not so meek a lamb, as to put a wolf, a tyger, or a leopard in his bosom.

Answ. Not any, but they have too low thoughts of Christ, ere they can come to him; for the gospel, in whole and in part, is medicine. Christ has a healing tongue; medicine is relative to sickness; Christ would never have said to unbelievers, John 6:39. Him that cometh, I will in no way refuse, if men had not naturally had such thoughts of Christ, as he is rough, and strange, and lordly, and so far from meekness, that he casteth thousands of poor sinners out that come to him; so Christ's tongue, in speaking these words, is good physic: all of us have jealous and strange thoughts of Christ; ye may know the disease by the physic; contraria contrariis curantur. The weary and loaden sinners take Christ to be rough, and not meek; therefore saith Christ, Come unto me, all ye that are weary, and loaden, and I will ease you: if he be a shepherd, we naturally think, if we cannot go on our own feet, he hath a club to beat us: therefore, Isa. 40:11 the Lord faith, Not so, he will not beat those that want legs of their own to follow him: but he shall carry the lambs in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. Yea, if converts and weak ones had not jealousies, ah, Christ is above us, and so lordly, so just, that if we be not as strong as others, he will break us; it had not been prophesied of him, Isa. 41. A bruised reed shall he not break, a smoking flax shall he not quench. Now, precious thoughts of Christ ye cannot have, till ye come to Christ, and buy from him a new mind, and new thoughts, without money.

Object. 9. But believing is fruitless, and unpossible, if I be excluded from the number of those that Christ died for; for then I am to believe remission of sins without shedding of blood; and Christ shed no blood for me.

Ans. You are neither to lay such a supposition down, that either you are excluded from the number of those that Christ died for, or included in that number; neither of the two are revealed to you, and secret things belong to the Lord: it is enough to you, that 1. You are not excluded, for any thing that is revealed to you. 2. That thou hast need of Christ, and art a guilty sinner. 3. That thou art commanded to believe. As for Christ's not shedding of his blood for thee; say it were so, it is no more absurd that you are obliged to believe on Christ, as an all-sufficient Redeemer for remission of sins, (tho' remission be not purchased to you in Christ's blood) than that you are obliged to believe that God will infallibly save you, when as God has peremptorily reprobated you, upon foreseen final impenitency; and has decreed not to work in you to believe, and has not purchased by his blood, the grace of believing; without the which, he seeth believing is unpossible. Let Arminians answer the one doubt, and we can answer the other: only, their way maketh God to say, He willeth the salvation of reprobates; which in very truth, he willeth not: for, it is protestatio facto contraria: a will contrary to his dispensation toward them, and so no will: whereas, we acknowledge God, in his promises, commands, charges to be most sincere; and that the promises belong only to the children of the promise, not to the reprobate.

Object. 10. But, it is unpossible I can be fitted with sorrow for sin or repentance, before I believe in Christ.

Answ. We teach not, that you must first repent, then believe; or first believe, then repent; but that some legal acts of sorrow, and bruisings of spirit, and self-despair go before faith; then acts of believing, and then evangelic repentance, in seeing by faith, him whom ye have pierced with your sins, and the mourning for piercing of him, Zech. 12:10. But, your need, beggarliness, sinfulness, may well be a spur to chase you to Christ, seeing Christ heightneth his fair grace, by occasion of your black sins, Rom. 3:5, 20, 22; Rom. 3:24, 25.

If Christ have such a good will to draw all men; ah! shall he draw all men, and such a fair number of all ranks, and not draw me? Lord Jesus, what ails thee at me? When offices of estate are distributed, and livings and pensions given to men, there be some male-contents; this man is preferred, not I. It were good there were spiritual male-contentedness with self-discontent, at our own rebellion, and no envying of others: O that Christ, who draws all men, would draw me, and he that has love for so many, would out of his love cause me say, Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? whither is thy beloved turned aside, that we may seek him with thee? Say there were a free gold-mine in India, that loadeth with gold all ships, and enriches multitudes that go thither, and it hath never drawn thee to make a voyage thither; blame thyself if thou be poor, when many are enriched. 1. Hath not Christ knocked at the door of thy soul, with a rainy head, and frozen locks, and thou hadst rather he should fall into a swoon in the streets, as open to him, and lodge him; and hast had open back-doors for harlot-lovers? O be ashamed of slighting free-love. 2. Despised love turneth into a flame of gospel-vengeance; a gospel-hell is a hotter furnace, than a law-hell.

No man should spin hell to himself, out of the wool of unbelieving-despair: if Christ be so willing to redeem and draw his own All, and can go as near hell as to save one who had seven devils; have noble and broad thoughts of the sufficiency of Jesus to save. 1. Consider and say, with feeling and warmness of bowels to Christ, All the redeemed family that are standing up before the throne now in white, and are fair and clean, without spot, were once as Black-moors on earth, as I am now: some of them were stables of uncleanness to Satan; now, they are chaste virgins, who defiled not themselves with women, before the Lamb. The mouths that sometimes blasphemed, are now singing the new song of the Lamb, of Moses the servant of the Lord. 2. What love is that, that there is a hole in the rock, for ravens of hell to fly into, as doves of heaven; and a chamber of love in the heart of Christ, for pieces of sinful clay? Fair Jesus Christ can love the black daughter of Pharaoh; he has found in his heart to melt in love and tender compassion toward a forlorn Amorite, a polluted Hittite; it breaks his heart to see the naked foundling cast out into the open fields, dying in gored blood: Christ can love where all do lothe. It is much he can love a sinner, thou art but a sinner; he has not blotted thy name out of the New Testament: imagine thou heard him say, Sinner, come to me; lost man, suffer me to love thee, and to cast my skirt of love over thee: do but give him an hearty (ay, Lord) consent, and take him at his word. Never rest, till thou be at such a nick of the way to heaven as no backslider can attain to. We are too soon satisfied with our own godliness, and go not one step beyond these that have cast out of themselves one devil, and the next day take in seven new fresh devils, and the end of these men is worse than their beginning; they are redeemed, and bought and washen in profession, and righteous in themselves; those that have no more, must fall away. A sheep in the eyes of men, and a sow at the heart, must to the mire again. Sit not down till ye come (1.) To be willing to sell all, and buy the pearl. 2. Till ye attain to some real and personal mortification, that is, a subduing of lusts, a bringing under the body of sin, a heart-deadness to the world, (from this) because your Lord died for you, and has crucified the old-man: I mean not a moral mortification of Antinomians, to believe Christ has crucified your lusts for you, as if you were obliged, by command of the letter of law and gospel, to no personal mortification, that ye may be saved: never think ye are redeemed, till ye be redeemed from the walking in the ways of the present evil world, from all iniquity, from your vain conversation: draw not breath, rest not till ye come to this, as ye would not turn back-slider in heart.

Use 7. Redemption believed, maketh men crown Christ as their king; and such to whom Christ is made redemption, must assert and confess Christ a perfect Redeemer, the king of his church. Those that are impatient of his yoke of government, would set another king over Christ, a magistrate, who by office ruleth, not by the word, but by civil laws, testify they are unwilling to have Christ their Lord, in their life, who will not have him their Lord in the church, and his ordinances. The great controversy that God has with England, is slighting religion, the not building the temple, the increase of blasphemies and heresies; fear that Christ reign over them, John 12:33. If I be listed up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me.

The fourth considerable article in the drawing, is the terminus ad quem, the person to whom all men are drawn. It is (saith Christ) [Gr. pròs hemauton] to me: this is not a word which might have been spared; as there is no redundancy, nothing more than enough in the gospel, so Christ is no person who may be spared; but whoever be one, Christ must be the first person; take away Christ out of the gospel, and there remained nothing but words; and remove him from the work of redemption, it is but an empty shadow; yea, remove Christ out of heaven, I should not seek to be there. This is a noble and divine TO ME, I will draw all men to Me. 1. It concerneth us much what we leave. If we leave the earth, it is but a clay foot-stool, and a mortal perishing stage, and the house of sorrow, and my dying fellow-creature: if we leave sin, we leave hell, the worm that never dieth; vengeance and eternal vengeance is in the womb of sin; to leave father and mother, and all the idols of a fancied happiness, is nothing: but to whom we go; to Christ, or not; to such an one as God, the substantial and eternal delight of God; O that is of high concernment!

2. This (to Me) coming out of the mouth of Jesus Christ, is all and all; 'tis heaven, 'tis glory, 'tis salvation, 'tis new paradise, 'tis the new city, 'tis the new life, 'tis the new precious elect stone laid in Zion, the new glory, the new kingdom: there is a greater emphasis, an edge and marrow of words and things, in this (to Me) than in all the scripture, in all earth and heaven, and all possible and imaginable heavens. 1. Why is Israel loosed? Here the cause, Psal. 81:11. Israel would none of me. Why drink thy rotten waters and cisterns of hell? Oh here is the cause, Jer. 2:13. Be astonished, O heavens! Why? For my people have committed two evils; (ah, these two are hundreds, and millions) they have forsaken me the Fountain of living waters. Is not Christ crying in all the gospel, who will have me? Who will receive me? Is not this the gospel-quarrel, John. 5:40. Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life? 'Tis no sport to die in sin, 'tis a sad fall to fall into hell, John 8:21. Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins; whither I go, ye cannot come.

3. If ye look to any other, it cannot save you, but one look on him would make you eternally happy; and you have it, Isa. 45:22. Look unto me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else; come and have heaven for one look, for one turning of your eye: and when destruction cometh, that the church shall be like two or three olive berries left, and all the rest destroyed; what shall save the remnant? Isa. 17:7. At that day shall a man look to his Maker; and when Jerusalem is saved, and the Spirit of grace and supplication is poured on the house of David, Zech. 12:10. And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son.

4. You are poor and naked; then saith Christ, Lean and hungry, and ye that want bread, and ye that sweat, and give out money, Isa. 55:2. Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. v. 3. Incline your ear to me, and hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David: then a soul dies a soul's death; he is lean, he eateth dirt, he has no bread, until he comes to Christ, Rev. 3:18. I counsel thee to buy of me. O this noble Me! this brave, celebrious, this glorious Me! I counsel thee to buy of Me (and not of others, who are but cozening bucksters) gold tried in the fire; gold buyeth all things, and is not bought: but this is not a common merchant; and buy of me white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed. But thou mayest have a burden on thee heavier than thy back or bones can stand under; then hear him, Mat. 11:18. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are laden, and I will give you rest: and because all are thirsty for some happiness, the desires are gaping for some heaven, Christ crieth at Jerusalem with a loud voice, with a good-will to save, John 7:27. If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. John 11:26. He that liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die.

5. What greater reason than to hear this, Cant. 5:2. Open to me, my sister, my dove, my love, my undefiled! and wisdom's voice is sweet, Prov. 7:14. Hearken unto me therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Isa. 49:1. Listen, O isles, to me; so he speaketh to his redeemed, Isa. 48:16. Come ye near to me. And,

There is nothing more fitting than that his oath stand, at the knee that will not bow to him shall break, Isa. 45:23. I have sworn by myself. Rom. 14:11. For it is written, As I live (saith the Lord) every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

7. What greater honour can be, than such alliance? an that Christ speak so to his bride, Hos. 3:3. And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days, thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another an, so will I be for thee; and Hos. 2:19. And I will betrothe thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betrothe thee unto me; v. 20. I will even betrothe thee unto me in faithfulness.

8. In him is that which may be ground of faith and confidence, Luke 10:22. All things are delivered to me of my Father. Mat. 28:19. All power is given to me in heaven and in earth: there is a great trust put upon Christ, John 17:6. Thine they were, and thou gavest them me. Heb. 2:13. Behold, I, and the children that God hath given me. Luke 22:29. The Father has appointed a kingdom to Me.

This (to Me) hath yet a greater edge and fulness of Christ's soul-taking and drawing expressions: 1st, To Christ, we are drawn as to a friend; approaching to Christ, is expressed by coming to him. 1. We come to him, as to our home: the man that cometh to Christ, is in a friend's house; Christ will not cast him out, John 6:39. The man may throw down his loads and burdens, and cast himself and his burden on him, and find rest for his soul; he doth not stand, nor run any more, but sit down under the shadow of the tree of life, Cant. 2:3. I sat down under his shadow with great delight; Hebrew, I lusted or desired him, and sat down, and his fruit was sweet in my mouth. And how did Christ take the soul? O most kindly! v. 4. He led me into a house of wine. What do you think of a house of joy? Every stone, every raster, every piece of covering, wall, and floor, is the cheering consolation of the Holy Ghost; and what further? His banner over me is love; the colours and ensign of this christian, is, The love of Christ, v. 6. And what love-rest is here? His left-hand is under my head, and his right-hand doth embrace me. What a bed of love must that be, to lie in a corner, in a circle infolded in the two everlasting arms? The left arm is near the heart: such a soul must lie with heart and head upon the breast and heart of Jesus Christ; and above, and underneath for pillow, for covering, for curtains, arms of everlasting love: an house all made, within and without, of eternal joy and consolations, is incomparable; such a chamber of a king, such colours and hangings as love, such a bed as the embracings of Christ, you never heard of.

2. Life is the sweetest flower of any being, it is a taking thing now, 1 John 5:12. He that hath the Son, hath life; all out of Christ are dead men: so we come to Christ as our life, 1 Pet. 2:4. To whom coming as to a living stone, disallowed indeed of men; but that's no matter; chosen of God, and precious. Where read we, but here, of a stone with life, and so noble a life as an intellectual life, and then the life of God? O death, come to thy life, that is hid with Christ in God, Col. 3:3. Here a breathing living stone, and then a chosen one, of great price. Should all the crowned kings since Adam to the dissolving of this world, sell themselves, their globe of the earth, and all their precious stones, they should not buy a day's glory in heaven; but say that they should sell the earth and the heavens, and oppignorate or lay in pledge sun and moon and stars, if they were their moveable inheritance, and sell them all millions of times, they should be far from any comparable buying of the elect precious stone that is digged out of mount Sion, Job 28:13. Man knoweth not the price of wisdom, of this wisdom. ver. 18. No mention shall be made of corals or of pearls; for the price of wisdom is above rubies. ver. 19. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold; there's no talking, no bidding in this market, so precious is the stone; but 'tis the stone living and breathing out heaven, and God infinitely more excellent than heaven.

3. To Me (saith Christ) because no excellency can be comparable to him, who only can give God to the sinner, John 14:6. No man cometh to the Father, but by me; it must be an incomparable privilege to come by Jesus Christ, to God. GOD, GOD is All in all; I cannot savingly be drawn to any but to him, who can reveal God to me. Christ is the bosom, the heart, the only new and living way and door to God; all creatures, angels, men, saints, are strangers to God. The substantial, the essential, the living intellectual image, and being, God must reveal God. Christ saith to Philip, John. 14:9. He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father: open Christ, and you open God; enjoy Christ, and you enjoy God; come into Christ, and you come to a new world, to a new all, to a new infinite ocean, and you fall in the bosom of a Godhead.

4. To me] as to all perfection and compleatness of fulness; they are but all streams and shadows, and emptiness, while you come to Christ; poor nothing is an empty bottom to a sinner, John 1:16. Out of his fulness have all we received, even grace for grace; this is fountain fulness, God's fulness, Col. 2:9. For in Christ is fulness itself. 2. Not fulness going and coming; there is a fulness in the sea, but it is ebbing and flowing; a fulness in the moon, but decreasing and growing; a fulness in the creature, but going and coming, up and down: but in Christ there dwelleth a fulness; it is with Christ new moon and full moon, and dawning, and noon day all at once. 3. All fulness dwelleth in Christ: there is fulness of beauty in Absalom, but not of truth and sincerity; fulness of wisdom in Solomon, but not fulness of constancy; he gave his heart to pleasure and folly; fulness of policy in Achitophel, but not fulness of holiness and faithfulness to his prince; yea, it was fulness of folly to hang himself; fulness of strength in Samson, but not fulness of faith and soundness and courage of mind; he was strong in body, but soft and impotent in mind, and was overcome by a woman; there is an Hiatus, a hole and some emptiness in every creature: and angel's fulness sitteth neighbour to pure nothing; the angel may be turned into nothing, and is by nature capable of folly: but in Christ there is all fulness. 4. But, as every fulness is not all fulness, so every fulness is not the fulness of the Godhead; then, to Me] it is as much as the elect are drawn to Christ, as the choicest, the rarest amongst all.

2. So, amongst all choice things and all relations, he is the first, and most eminent and glorious. Among kings, Rev. 1:5. The Prince of the kings of the earth; Rev. 19:16. The King of kings, the Lord of lords; among prophets, the Prophet, raised out of the inward part of the brethren, Deut. 18:18. Among priests, the highest and greatest, the eternal Priest, after the order of Melchizedeck, Heb. 3:1; Heb. 7:17. Among gods, he stands, he's alone the only wise God, 1 Tim. 1:17. Among angels, the Angel of the Lord's substantial presence, the archangel, the head of angels, Isa. 63:9; 1 Thess. 4:16; Col. 2:10. Among beautiful things, the Flower of Jesse, the Rose of Sharon, the Lily of the valleys, fairer than the children of men, Isa. 11:11; Cant. 2:1; Psal. 45:2. There is such grace created in no lips, yea, uncreated grace is in no face, but in his only; among shepherds, the chief Shepherd, 1 Pet. 5:4. Among armies, the Standard-bearer, and chief among ten thousand, Cant. 5:10. Amongst creatures, the first-born of every creature, Col. 1:15. Amongst heirs, the heir of all things, Heb. 1:2. Among those that were dead, and is alive again, and the fruit that groweth out of death; Christ is the first born from the dead, Col. 1:18 and the first fruits of them that sleep, 1 Cor. 15:20. Among sons, he is God's first begotten Son, Heb. 1:6 his only begotten Son, 1 John 4:9. Among saviours, none to be named a Saviour under heaven but he only, Acts 4:12. Neither is there salvation in any other: the first among brethren, Rom. 8:29 the first-born among many brethren. In a word, He is the choice and the first of the flock, the flower, the first glory, the standard-bearer of heaven, the heart, the rose, the prime delight of heaven, the choicest of heaven and earth, the none-such, the chief of all beloveds. Some have one single excellency, some another; Abraham was excellent in faith, Moses in his choice of Christ above all the treasures of Egypt; David in his sincerity, having a heart like God's heart: but Christ hath all eminency of grace in one. Some are gods, that shall die as men; Christ the Prince of life was dead, but can die no more: some are wise, but he is wisdom itself: some are fair, but Christ is the beauty and brightness of the Father's glory. We are apt to have low and creeping thoughts of Jesus Christ, and to undervalue Christ.

3. There's need of an angel-engine framed in heaven, of a tongue immediately created by God, and by the infinite art of omnipotency, above other tongues, to speak of the praises of Christ; and that pen must be moulded of God, and the ink made of the river of the water of life, and the paper fairer than the body of the sun, and the heart as pure and innocent as sinless angels, who should write a book of the virtue and supereminent excellency of Jesus Christ: all works, even uttered by prophets and apostles, come short of Christ. Imagine that angels and men, and millions of created heavens of more than now are, should build a temple, and a high seat or throne of glory, raised from the earth to the highest circumference of the heaven of heavens, and millions of miles above that highest of heavens, and let the timber not be cedar or almug-trees, nor the inside gold of Ophir seven times refined, but such trees as should grow out of the banks of the pure river of water of life, that runneth through the street of the New Jerusalem, and overlaid with a new sort of gold that was found above the sun and stars, many degrees above the gold of Ophir; and let the stone not be marble, nor sapphires, nor rubies, nor digged out of the excellentest earth imaginable, but more refined than elementary nature can furnish; let every stone be a star, or a piece of the body of the sun, and let the whole fabric of the house exceed the glory of Solomon's temple, as far as all precious stones exceed the mire in the streets; and let Jesus Christ sit above in the highest seat of glory in this temple, as he dwelt in Solomon's temple; the chair should be but a created shadow, too low and too base for him. This is not yet like the Lord's expression by the apostle, shewing how eninent and high Christ is, Phil. 2:9. Wherefore God also hath more than exalted him; he saith not, [Gr. ho Theòs autòn hupsose,] God hath heighted or exalted Christ; but God hath [Gr. huperupsose] over-heighted and super-exalted him, and hath gifted to him [Gr. hónoma tò huper pân onoma] a name above all names, that is, real honour above all expression, above all thoughts: if such a temple and seat of majesty might be named, it should not be above every name, nor a glory above every glory that can be named, either in this world, or in the world to come.

To me] conversion is the drawing of a sinner to Christ, 'tis a supernatural journey, 'tis not a common way to come to this eternal wisdom of God, as saith Job. 28:7. A path which no sowl knoweth, and the vulture's eye hath not seen: where is the place of understanding? ver. 21. Seeing it is hid from all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air. Verse 22. Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears. Verse 23. Where is it then? Nature's dark candle cannot shew it. Verse 24. God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof. Prov. 15:24. The way of life is on high; the way of the life of all excellent lives, is an high and an exalted way, every man knows it not.

2. Christ saith, by way of exclusion, that he getteth not one soul to him, but by strong hand and violence; never man comes to Christ on his own clay-legs, and with the strength of his own good-will, John 6:44. No man can come to me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him.

3. There be other acts of God, of an high reach, in these that come to Christ; as there must be resigning over, a making over of the Father to the Son, ver. 29. All that the Father giveth me, shall come: the Father's making over of any soul, or his giving one to Christ, is not by way of alienation, as if the man belonged no more to the Father, or were no more under the tutory and guidance of the Father, but under the Son. Famulists teach us, 'That there be distinct seasons of the working of the several persons of the Trinity, so as the soul may be said to be so long under the Father's, and not the Son's; and so long under the Son's work, and not the Spirit's.'

We know no such distinct posts to heaven, nor such shifting from hand to hand; the saints have many bouts in their way to glory, but all the Three jointly at the same season help at the lifting of the dead out of the graves, John 6:39, 44, 45; John 5:24, 25. All the Three, in one dead lift, open blind eyes, and convert lost sinners, Matth. 11:25, 26, 27; Eph. 1:17, 18; Matth. 16:17; John 12:32; 2 Cor. 3:14, 15, 16, 17; John. 14:23; John 16:7, 8, 9, 10; John 14:16; Eph. 2:1, 2, 3, 4; 1 John 2:27; 1 John 5:6, 7. Grace, mercy, and peace, cometh at the same season, to the seven churches, from all the Three; from Him which is, and which was, and which is to come, and from the seven Spirits that are before the throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful Witness, &c. 2 Cor. 13:14; Rev. 1:4, 5. Then the Father so giveth the elect to the Son, as I should not desire to be out from under the care and tutory of the Father; the Father maketh them over, and keepeth them in his own bowels, and in the truth, John 17:2, 10, 11. So there is the Father's teaching, and the hearing and learning from the Father, John 6:45. It is written in the prophets, And they shall all be taught of God: every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

In the uses of the doctrine, I have three things to speak of; 1. What a sin they be under, who resist the right-arm of the Father. 2. What free-will and moral honesty can do, or how nothing they are, to work a communion with God. 3. These are to be refuted, who think we are neither to pray, nor to do, to work out our salvation in fear and trembling, but when the Lord by saving grace acteth in us, and draweth irresistibly. Now, to the end that this common gospel-sin may be the better seen in all its spots, consider, 1. What is in Christ the Drawer. 2. What is in grace, by which sinners are drawn.

1. In Christ the Drawer. There be many drawers suiting us: the world is the tail of the great red dragon, and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them down to the earth, Rev. 12:4. Glorious professors, like glistering stars up in heaven, are drawn away after the dirty world. Should there be more power in Satan's tail to draw down stars from heaven, than there is beauty and sweetness in Christ's face to ravish hearts, and are drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; yet they are but bastard-gods: Christ has a true, real Godhead in himself. Why will you not be drawn after the smell of his precious ointments? And, Acts 5:37. Judas of Galilee arose, and drew away much people after him, and they were destroyed. And, Jam. 1:14. Every tempted man (and who is not tempted?) is drawn away of his own lust; and this is a mother with child of death and hell: supposed goodness is an angle, a vast net, that draws millions of souls to eternal perdition; every man has a soul-drawer about him, devils and false teachers are pulling at and hailing souls. O be drawn by Christ; he is the rose without a thorn, the sun without a cloud, the beauty of the Godhead without a spot, he draws his Father's heart to love him, and delight in him: Christ's love, and the art of free-grace, are good at drawing of souls: there is not a soul-drawer comparable to him: ah! our hearts are as heavy as hell; suppose that hell were of the bigness of ten worlds, all of sand, iron or the heaviest stones in the world: nay, all fancies that pretend loveliness are but lies, and Christ true; every piece of fair clay is hell, and Christ heaven; every beauty blackness, and he all loves, Cant. 5:16.

2. For alluring souls in a moral way, nothing like Christ in the gospel; David is called by the Holy Ghost, the sweet singer of Israel: when Christ speaketh to hearts, he sings like heaven, and like the glory of a new unseen world. Deut. 32:16. Joseph was blessed of the Lord, for the good-will of him that dwelt in the bush: 'Tis most alluring in Christ, that he is the bird in the bush, the bird of paradise, the turtle in our land, Cant. 2:12 that singeth the sweet gospel-hymns, and psalms of good tidings from Sion, peace, peace from heaven to the broken-hearted mourners in Sion; all the gospel is a love-song of Christ dying for love to enjoy sinners of clay, and to have them with him in heaven. Are not these love-songs of the bird whose nest was in the bush? If any man thirst (saith Christ) let him come to me and drink; and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. If this cannot draw to Christ, the law, curses, rewards, cannot draw; Christ pipeth a spring of joyful news, but few dance, Mat. 11:16.

3. The lower that high love descendeth, the sweeter and the more drawing, and the greater guiltiness not to be drawn. Christ came down from a Godhead, and emptied himself for us, to be a worm, and no man, Psal. 22:6. The last of men, Isa. 53:3 a doubt it was, if he were in the number of men, and so the word importeth; and he dwelt in the bush; he made not his nest among cedars, but in the bush [Heb. Seneh] a bush whence cometh Sinah or a desert and wilderness, such as was in Arabia. Christ taketh it hard, and weepeth for it, Mat. 23:37; Luke 19:42 that he came down as a hen in the bush, (O but Christ has broad wings, far above the eagle!) and would have made sinners in Jerusalem his young ones, to nourish them with heat, from his own bosom and heart; but they would not be drawn: and when he appeareth in a time of captivity, Zech. 1 to save his people out of captivity, many would not be saved; he is seen, ver. 8 amongst the myrtle-trees in the bottom. It is true, the myrtle-tree is far above the briar and the thorn, Isa. 55:13. Yet 'tis as much, as Christ dwells among the bushes, and came down to the lowest plants; for the myrtle is a bush rather than a tree, and grows in valleys, deserts, in the sea-shore: Christ is a young low plant, and a root out of a dry ground. 'Tis a matter of challenge, that none believed his report, and few were drawn by the Lord Jesus, who is God's arm; all the strength of God, and the drawing power of grace being in Christ, and in Christ who came down so low in his love to us. Low-stooping love refused, is a great deal of guiltiness; salvation itself cannot save, when love, submitting itself to hell, to death, to shame, to the grave, cannot save: you think little to let a love-song of the gospel four times a week pass by you; but you know not what a guiltiness it is.

4. The greater the happiness you are drawn to, the higher is the sin. Should Christ draw you to the mount burning with fire, to the law-curses, to the terrible fight of the fiery indignation of God, men would say it were less sin to refuse him; but he draws you, Heb. 12:22. To mount Sion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect; and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling. And he addeth, Despise not this; he is a speaker from heaven: 'tis but one house, one family, which is in earth and heaven; they differ but as elder and younger brethren. Paul, Rom. 16:7 putteth a note of respect on Andronicus and Junia, Who (saith he) also were in Christ before me. There is more honour put on them that are in glory before us, than on us: as the first-born of nature and grace, so the first-born of glory are honoured before us (we should not weep for our friend's crown and honour, when they die) yet they be all one house; then to be drawn to Christ is to be drawn to heaven. He should deservedly weep for ever, and gnash his teeth in hell, who in right-down terms refuseth to be drawn to heaven.

There is another ground of shewing what a high provocation it is, to resist the gospel-drawings of Christ's arm, and it is the way of resisting the operation of grace. Interpreters say on the text, that Christ's drawing, when he is lifted upon the cross, is a clear allusion to the manner of Christ's crucifying; for he, with his two arms stretched out, holdeth out his breast, openeth his bosom and heart, and crieth, Who will come and lodge in Christ's heart? And again, favours profered by a great friend in his death, ought not to be refused; and the sour tree of the cross was Christ's dead-bed; here he made his last will: and, which no dying friend doth, Christ dying, left his heart, and bowels of tender love to his dear friends; he died drawing and pulling in sinners to his heart. What a sin must it be, to meet his love with hatred and disdain? 2. Grace moveth in a circle of life, the spring and fountain is the heart of Christ, and it reflecteth back to Christ's heart; he resteth not with stretched-out arms, to pull, while he have his friends and church in at his heart. 3. The motion of free-grace is a subduing and conquering thing, and strong to captivate our love: when you see Christ dying and leaping for joy to die for you, and when ye see him set on his head a cup of thick wrath, of death and hell, and see him smile and sing, and sigh and drink hell and death for you, it layeth bands of love on the heart. What iron bowels must he have, who would break the cup on his face, and despise his love? Grace applied to the heart maketh it ingenuous, free, thankful; how can the sinner withhold his love, without the greatest guiltiness that ever devils committed? for they cannot resist Christ's drawing-love. O what sweetness of strongest and captivating love, to see Christ and the tear in his eye, and his face foul with weeping, and his visage more marred than any of the sons of men, Isa. 52:14 and a flood of blood on his body, Luke 22:44 and yet good-will, and joy, and delight to do and suffer God's will for us, sitting on his brows, Psal. 40:6, 7, 8; Heb. 10:5, 6, 7. Now, when Christ is burnt up with love, and sick of tender kindness; to cast water on this love, by resisting it, is the highest gospel sin that can be, except despiting of the Holy Ghost. And a third ground of aggravating to the full, this sin of resisting Christ's drawing, I take from the judgment and the plague and gospel-vengeance on such as Christ draweth, and they will not be drawn, and is the sin of the times: I refer these to two heads.

1. This gospel-despising of Christ, now reigning in the age and kingdoms that we now live in, cometh near to the borders of the sin against the Holy Ghost; for the more men be convinced and enlightned, if they be not drawn to Christ, they are the nearer to this sin, Heb. 6:4, 5. Chap. 10:26, 27. Now, may we not think hardly of these who are convinced of many gospel-truths, and yet oppose them? Doth not Christ's move come near them, and they flee from it? Now, but to neighbour or border on the coasts of a sin, like to the sin against the Holy Ghost, may cost men as dear as the loss of their soul, and the next furnace for torment and pain, to these that sin against the Holy Ghost.

2. The temporal plague that cometh nearest eternal, is the judgment of God on the Jews that refused and resisted Christ: see what expression is put on the last judgment, that same is on the judgment of Jerusalem's destruction for resisting Christ: for, 1. It is hell-like, when mothers shall with their children had never been born; and when they shall, as damned, in the day of judgment, pray, Mountains fall on us, and hills cover us, Luke 23:29, 30.

Use 2. If Christ draw all men to him, then they are far wide, who think, that free-will and moral honesty can bring men to heaven; there be no moralists in heaven, who were pure moralists on earth, and had nothing of the gospel-drawing, and of supernatural work in them: civil saints can never be glorified saints; thousands are deceived with this: they think their lamp can shew them light to know the bridegroom's chamber-door. But take these for marks of deluded men;

1. Such men will shout and cry at adultery, as he that took Abraham's wife from him: and a Cain may be madded with murdering his brother; but was Cain touched for gospel-sins? Is Judas wakened in conscience for that which is the special condemning gospel-sin, the cause of condemnation and dying in sin, John 3:36; John 16:9. Chap. 8:24. No, but for murdering his master: it is the light of the Spirit that seeth spiritual sins spiritually.

2. Profession looketh like paradise and the rain-bow; it is big in its own eyes, and the fairest for variety of colours; but it is a self-plague, and doth carry millions of souls to hell, without din and noise of feet; it is Christ acting judicially on the hypocrite, within pistol-shot of a besieged soul, making fire-works under the earth; and when all within are sleeping, Christ springeth a powder-mine, and burneth up all forward: gospel-fire-works make more than ordinary fury in the soul: open, open to Christ; multiplied fastings, and taking Christ's crown from him, are dreadful.

3. They had never a sick night for the want of Christ: gospel-profession is a light to let men see to sin, a candle to let men see to go to hell, and lie down in sorrow with art. Ah! what comfort is it, that I go to hell, no man seeing me, and by stealth, and my back to the pit? What a poor comfort, to go to eternal perdition, fasting and praying monthly, multiplying days of thanksgiving, and withal, plundering Christ of his royal crown, following the sins of prelates, whom God cast out before us, exercising rapine and unjustice, giving new laws to Christ, and planting plants, which God will root out? The manner of perishing is a poor accident of death. O but heart-boiling of love, a faint pulse, a pale and a lean sinner dying for the abence of Christ, no man but the spirit and physician knoweth what ails him, are sweet diseases. Let the love of Christ absent be in the man's soul a deep river. How sweet were it to be drowned in that river, and to die an hundred deaths in one day, because he whom the soul loves is gone away! O watchmen, know you not where he is? O daughters of Jerusalem, can you tell him that I am sick of love? O shepherds, where is Christ's tent? where dwells he? What is profession to this? a shadow, a straw, nothing, vanity.

2. What a deceitful thing is it, to make free-will the great idol, and to hire a house in heaven for the income and rent of merit? Can it be imagined, that the love of Christ can be hired? so much as it should have of hire, so much it should want of free-love: how can the heart of God be taken with the merit of man? Grace is the flower, and the freeness of grace like the beautiful bloom of the flower; and this freeness is so taking, that it lays bands and chains on the heart: were there a good deserving in the man to buy grace, the cord should be as a single and untwisted thread.

Use 3. Christ so draws all men to him, that drawn man's will is not forced, as we have seen; and therefore Libertines err foully, who make the drawn party, blocks and stones, and meer patients: hence these positions of Famulists and Libertines.

(a) 1. "In the saving and gracious conversion of a sinner, the faculties of the soul, and the working thereof, in things pertaining to God, are destroyed, and made to cease.

(b) 2. And, instead of these, the Holy Ghost doth come and take place, and doth all the works of these natural faculties, as the faculties of the human nature of Christ do.

3. The (c) new creature, or the new man mentioned in scripture, is not meant of grace, but of Christ.

4. Christ (d) worketh in the regenerate, as in those that are dead, and not as in those that are alive; or, the regenerate, after conversion, are altogether dead to spiritual acts.

5. There (e) is no inherent righteousness in the saints, or grace, or graces are not in the souls of believers, but grace is Christ himself working in us; who are mere patients in all supernatural works.

6. Faith, repentance (f) new obedience, are gifts, not graces —— all the elect are saved, and receive the kingdom, as little children do their father's inheritance, passively. Mr. Towne saith, in sanctification as well as in justification, we are mere patients, and can do nothing at all. Assertion of grace, p. 11, 68.

7. The Spirit (g) doth not work in hypocrites by gifts and graces, but in God's children immediately.

8. We may not (h) pray for gifts and graces, but only for Christ.

9. The efficacy (i) of Christ's death, is to kill all activity of graces in his members, that he might act all in all.

10. All the activity of a (k) believer, is to act sin.

11. We are not bound (l) to keep a constant course of prayer in our families, or privately, unless the Spirit stir us thereunto.

12. If Christ will (m) let me sin, let him look to it, upon his honour be it.

13. The new heart, and the walking in (n) God's commandments, are no condition of the covenant of grace: where is there one word, that God faith to man, Thou shalt do this? If God had put man upon these things, then they were conditions indeed; but when God takes all upon himself, where are then the conditions on man's part? —— If there be a condition, he that undertaketh all things in the covenant, must needs be in the fault: If the Lord work not in us a clean heart, and cause us not walk in his commandments, 'tis then the Lord's fault (absit blasphemia) if we sin against the covenant.

14. The (o) blessedness of a man, is only passive, not active, in his holy and unblameable walking."

To the end that these errors may the more fully be discovered, we are to enquire, in these assertions, what activity we have in works of grace.

Asser. 1. In the first moment of our conversion, called actus primus conversionis, we are mere patients,

1. Because the infusion of the new heart, Ezek. 36:26 the pouring of the Spirit of grace and supplication on the family of David, Zech. 12:10 and of the Spirit on the thirsty ground, Isa. 44:3 is a work of creation, Eph. 2:10; Psal. 51:10 a quickning of the dead. Eph. 2:1, 2, 3, 4; John 5:25; 2 Cor. 4:6 and the wilderness is not here a co-agent for the causing roses to blossom out of the earth.

2. The effect is not wholly denied of the collateral cause, and ascribed wholly to another. If Peter and John draw a ship between them, with joint strength, you cannot say, the one drew the ship and not the other: but Christ said, flesh and blood maketh no revelations of Christ, but his Father only, Mat. 16:17; Mat. 11:25, 26, 27; Jam. 1:18; John 1:18. Then neither blood, nor the will of man, contribute any active influence to the first framing of the new birth; nor can clay divide the glory of regeneration, with the God of grace, who maketh all things new.

Asser. 2. The soul or its faculties are not destroyed in conversion: Peter's will which he had when he was young, was the same when converted, but renewed, John 21:18. The saints, that Peter writeth to, are not to run to the same excess of riot, as of old, when they wrought the will of the Gentiles, 1 Pet. 4:3, 4. Paul and Titus were the same men, when disobedient and serving divers lusts, and when converted, and now washen, regenerated, and justified heirs, Tit. 3:1, 2, 3, 4. Paul the same man, a persecutor, and an apostle; but grace made a change, 1 Cor. 15:9, 10. The same mind and spirit remaineth in nature; but they are renewed in the spirit of the mind, Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23. It is the same heart, but turned to the Lord, 2 Cor. 3:15, 16. Christ but removeth the scum, and the dross, and the false metal, and frames the man a new vessel of mercy.

Asser. 3. The person of the Holy Ghost is not united to the soul of a believer, nor are there two persons here united or made one spirit by union of person with person; but the person is said to come to the saints, and to dwell with them, and to be in them, John 14:16, 17 and God hath sent the Spirit of his Son in our hearts, crying, Abba Father: not that the Holy Ghost, in proper person, doth in us formally, and immediately believe, pray, love, repent, &c. we being mere patients, in understanding, will, affections, memory, as Libertines teach: but the Holy Ghost cometh to the saints, and dwelleth in them, in the spiritual gifts, and saving graces, and supernatural qualities created in us, by the Holy Spirit, and acted, excited, and moved as supernatural and heavenly habits, to act with the vital influence of our understanding, will, and affections.

I prove the former part: 1. Because such an union of the person of the Holy Ghost in us, believing, loving, joying, praying, and immediately in us, were that blasphemous deifying and godding of the saints†, so as believing, loving, praying, were not our works, but the immediate acts of the Holy Ghost; and either the saint manner of believing, or the cold slacked loving, and praying of saints, or their not-believing, and sinful omission of the acts of faith, love, praying, rejoicing, could not be more imputed to saints, as their sinful defects, and transgressions, (but must be laid on the Holy Ghost's score) than we can impute the splitting of a ship, to the ship itself, and not to the negligent and wilful pilot, who of purpose dasheth the vessel on a rock: but we must not in reason blame the ship, but the pilot; for the loss of the ship, is the only and proper fault of the man that steered the ship, and the ship is innocent and harmless timber: now, what sin can be in the saints in these supernatural acts, if the Holy Ghost immediately in his own person, steer the helm, and only without us, act these in us? We might with as good reason say, The shop that a man worketh in, doth make the portrait, which is a great untruth, since the artificer in the shop doth it, as say that the saints do pray, believe, rejoice, if the Holy Ghost immediately do all these in them, as in a shop.

2. Upon the same ground, the Lord's coming down and filling John Baptist from his mother's womb, and the apostles and Stephen full of the Holy Ghost, should be the Holy Ghost's personal filling of them, and his immediate acting in them, without any action of them, in preaching, praying, and their heavenly bold confessing of Christ before men; and there should be no difference between the ark and temple of Jerusalem, filled with the immediate presence of God, in the Lord's manifestation of his glory there, and these saints filled with God, in these works of free-grace. I shall not believe that the person of God can be said to be united to either ark, temple, apostle, or martyr; all the union is in the effects and manifestations of graces, or tokens of divine presence, which are creatures rising and falling with time.

3. That excellent and living ark, the most glorious and admirable thing that heaven hath, the Lord Jesus, is God and man, two natures united in one person. But both the word of God making that HE, that same holy thing, born of the Virgin Mary, the Son of God, Luke 1:35 and that same He, and person, who came of the Jews, according to the flesh, to be God blessed for ever, Rom. 9:5; Heb. 7:3; Mat. 16:13, 16. And the third general council, called that of Ephesus, and after the council of Chalcedone, verses 4 and 5 do evidence to us, that Christ cannot be two persons, as Nestorius dreamed, and one person. Paul spread the gospel from Jerusalem to Illiricum, about ten hundred miles. I know, not he, but the grace of God that was with him, 1 Cor. 15:9, 10 not he, but the Lord: true, but the question now is, Whether Paul and the Holy Ghost, in all these works of grace, were two persons become one spirit by union, as some dreamers affirm; because both did the work? I believe not. God and clouds rained down manna to Israel; O but Christ's Father (John 6) gave the manna: but the question is, If the person of God were united with the clouds or any second causes producing manna? So the Lord maketh rich and poor, killeth and maketh alive, maketh snow, frost, fair weather, drought, and rain, the sun to rise, and go down, and that in his own person, Father, Son, and Spirit; He, He only, made heaven, earth, sea, and all creatures, and the world: the Greek word Autos, Acts 17:25 and the Hebrew word Hu, Psal. 33:9 do prove him to be a person who doth all these: but we cannot say that the person of God must be united with clouds, ship, sea, sun, heavens, men fighting, and men saving and killing; and that God personally filleth all creatures; only God, in the immensity of his nature, is all these, and every where, and is in them by his operation: so the Holy Ghost is with the saints, and dwelleth in them, not by union of his person to them, or the immensity of his essence, which is, as David saith, every where, Psal. 139:7. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? But so he is in heaven, in hell, in the sea. 2. But he dwelleth in the saints, in regard of the works, operations, gifts, and graces of the Holy Ghost.

1. Because the Holy Spirit is in them, in that they have in them the fruits of the Spirit, Gal. 5:22 such as love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith; now these are not the Holy Ghost, who is eternal, and God uncreated, but are created in time, out of meer nothing, not out of the potency of the subject; but, ere God produce grace, so knotty and so rocky are we, and so contrary to grace, that he must fall upon a new and second creation, Eph. 2:10; Col. 2:10; Psal. 51:10. The same word that is used for creating heaven and earth, Gen. 1:1 is here used; it is not like the repairing of a fallen house, where the same timber and stones may do the work, or the repairing of decayed nature, when a healthy body recovereth out of a fever; grace is a rare and curious workmanship.

2. We are said to grow in grace, 2 Pet. 3:18 and by grace to increase to the edifying of the body in love, Eph. 4:16 and to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, 13 and to add grace to grace, 2 Pet. 1:5, 6, 7. and to go on to perfection, Heb. 6:1; Phil. 3:12. But the person of the Holy Ghost is not capable of growing, or addition, nor like the morning-light, or the new moon, that can grow and advance in perfection, being God blessed for ever.

3. If there be an union of the person of the Holy Ghost with the soul, and not an indwelling by graces, the believer, as a believer, must live by the uncreated and eternal life of the Holy Ghost, or a created life. Creatum vel increatum dividunt omne ens immediate, facut finitum & infinitum: not the former, neither any man, nor the man Christ can in any capacity be elevated so above itself, as to partake of the infinite life of God. How the manhood of Christ partaketh of the personal subsistence of the Godhead, is incomprehensible to me, except that it is not by such an union as my singular nature standeth under personality created, and is by assumption rather than union. However, if there be an union of the person of the Holy Ghost to our souls, it cannot be conceived, nor doth the scripture speak of it; if the saints live the life of God, it must be by created graces, and this is that we conceive.

4. The person of the Holy Ghost immediately acting in the saints, without them or any active and vital influence of the natural faculties, cannot be guilty of sin, because David and Christ are absolved of sin in this. They laid to my charge things that I knew not, that is, things that I never acted, crimes in which I had no action or hand: but we are blamed in the word; for all the omissions of holy duties; and the Holy Ghost cannot be blamed, for he bloweth when, and where he listeth, and is under no law in his motions of free-grace; then he who cannot be blamed in not acting, cannot be united as one Spirit, person, with person, with him who is justly to be blamed in not acting.

Asser. 4. It must evidently follow that there is in the saints a grace created, that is neither Christ, nor the Holy Ghost in person: for what reason any hath to fancy an union of the person of Christ or the Holy Ghost in the saints, the same reason have they to say that all the three are united to the person of the believer in all supernatural actions; for the Father is said to draw men to the Son, John 6:44 and Christ to reveal the Father, and to draw men, John 1:18; John 12:32 and the Holy Ghost to reveal the deep things of God, 1 Cor. 2:10, 11. Now all the three in person do these, but all the three persons are not united to believers in person; this were a mystery greater than God manifested in the flesh, and unknown to scripture.

2. If Christ be all the grace of believers, faith in Christ, and the love of Christ should be Christ.

3. Then should a believer, having a new heart and a new spirit, be christed, or godded; and God should be incarnate in every believer, and how many Christs should there be? and the new heart in one saint, and the grace given to Paul, should be the new heart given to Peter; whereas God hath given grace to every man, according to his measure; and there are diversity of gifts, but one Spirit, 2 Pet. 3:15; Phil. 1:9; Eph. 3:3, 4, 5; 1 Cor. 12:3, 4, 5, 6; Eph. 4:19.

Asser. 5. The grace of God and our free-will in a four-fold sense may be said to concur in the same works of grace.

1. When free-will receiveth no more from grace and the Lord's drawing, but only literal instruction; and if by our industry an habit of the knowledge of the letter of the word be acquired, it is necessary only to the casier believing, as Pelagius said, I may believe without preaching the gospel, by reading, but more easily by fair and powerful preaching, and by grace helping and assisting preaching, but yet without grace, but with greater difficulty, as I may go a journey on foot, but more easily on horse-back; then a horse is not simply necessary for the journey; and a ship may sail more easily and expeditely with sails, yet also without sails, with the help of oars, though with more difficulty. Thus Christ and his grace may be spared, we may sail to heaven by nature's sweating and free-will's industry, though the sails of grace could more expeditely promove our journey. Now, we think not that Christ draweth when men speak but the bare letter of the gospel, and softly request the dead with only sound of words, and syllables to live, and orators with golden words do pray and persuade the blind to see, and the cripples to walk; but 'tis long ere words fetch a soul to dry bones that they may live, or tie the broken eye-strings, or add vital power and life to eyes and ancle-bones.

2. Grace and free-will (as Bellarmine and the rest of the Jesuits with Arminians teach) may be thought to be two joint causes, the one not depending on the other, as two carrying one stone or burden, neither he helpeth him, nor he him, but both join their independent strength to one common effect. Bellarmine and Grevinchovious, with the like comparisons, do prove that we may storm heaven by the strength of free-will, without dependence on Christ; for three untruths are here taught. 1. That grace determineth not free-will; a saying destructive to providence: if God determine not all second causes, he is not master of all events, nor hath he a dominion of providence in all things that fall out, good and evil. 2. Grace doth not begin in all things that concern salvation, nor doth the Lord work in us to will and to do, if we will not do without any prior dependence on the influence of the grace of God; we as much work in ourselves willing and doing, as the Lord doth, and the Lord in his grace shall follow, and not lead our will. 3. Grace doth not confer any help on the will, to actuate it, and to strengthen it in doing good, in believing, repenting, loving God, hoping, (as Grevinchovius saith) but will and grace do both jointly meet in one and the same effect; in which, 4. Free-will divideth the spoil with Christ. And what need we say, Worthy is the Lamb, who has redeemed us, if free-will in the application of redemption share equally with the grace of Christ?

3. The third way is, That free-will is said to believe, repent, love God, by a mere extrinsical denomination, because it carrieth that grace which formally and only doth perform all these supernatural actions; so grace doth all, and free-will is a mere patient, that conferreth no vital, subordinate and active influence in these acts: as we say, the apothecary's glass healeth the wound, because the oil in the glass worketh the cure; when the glass doth actively contribute nothing to the cure; or the ass maketh rich, when it carrieth the gold that enricheth only. This sense Antinomians hold forth make us mere patients and blocks in the way to heaven; and this sense Jesuits, especially Martinez de Repalda†, falsly chargeth upon Luther and Calvin; and the council of Trent, inspired with the same lying spirit, saith the same.

4. The fourth sense is, That grace and free-will doth work so, as grace is the principal, first inspiring and fountain cause: 1. It being a new supernatural disposition and habit in the soul, John 14:23; 1 John 2:27; 1 John 3:9; John 4:14; Isa. 44:3, 4; Ezek. 36:26, 27; Deut. 30:6 a good treasure or stock of grace, Mat. 12:35; Luke 6:45. And also actually it determineth, sweetly inclineth and stirreth the will to these acts; yet so as free-will moveth actively, freely, and conferreth a radical, vital, and subordinate influence, and is not a mere patient in all these, as Antinomians dream, Psal. 119:32. I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart. John 14:12. He that believeth in me, the works that I do, he shall do, and greater than these. Mat. 12:50. He that doth the will of my heavenly Father, the same is my brother, &c. 1 Cor. 9:24. So run that ye may obtain. Rev. 2:2. I know thy works and thy labour. 1 Thess. 1:3. Remembring without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope. 2. We are not dead in supernatural works, and mere blocks, Rom. 6:11. We are alive unto God in Jesus Christ, Eph. 2:1. He hath quickned us, Rev. 2:3. For my name's sake, thou hast laboured, and hast not fainted. 1 Cor. 15:58. Be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. There is activity in the spirit to lust against the flesh, Gal. 5:17; Rom. 7:15. Nor is the blessedness of the saints only passive in receiving; though to be justified, and receive Christ's righteousness, be the fountain-blessedness, Psal. 32:1; Rom. 4:6, 7; Gal. 3:13. But the scripture speaketh of a true and solid blessedness in the action, Psal. 119:1. Blessed are the undefiled in the way. Isa. 56:3. Blessed is the man that doth this. James 1:12. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation. Psal. 119:2. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies. Psal. 106:3. Blessed are they that keep judgment. Rev. 22:14. Blessed are they that do his commandments. Mat. 5. Blessed are they that mourn, that hunger and thirst. Then there must be a part of blessedness in sanctification, as in justification; though the one be the cause, the other the effect.

Asser. 6. The Lord's working in us the condition of the covenant of grace, such as faith is, by his efficacious grace, doth not free us from sin, when we believe not; nor involve God in the fault, when he worketh not in us to believe, as Crispe imagineth. Here let me by the way remove the arguments of Dr. Crispe (Serm. 6. pag. 160.) by the which he imagineth, that there is no condition at all in the covenant of grace.

Arg. 1. "The covenant should not be everlasting, if it depended on a condition of faith to be performed by us; for we fail in our performances daily, and the covenant is annulled and broken so soon as the condition is broken.

Answ. 1. We speak not so, that the covenant of grace depends on a condition in us: dependency includes a causality in that of which the thing has dependency; we know nothing in us, either faith or any other thing that is the cause of the covenant of grace, or of the fulfilling of it: a cause is one thing, a condition caused by grace is another thing; for the perpetuity of the covenant, there is not required a condition always in act. 1. If at the eleventh or twelfth hour, you come to Christ, the nature of this covenant promiseth you welcome. 2. Particular failings, and acts of unbelief, do well consist with the habit and stock of faith that remaineth in him that is born of God; nor is the act so tied to a time. But, 3. There is by tenure of the covenant a privilege two-fold here. (1.) If by the law a man step a hair-breadth wide off the way, the door of paradise is bolted on him, and in again can he never enter, he must seek another entry, the man has done with heaven that way, the law knoweth not such a thing as repentance; but the covenant of grace being made with a sinner, a slip, an act of unbelief doth not forfeit the mercy of this covenant: but Christ faith, if you fall, there is place to rise again; if you sin, there is an Advocate, there is a blood of an eternal covenant; the covenant stands still to make up room for repeated grace, for a thread and continued track of free-grace and mercy, all along your foot never go out of the traces of renewed pardon while you be in heaven: though the child of God ought not to sin, yet can he not out-sin the eternity of the new covenant, nor can be sin an eternal Priest out of heaven. (2.) The law requireth a stinted measure of obedience, even to the superlative, with all the soul and the whole strength; any less is the forfeiting of salvation; but the covenant of grace stinteth no weak soul, Christ racketh not, nor doth he (as it were) play the extortioner, and say, either the strongest faith, or none at all; he maketh not Abraham's foot a measure to every poor sinner: many smoking flaxes, and broken reeds on earth, are now up before the throne; mighty cedars, high, tall, green, planted on the banks of the river of life. If Adam be the first in heaven, what though I be the last that enter in, though I close the door in the lowest room, so I see the throne, and him that sits on it, it is enough to me.

Dr. Crispe's 2d Arg. "All the tie of the covenant lieth on God, not any on man, as bond or obligation for the fulfilling of the covenant, or partaking of the benefits thereof, Heb. 8:10; Ezek. 36:25, 26; Jer. 31. The Lord promiseth to do all, and the new heart is but a consequent of the covenant; where is there in all this covenant, one word that God says to man, Thou must do this? If God had put man on these conditions, then they were conditions indeed: but when God takes all upon himself, where are then the conditions on man's part? Give me leave, suppose there should be a fault of performing in this covenant, whose were the fault? Must not the fault or failing be in him who is tied and bound to every thing in the covenant, and faith, He will do it? If there be a condition, and there should be a failing in the condition, he that undertaketh all things in the covenant must needs be in the fault, —— God faith not, Make yourselves clean, get you the law of God in your mind; get you power to walk in my statutes; and when you do this, then I will be your God, and enter in covenant with you."

Answ. 1. We never teach that the making to ourselves a new heart is an antecedent condition required before the Lord can make the new covenant with us, as this man would charge Protestant Divines; but that it is a condition required in the party covenanting, which is conditio fœderatorum, non fœder is, and such a condition without which 'tis impossible they can fulfil the other condition, which is to believe, and so lay hold on the covenant: but it is clear, Antinomians think the new heart no inherent grace in us, but that Christ is grace working immediately in us as in stones, and the new heart is justification, without us, in Christ only. Let Crispe shew where the making of a new heart is commanded to us, as a consequent and an effect of the covenant; surely the new heart, the washing of us with clean water, be it an antecedent, or be it a consequent of the covenant of grace, it is a promise that God doth freely and of mere grace undertake to perform in us, Ezek. 36:26. A new heart will I give you: so, Jer. 32:39, 40; Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 11:19; Isa. 54:13; John 6:45; Ezek. 36:32. Not for your sakes do I this, faith the Lord God, be it known unto you; be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel. ver. 22. I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have prophaned amongst the heathen, whither ye went. And Crispe faith, "The covenant in the Old Testament had annexed to it divers conditions, of legal washing and sacrifices, whereas the new covenant under the New Testament is every way of free-grace." He is far wide; conditions wrought in us by grace, such as we assert, take not one jot or title of the freedom of grace away: and though there be major gratia, a larger measure of grace under the New Testament, yet there is not magis gratia, there is no more of the essence of free grace in the one, than in the other; for all was free grace to them, as to us. Why did the Lord enter in covenant with the Jews more than with other nations? Deut. 7:7. The Lord loved you, because he loved you. Was Jerusalem, Ezek. 16 holier than the Ephesians, Eph. 2. No, their nativity was of the land of Canaan, their father an Amorite, their mother an Hittite, Ezek. 16:5. Thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. ver. 6. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said to thee in thy blood, Live: and, to cause grace have a deeper impression and sinking down into the heart's bottom, he repeateth it again, I said unto thee in thy blood, Live. And will Crispe say that this is not a history of free grace, as far from bribe or hire of merit as in the world? or, will he say, it was God's meaning, first, Wash you with holy water, and sacrifice to, me and perform all these legal conditions to me, while you are Amorites and Hittites by kind; and that being done, I'll enter in covenant with you; when ye have done your work, I'll pay your wages, and be your God.

2. This argument militateth strongly against every gospel-duty, and the whole course of sanctification; God must so be the cause, and only cause of all our sinful omissions, and sins under the covenant of grace, in that he promiseth to work in us to will and to do, and to give us grace to abstain from sin, but does not stand to his word, as Antinomians teach; which is an argument unanswerable to me, that 'tis the mind of Antinomians, that no justified person can sin, but in that they omit good, or commit ill, God is in the fault, not they; and that the justified are meer blocks in all the course of their sanctification; in all the sins they do, they are patients; God should more carefully see to his own honour, and not suffer them to sin: so they and the old Libertines, go on together. For say, that the new heart, that to will and to do, to persevere stedfastly in the grace of God, were no conditions of the covenant (sure, believing in the Lord Jesus is clearly a condition of the righteousness of faith, as doing is of the righteousness which is of the law, Rom. 10:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; Gal. 4:22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28) say that to repent, pray, love God, and serve him, were not from God through the tye of the new covenant; yet God's promise, his single word, when he faith, He will do such and such things, is as strong a tye as his covenant and oath, when he knoweth 'tis impossible these things that he faith he will do, can be done, except he, of his meer grace, work them in us. Now, the Lord clearly promiseth, that he will give repentance, Acts 5:31. Sorrow for sin, the Spirit of grace and supplication, Zech. 12:10 acircumcised heart to love and to serve the Lord Deut. 30:6; Ezek. 36:26. Perseverance in grace, Jer. 32:40, 41; Isa. 54:10. chap. 59:20, 21; Psal. 1:3; John 4:14. Chap. 10:28; Phil. 1:6; Eph. 5:26, 27; 1 John 2:1. Then let D. Crispe or any Libertine say, when the saints sin, in not praying, in not sorrowing for sin, in not willing and doing, in their sins and falls in their christian race to heaven, let me speak in the words of Crispe, "Whose fault is it, or failing, not to perform the word or promise of God? God undertaketh by promise, yea by his simple word, to fulfil what he promiseth, and faith, He will work all these in us, yea to will and to do; Ergo, if it be not done, the fault cannot be man's, but it must be (which I abhor to write or speak) the Lord's."

3. God takes all upon himself, in genere causæ gratiosæ. Liberrimæ independentis, primæ, non obligatæ ad agendum exulla lege; in the kind of a cause that worketh by meer grace, freely, independently, without any law above him to oblige him to do otherwise with his own, than he freely willeth, decreeth, promiseth; for men carnally divide God's decree, which is most free, from his promise, which is as free as his decree; but it followeth in no sort, (as Arminians and Jesuits object to us) therefore men, who do not believe, pray, walk holily, are not in the fault, being under a law to obey; for sinful inability to obey, can ransom no man from the obligation of obedience: and most blasphemous it is, that because God undertaketh in the covenant, that we shall walk in his commandments, as he doth promise, Ezek. 36:27 and that we shall fear him, Jer. 32:39, 40 that God should therefore be in the fault, and we free of all fault, when in many particulars we offend all, James 3:2 and we fear not God, in this or this sin; as is possible, and may be gathered from Joseph's speech to his brethren, who says he would not wrong them, for he feared God; and Job's word, that he durst not despise the cause of his servant, because he was afraid of God. Yet God promiseth, that he will keep Joseph, Job and all the elect, in the way of God's commandments, that they shall not fully fall away from him: God never, by promise, covenant, oath, or word, undertaketh to keep his elect from this or this particular breach and act of unbelief, against the convent of grace.

4. The fault against the gospel, or any sin in a believer, must justly be imputed to him, because he is tyed by the evangelic law not to sin in any thing; the gospel granteth pardons, but not dispensations in any sins: and it can in no sort be imputed to God, because if any believer fall in a particular sin or act of unbelief against the covenant of grace, the Lord neither decreed nor did ever undertake by covenant or promise to keep him by his effectual grace from falling in that sin; for the Lord would then certainly have keeped him, as he did Peter, and doth all the elect that are effectually called, that in mighty temptations their faith fail them not. Nor is the act of believing, that is wanting in that particular fall, such a condition of the covenant, as Christ either promised to work, or the necessary condition of the covenant of grace, or such a condition, the want whereof doth annul and make void the eternal covenant of grace.

5. I here smell in Antinomians, that God must be in fault, as the author of our unbelief, our stony hearts, our walking in our fleshly ways, because God hath promised to give us faith, and a heart of flesh, to walk in his ways; as the old Libertines said, God was the principal and chief cause of sin, and that 'God did all things, both good and ill, and the creatures did nothing.' So Calvine, in institut. Adversus Libertinos, chap. 14. in epus. p. 446. Mr. Archer down-right saith, 'God is the author of sin.' What end is there of erring, if God leave us? It is true, the tie, and all the tie of giving a new heart, and the Spirit of grace and supplication, lieth on the Lord, who promised so to do, Deut. 30:6; Ezek. 11:19, 20. chap. 36:26, 27; Jer. 31:33, 34, 35, 36. But yet so that we are under the obligation of divine precepts to do our part, Ezek. 18:31. Make a new heart, and a new spirit; for why while ye die, O house of Israel? Jer. 4:4. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the fore-skin of your heart, Eph. 5:23. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, Rom. 12:1; Rom. 13:14 and 1 Thess. 5:17. Pray without ceasing. Psal. 50:15: Call upon me. Mat. 26:41. Watch and pray: therefore all the tie and obligation of whatever kind cannot so free us from sinful omissions, or can the tie ly on God; evangelic commandments are accompanied with grace to obey, and grace layeth tie on us also to yield obedience.

'Tis a soul and ignorant mistake in Crispe, to make the covenant nothing but that love of God to man, which he cast on man before the children had done or evil, Rom. 9:1. That love is eternal, and hath no respect to faith as to a condition; but 'tis not the covenant itself, because it is the cause of the covenant. 2. To the love of election, there is no love, no work, no act of believing required on our part; yea, no mediator, no shedding of blood; we are lord with an everlasting love, before all these: but the covenant, though as decreed of God, it be everlasting (as all the works of creation and divine providence which fall out in time, and have beginning and end, are so everlasting; for God decreed from eternity to they should be) yet it is not in being formally, while be preached to Adam after his fall; and there is required faith on all the saints part, to lay hold on the covenant, Isa. 56:4 and to make it a covenant of peace to the saints in particular. 2. Faith is the condition of the covenant. 2. Christ the Mediator of it. Christ's blood the seal of it. 5. The Spirit must write it in our heart: but the love of election is a completed free, full love, before our faith, or shedding of blood or a Mediator be at all.

Object. "We are not saved, nor justified, nor taken in covenant by faith, as a work, (saith Crispe) for then we should not be saved by grace, and grace should not be grace: but we are justified by faith, that is, by that Christ which faith knoweth, according to that, By his knowledge shall my righteous Servant justify many; therefore faith is no condition of this covenant."

Answ. The contrary rather followeth: 1. Seeing Crispe doth say, None under heaven can be saved till they have believed; we are not taken in covenant by faith; neither we nor scripture speak so; taking us in covenant, is before we can believe; but we lay hold on Christ and righteousness by faith, not as a work but a necessary condition required of us. 2. I leave it to the consideration of the godly, if believing in him who justifieth the ungodly be no condition; (a work justifying, I do not think it) but only I believe and know that Christ justified me before I believed, from eternity, as some say, when I was conceived in the womb Crispe saith; and that the threatning, He that believe not, is condemned already, carries this sense, He believeth not that he is not condemned, he is already condemned: Who can believe such toys?

Believing is a receiving of Christ, John 1:22 Christ's dwelling in the heart, Ephes. 3:17. Then to believe, must be to know that Christ was in me before believed, and that I received him from eternity, or on my conception.

To believe, maketh me a son born, not of flesh blood, John 1:12, 13 and Gal. 3:26 and by faith we receive the Spirit: this then must be nothing but I know by the light of faith, I was a son before, had received the Spirit, before I believed. What we absurd?

And by faith I live not, Christ liveth in me, and I am crucified and mortified; that is, by faith how that I did live the life of God, and was crucified to the world: whereas I was dead in sins, before believed.

And, because believing is somewhat more than a naked act of the mind, it being a fiducial adherence so, and an affiance, acquiescence, and heart-reliance, and staying on Christ, or a rolling of ourselves on God for salvation, as is clear in the original holy languages of scripture, Psal. 18:18; Isa. 26:3; Psal. 112:8; Isa. 10:21; Mic. 3:11; Psal. 22:8; Psal. 55:22; 1 Pet. 5:7; Cant. 8:5; John 1:12. 'Tis too hungry a notion of faith, to make it nothing but a swing of that which really was before; for heart-adherence is not an act of the mind, and so not an act of knowledge, but of the will and affection, in which there is no act of knowledge formally, though it presuppose an act of knowledge.

Then wicked men must be in their sins, not justified in his blood, because they will not know that Christ died for them in particular, and that Christ bore their sins on the cross, and justified and pardoned them long ago; all which to believe, is to hold a lie in the right-hand. But to return.

Asser. 7. How the Lord worketh in us to will and to do, the power and the act, and yet we are guilty in our omissions of good, or in our sinful and remiss manner of working with the grace of God, is a point more mysterious than I dare undertake to explain. If these may give light, I offer them to the reader.

Pos. 1. Grace, free-grace, is the great and master-wheel, that carrieth about heart, senses, foot, and hand; and not that only, but seed and tree and fruit, the flower, the principle dependeth necessarily on free-grace: and for a third, the state and condition is higher than either principle, or seed, or fruit; to be an heir of glory, is more than a supernatural principle of gift, and more than one single action above nature. Grace must make the principle gracious, and grace must in-act and quicken the principle to bring forth; and grace's policy makes natural men, citizens of heaven, sons of God, heirs of life, John 1:12, 13; Gal. 4:4, 5.

Pos. 2. This must stand as a ground, That there is not any gracious act performed by the members, but the head Christ is so interested in it, that, as even the finger and toe, in the natural body, cannot stir without the motion takes its beginning from life and head; so neither can the mystical body, or any joint or member of it, act or move in its supernatural orb of grace, but every individual act of grace must pay the rent of glory to the mystical head, whose predeterminating influence does act and steer the ship: for Christ is not only the compass, and day-star, according to which spiritual motions are directed, and hand and finger, foot, (and all see with the visive power seated in the head, for they have no faculty of seeing in themselves) and the saints in these actions stir with the light in the two eyes, or seven eyes and lamps that are in the Head Christ; but also the real motions of grace, in their physical, as well as in their moral sphere, are shapen and acted by Christ. It is not much (though it be a wonder) that a huge great ship, made up of so many pieces of dry dead timber, can move regularly through so many circles, compasses, turnings of many coasts, countries, change of winds, ten thousand miles, to a certain harbour, when timber is acted and moved with the borrowed art and reason of a man stirring the helm; so there is a [Gr. lógos,] a reason, a wisdom in him, Who is made our wisdom, to act the saints in their heavenward motion, that are carried through so many sea-circles, turnings, contrary winds of temptations, afflictions, various soul-dispensations of sweet and sour, absence, presence, going and conling again of Christ, to such a determinate home as heaven: for the Father must thank the steersman Christ, his Son! that the broken bark and all his poor friends are landed, with the borrowed art of Christ; and no more thanks or praise to us, than to dead timber. That we should be [Gr. eìs tò einâi hemâs,] to the praise of his glory, Eph. 1:12 as if our passive being (it is a borrowed expression, for we are co-agents with and under Christ, in the work) were destinated to the praise of the glory of his grace: but we are so drawn, as Christ is great Lord moderator and author; and God in the second and new world of grace, as God creator is in all actions of nature, John 15:5. Without me, (as your vine-tree, in whom you grow, and a stock in whom you bring forth fruit, every blossom of life, every apple) ye can do nothing. Phil. 2:13. For it is God that worketh in you to will and to do, according to his good pleasure. 2 Cor. 13:3. Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you; then every word that Paul spoke, Christ in him spoke it not formally, as if Paul had been a meer patient, but efficaciously, Rom. 15:18. For I will not dare to speak of any of these things which Christ hath nor wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient by word act deed. Isa. 27:3. I the Lord do keep it, (the church, the garden of red wine) I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. Keeping and watering every moment, is grace actual every moment, to make his tender vines grow, and preserving his owa from succumbing under every temptation.

2. There were no ground for Adam's thankfulness and praise, that he stood one moment, or that he gave names to every thing according to their nature, or ever heard with patience the command of God, Thou shalt not eat, if in every act of obedience, he had not need of the actual predeterminating influence of God; nor were there ground for this prayer in faith, and in patient submission to God, as to one to whom we owe the praises, of the not-failing of our faith, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; nor were there any glory due to Christ's advocation and intercession, that we fall not fully and finally off Christ and from Christ, and the state of grace, when we are tempted, if free-will, not the actual influence of predeterminating grace, did keep the saints, and stir them to every act.

3. Who is the author and finisher of our faith? Christ; and who perfecteth the good work once begun, but Christ? and who but he bringeth many children to glory? Not we. When the soul is distempered under desertion, the soul is so tender and excellent a piece, love so curious and rare a work of Christ, that let all the angels in heaven, seraphims, and dominions, and thrones, set all their shoulders and strength together, they cannot with angel-tongues (let them speak heaven, and Christ, and glory) calm a soul-fever; and words of silk, and oil dropped from the clouds, cannot command the love-sickness of a sad soul. Will ye look to heaven while your sight fail, and weep out two eyes, while Christ's time come, you cannot find case for a broken spirit; when Christ breaketh, can angels make whole? The conscience in a hell-sever. The comforter is gone: can you with a nod bring the physician back again? Can golden words charm and calm a fever of hell? Can you with all the love-waters on earth quench a coal of fire that came from heaven? Send up to heaven a mandate against the decree and dispensation of God, if you can; if the gates of death can open to thee; or if thou hast seen the doors of the shadow of death; or can do such great works of creation, as to lay the corner-stone of the earth, or hang the world on nothing, which Job could not do, chap. 37. chap. 38. But who can command soul-furies? Only, only Christ.

The soul is down amongst the dead, wandring from one grave to another. Can you make a dead spirit a gospel-harp to play one of the springs of Zion, the songs of the Holy Ghost? Christ can do it. Can you cry and find obedience to your call, O north, south-wind, blow upon the garden? Christ hath his own wind at command; he is master of his own mercies. Can you prophesy to the wind to come and breathe on dead bones? Christ only can. Can you breathe life, soul, and five senses on a coffin? Could you make way for breathing in the narrow and deep grave, when clods of clay closeth the passage of the nostrils? Christ can; Isa. 26:19. Thy dead men shall live, together with my body they shall arise: awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Can you draw the virgins after the strong and delicious smell of the ointments of Christ? But if he draw, the virgins run after his love, Cant. 1:3. Christ indicts war: are you a creator to make peace? He cries hell, and wrath; can you speak joy, and consolation? are you an anti-creator, to undo what Christ does? Christ commandeth fury against a people, or person; can men, can angels, can heaven countermand?

Pos. 3. The Lord's suspending of his grace cometh under a twofold consideration. 1. As the Lord denieth it to his own children. 2. As to wicked men also. As he witholdeth grace, especially actual and predeterminating; it falleth under a threefold respect,

1. As it is a work of the free and good pleasure and sovereignty of God.

2. As it is a punishment of former sins.

3. As from it resulteth our sin, even as the night hath its being from the absence of the sun; death from the removal of life.

Asser. 4. The Lord's denial of grace, is seen most eminently in two cases: 1. In the parting asunder of the two decrees of election and reprobation.

2. In God's withdrawing of himself and his assistance, in the case of trying the saints.

In the former, the Lord has put forth his sovereignty in his two excellentest creatures, angels and men. If we make any cause in the free-will of angels (I speak of a separating and discriminating cause) why some angels did stand, and never sin, some fall, and become devils; we must deny freedom of God's grace in the predestination of angels: now the scripture calleth them elect angels; how then came it that they fell not? From free-will? No: angels are made of God, and for God, and to God; then, by the apostle's reason, they could not give first to God, to engage the Almighty to a recompence, they could not first set their free-will to work their own standing in court, before God did with his grace separate them from angle that fell, Rom. 11:36; Isa. 40:13. 2. Make an election of angels, as the scripture doth; when some are called elect angels, and some not, then it must be an election of grace: an election of works cannot be; because angels must glory in the Lord, that they stand when others fell, Rom. 4:2 as men do, Prov. 16:4; Jer. 9:23, 24; 2 Cor. 10:17; Rom. 11:36. For no creature, angels or men, can glory in his sight; for angels are for him and of him, as their last end, and first author, Rom. 11:36. Then they gave not first to God, to engage the Lord in their debt, ver. 35 for, if so, then glory should be to the angels: but now, upon this ground, that none can engage the Lord in their debt, Paul, ver. 36 faith, To him be glory for ever; because none can give to him first, and all are for him, and of him; then so are angels.

3. Angels are associated in the element and orb of free-grace, to move as men, with grace's sings to fly over the lake prepared for the devil and his angels, whereas others fell in; otherwise Christ, the Lord treasurer of free-grace, cannot be the head of angels, Col. 2:9 as of men, Col. 1:8; Eph. 1:20, 21, 22, 23. For as art, not nature, can prevent a dangerous fever, by drawing blood, or some other way; even as the same art can recover a sick man out of a fever, whereas another sick of that same disease, yet wanting the help of art, dieth: so the same grace, in nature, specie and kind, not free-will hindred the elected angels to fall; whereas, by constitution of nature and mutability, being descended of that first common poor and base house, the first spring of all the creation of God, mere and simple nothing, the mother of change and of all defects natural and moral, in every the most excellent creature; they were as an humorous gross body, in which the vessels are full, and in a nearest propension to the same fever that devils fell into, even to the ill of the second death, if the grace of God had not prevented them.

2. In men, God has declared the deep sovereignty and dominion of free-grace, in calling effectually one man, Jacob, not Esau; Peter, not Judas; in having mercy, in time, on whom he will, and hardning whom he will. I humbly provoke all Arminians, all Libertines, who dash themselves the contrary way against the same stone, to show a reason why one obeyeth and actively joineth with the draught and pull of the right arm of Jesus Christ, John 12:32 and his Father, John 6:44 and another refuseth, and actively and wilfully withdraweth from the call of God, if the omnipotency of never-enough praised grace be not the cause, the adequate, highest, and principal cause. I deny not but corrupt and rebellious will is the inferiour, culpable, and only culpable and moral cause, why Judas denieth obedience to the holy call of Christ.

It is a sweet contemplation, that angels and men sing the same song and psalm of free-grace in heaven, to the Lamb, to him that sitteth on the throne; and a question it is, if a more engaging and obliging way to free-grace could be devised, than that as many as are in the glorified troops and triumphing armies in heaven, clothed in white, should be also the sworn subjects, and the eternal debtors of the freest grace of him who is the high Lord Redeemer, and Head of angels and men.

But in the engagement itself of the wind of the Spirit, for the trial of the saints, there is a great ground of admiration; as, 1. The blowing of the soft and pleasant breathings of the south-wind of free-grace, lying under the only work of sovereignty, when, and where, and in the measure the Lord pleaseth, is a high and deep expression of the freedom of grace; for in one and the same prayer (the like by proportion may be said of the acts of faith, love, patience, hope) we often begin to pray, with sad and fleshly complaints of unbelief, as is evident in many psalms and prayers of the saints in scripture, Jeremiah, Lam. 3 of Job, of David; yet going on, the breathings of the Holy Ghost will fill the fails, and he returneth; therefore this is a ground, yea, a demonstration to me, then, when I find no motion of the Holy Ghost, no spiritual disposition, but mere deadness, I am not to abstain from praying, because I find the Spirit not acting nor stirring in me, as Antinomians say: but, 1. I am to act and do, though the principle of motion be natural; as if the first stroke on flint make not fire, we are to strike again and again; and if the fire blowing of the bellows kindle not the sticks, let us be doing, and the Lord will be with us; a kindling and a flame may come from heaven. Say that the Lord were wanting to me in a dead and low ebb; he will not once roll about the sight of his eye, nor let out one blast or stirring of air and wind of the Spirit toward me; yet my deadness is my sin, and freeth not me from an obligation to pray and to seek to God. The door is fast bolted, shall I not therefore knock? Access is denied, and the Lord in anger shutteth out my prayer, Lam. 3:8. May not I look and sigh, and groan towards his holy temple? Deadness is not the Lord's revealed will, forbidding bidding me to pray, because I am dead and indisposed.

2. Deadness and indisposition is a sin; then must we confess to God, and tell the Lord, when we are indisposed to pray, that we cannot pray; and let the dead and the blind but bow his knee, and lay a dead spirit, and naked wretched soul, a pair of blind eyes before God: for we are commanded to confess this to God, as may be gathered from Rev. 3:17; 1 John 1:9; Prov. 28:13; Psal. 32:5.

4. We are expresly commanded in the day of trouble, and of our temptation, to pray, and seek help from God under our temptations, Psal. 50:15; Mat. 6:13; 1 Thes. 5:17 as the saints have done, Psal. 18:6; Psal. 34:6; Psal. 61:2; 2 Cor. 12 ver. 7, 8, 9. If then we judge the no-breathing of the Holy Ghost a temptation, and a cause of humiliation, as it is, and the saints do judge it; then are we to pray, tho' most indisposed. Why doth David complain that he was as a bottle in the smoke, and pray so often that God would quicken him, if under a dead disposition we were not to pray?

4. If often the saints, beginning to pray, do speak words of unbelief, and from a principle of nature; and if words flowing from the deadness and misgivings and rovings of the flesh, interwoven in with the spiritual and heavenly ravishments of the Spirit of grace and supplication, in one and the same complaint and prayer to God, as Psal. 38; Psal. 102; Psal. 77; Psal. 88; Lam. 3; Jer. 20; Job. 8. chap. 16. chap. 19 and in many other passages, where the Spirit and the flesh have dialogues and speeches by turns and by course: then may and ought the saints to pray under deadness, and do as much as their present indispostion can permit them; and the Spirit is seen to come and blow, not by obligation of covenant or promise, on God's part, as Jesuits and Arminians with Pelagians have taught, but in ordinary free practices of grace; as Philip was commanded to come and preach Christ to the eunuch, while he was reading the book of the prophet Isaiah, not because he was reading scripture, or because such a promise is made to those who read scripture, as the angels revealed the glad tidings of the birth of Christ, while the shepherds were attending their flocks in the field; not because they were so doing, as if a promise of the gospel belonged to men because they wait on their calling: and Ananias is sent to preach Christ to Saul, and open his eyes, while he was praying, not because he was praying, but of mere free-grace, which moveth in this ordinary current and sphere of free-love, congruously to the Lord's freely intended end to save his people: even as the Lord joineth his influence and blessing to give bread and a harvest to the sower, Isa. 55 yet not that he hath tied himself by a promise to give a good harvest to every industrious husbandman; yet this ordinary practice of grace, with the commandment of God, is enough to set us on work to pray, to believe, to acts of love to Christ, in the saddest and deadest times.

5. It should be no sinful omission in us, not to pray when the Spirit stirreth us not, if our deadness should free us from all sin, because we cannot run, when the Bridegroom doth not draw. Christ's drawing goeth along with the secret decree of election, but is not to us a signification of the Lord's revealed will, that we should not follow Christ, when he suspendeth the influence of his drawing power.

6. Now, as in nature, men may so dare the Almighty in his face, that God in justice may deny his influence to natural causes; as when malice opposeth the Spirit of God in the Prophet of God, that the Lord refuseth to concur with the oil in Jeroboam's withered arm, that he cannot pull it in again to him: 2. When the Lord is put to a contest with false gods to work a miracle, as in his refusing to concur with the fire in burning the three children; for in all causes natural, or moral, or whatever they be, God has a negative voice and more: 3. When the ax or the saw boasteth itself against him that lifted it; the Lord may use his liberty: so (to come to the second consideration) when Peter proudly trusteth in himself, I will die with thee, ere I deny thee; the Lord, to punish his pride, must deny his assisting grace, when Peter is tempted, that he may know that nature is a sorry undertaker; that the man rideth to heaven on a withered reed, who aimeth to climb that up-hill-city on his own fleshly and clay-strength; and God, to show a black spot on a fair face, in heaven, will have it said, There standeth David before the throne, who once committed adultery, and, to cover the shame of it from men, killed most treacherously an innocent godly man: God here, out of the ashes of our sin, will have a rose of free-grace, that filleth the four corners of heaven with its smell, to grow green up in the higher paradise, for a summer of eternity; and will have no tenants in heaven, but the free-holders of grace. It is a question whether there be more grace or more glory in heaven; for the crown of glory is a crown of grace: that vast sea of the redemption of grace issued from under our sinful falls.

7. Yea, upon this reasonless and fleshly ground, if we omit praying, and so believing, loving, repenting, mortifying our lusts, when the Spirit stirs us not to these acts, and say, If God will suffer me to sin, let him see to it; then, upon the same ground, all the justified saints (I should think them devils, not saints) might sin, murder, blaspheme, whore, oppress, commit sodomy, incest, as Lot, deny Jesus Christ, as Peter did and say, As we are not to pray, nor obliged to a constant course in prayer, when Christ draweth not, and when the Spirit moveth us not (as Antinomians say (with Mr. Crispe and others, error 49. page 9, 10. Rise, Reign) so neither are we to abstain from murder, denying of Christ, blasphemy, sodomy, when the Spirit of Christ draweth us not, and moveth and stirreth not our soul to abstinency and a holy fear and circumspection that we commit not such abominations; and Peter might say, I am not obliged to a constant course of confessing Christ before men, unless the Spirit stir me thereunto; and David or any saint might say, If the Lord will suffer me to murder the innocent, let him see to it: for the Lord's drawing and the Spirit's stirring is as necessary in a holy eschewing of sins of commission, as in sins of commission; and by as great, and an every way equal necessity, if the Lord withdraw himself and the Spirit stir not, we must fall in such abominations, when tempted by Satan and the flesh, as in the sins of sinful omitting of praying, praising, believing, when the Spirit stirs us not thereunto; but the truth is, this necessity can neither lay the blame on the holy and spotless dispensation of God, nor free us from guiltiness, because, both between God's withdrawing influence and the sin, there doth intervene an obliging law that forbids sin, and our free-will and reason acting the sin freely. But we are commanded, 2 Tim. 1:6. To stir up the grace of God in us, [Gr. anazopureis] 'tis an allusion to the priests, who were to keep in the fire that came from heave; grace is resembled to fire under ashes, which with blowing of bellows is made to revive and burn again. It is the prophet's complaint, Isa. 64:7. There is none that calleth upon thy name, or stirs up himself to lay hold on thee; the habit of grace may be warmed, blown upon, and kindled, that as fire makes fire, so grace may put forth itself in acts of grace, and the seed of God in the saints, 1 John 3:9 may bring forth births like itself, motion here produceth heat.

Object. "But the actual predetermination of grace, is not in your hand; and without this, acts of praying and believing are impossible to me."

Answ. If this were a sufficient reason, then all works of nature, whatever the creature doth, were impossible; for the plow-man should not go to till, sow, and reap, because, without the blessing of the common and natural influence of the first cause, he could do none of these things.

2. Because the saints know not the counsel and mind of God in his decree of joining of his supernatural influence, or his suspending of the same, to this or this act of praying, believing, hoping, loving of Christ, &c. Therefore, upon all occasions, the saints, whatever be their present deadness and indisposition, are to pray, believe, and to stir up themselves to lay hold on God; 1. Because, as, in natural and moral actions, men are not to neglect plowing, earing, journeying, eating, drinking, sleeping, buying, and selling, upon this ground, because they are ignorant, whether, in the work, the Lord shall be pleased to join his influence, as the first cause, without whom all inferior causes can do nothing: so are not the saints to neglect to pray, because they are dead and indisposed, upon the ground of their doubting and not knowing whether the Lord of grace will be pleased to add his actual assistance of grace, to work in them to will and to do; for the Lord may be pleased to add his supernatural influence in a moment; his wind bloweth when it listeth, his grace moveth swiftly, when, and where he pleaseth: our good disposition is neither rule, condition, work nor hire to move him to work.

2. It is all one, as if we wilfully neglected to pray, and resisted the predeterminating grace of God, when we know not whether the Lord shall deny his influence or no, yet we disobey the Lord commanding, and so obliging us to pray; for, as if we had his influence at our elbow attending us, so we are to pray, and set to work: yea, our voluntary refusing to pray, we only conjecturing evil of God, and of his free-grace, without ground, must come from sinful wickedness, not from impotency and weakness; for, who told you that Christ would be wanting in his influence? You knew it not from any word of God; and shall you fancy a jealousy against Christ's love without any warrant? Even as a servant commanded to lift a burden, upon a sluggishness should say, It came thither in a cart and two horses, when he would never move an arm to take a trial what he could do, though the burden were above his strength, when he will not do as much as he can, his disobedience is wilful: therefore we may say, if we speak of a voluntary, wilful and groundless forsaking of God, in order of time, we first forsake God ere he desert us; but in order of nature, God first forsaketh us, that is, he withdraweth his heavenly influence from us, but so as, before and after the act of withdrawing, we are willing that God should withdraw, and be gone; for we love in all the acts of sinning to have a world of our own.

3. We are to believe in the general, we being within the covenant, the Lord will keep his promise, Deut. 30:6. And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. Ezek. 11:19. And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new Spirit within you. —— v. 20. That they may walk in my statutes, Ezek. 36:27. Then are we so to set to these duties of walking in the Lord's way, as we are to believe he will not deny actual grace, necessary for our perseverance, because it is his express promise, Jer. 31:33, 34, 35, 36; Jer. 32:39, 40; Isa. 59:19, 20, 21; Isa. 54:10, 11; Ezek. 36:26, 27; 1 John 2:1, 2; Mat. 16:18; Luke 22:31, 32 though in acts not fundamental, and simply necessary for our being in the state of grace, the Lord hath reserved a latitude of independent sovereignty to act the soul in these and these particular acts, as seemeth good to him, that every new breathing of the Spirit of Jesus, may be a new debt and obligation of free-grace, to Christ.

We are absolutely to pray for the breathings of Christ's Spirit, to go along with us, in all the particular acts of a gracious and spiritual walking; but we know the Lord's absolute good pleasure is his rule he walks by: so here, our desires may be absolute in seeking, where the Lord gives upon condition of his own good-will; nor are our desires in prayer to be conformable to God's decree, or free pleasure, but to his revealed will.

Grace is the colours of the inhabitants and citizens of the house of the lower and higher rooms of the new Jerusalem; all the way, and all the home the saints walk in, is white; Christ keeps not his spouse in a close chamber; it is not one great act of free grace only, when all were in one day redeemed on the cross, but daily Christ weareth his church as a bracelet about his neck, as a seal on his heart, as his royal diadem, and a crown of glory on his head, as his love-ring on his hand; this day grace, to-morrow new and fresh apply of grace; the next hour grace; he has strewed all the way to heaven with new grace; every day new wine, new spikenard, new perfume, new ointments.

When will Christ grow old and gray-haired? Never: will his heart ever grow cold of love? No: will he tire of love? Will he wear out of delight in the spouse that lieth for eternity between his breasts? No, no: the love of Christ is always green, as young-like, as fair and white to day, as from eternity; this rose is not altered a whit. Who knows how grace and love in Christ's breast solaced themselves in these infinite resolutions of ages, before the creation? How Christ's heart was cheering itself, and rejoicing to have the first day of the creation dawning, that he might enjoy the love of the sons of men, not then created, Prov. 8:30, 31 as if grace and love had thought long to find a channel with wide banks to flow in; as if Christ, having infinite love with him, in that long, long age (to borrow that expression) should say, when shall time begin? And sinful men, and my mystical body, and desired spouse my church, have being in the world, that I may out that grace on her? I have love within me and lying beside me; I rejoice to have a lover: as if grace in Christ, had been in too narrow banks, in the infinite acts of the infinite mind of God and the heart of Christ, and longed to have men and angels to give a vent to his love.

And that long Ævum, the ages that were before the world was, brought it green to us; that long, long, endless and vast duration, when time shall be no more, cannot make Christ's love change the colour, or grow less, or root one saint out of his heart; when God leaveth off to be God, grace will leave off to be grace. Make Christ repent of grace, if you can: as Christ has washen his spouse, and, in regard of the guilt of sin, has made her all fair and spotless; so doth he daily lick, and purge, and cleanse her, in regard of the inherent blot, while she be fair as the sun, and all a new heaven.

Asser. 7. In the third consideration, from the suspension of divine influence cometh our sin, as a necessary consequent, and result; yet so as the Lord's suspension, and our trasgression, fall both in the bosom of divine providence: the Lord knoweth why he withdraweth his grace, that we might know how weighty a thing great heaven is laid upon our poor shoulders, and that we would make soul work out of all we have received; and the stock the second Adam has given us if we had not Christ to steer the ship, to lead the minors to heaven, to keep the inheritance to the little heirs of Christ, should evanish to nothing.

Posit. 9. If we consider the Lord's denial of grace, from wicked men; they cannot turn to God, but that impotency lay in the womb of will; it is not weakness only, but also willingness, Mat. 23 v. 37. I would have gathered you, (saith Christ) ye would not. John 5:6. Christ saith to the sick man, Wilt thou be made whole? then there was a stop in his will, as well as in his weakness. Jer. 44:19. As for the word that thou hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken to thee.

2. Love and delight to do ill, is from the strength and marrow of the will, not from weakness only: the servant that would not leave his master, because he loved him, is a slave for ever, through love to slavery, rather than through impotency to be free. In those that delight to do evil, will hath a strong influence in the evil they do: every sinner esteems his prison of hell, a heaven; his fetters of sin on his legs, as a gold chain about his neck.

3. It is a journey of a hundred miles to Christ; it is impossible to the natural man to compass it, yet be may walk two of these hundred miles, tho' not as a part of the way; he will not so much as cast a sad look after Christ, he will not bestow one sigh of Christ, nor know his own weakness, nor despair of his own hability, nor lie at the water-side, and cry, Lord Jesus, come carry me over; he positively hates Christ: were it possible, that the unrenewed man had the two eyes of a renewed man, to see the beauty and high excellency of Jesus, tho' he had still his own lame legs, he would weep out his eyes for a chariot to carry him to Christ, he would send sad love-challenges after Christ: could those that are scorched in hell-fire, and hear the howhng of their fellow-prisoners, and see the ugly devils, the bloody scorpions with which Satan lasheth miserable souls, and the huge, deep, broad furnace of eternal vengeance; have but a window opened to see heaven, the throne, the tree of life, the glory of the troops clothed in white, and hear the musick of those that praise him that sitteth on the throne; or, say but one of the apples of the tree of life were sent down to hell, and that the damned had senses to taste and smell a grain-weight of the glory that is in it, what thoughts would they have of Christ and heaven? It is like they would hate themselves, and send up sad wishes at least, for the continuance of that sight. O could but natural men see Christ with his own light, it may be they would make out for him. But when all is said of this subject, the grace of God is a desirable thing; better have Christ's heart and love and soul toward you, than what else your thoughts could imagine, above or below heaven,

If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to me.

Article 5. I come now to the fifth article, the condition of Christ's drawing: [Gr. eàn hypsosthô ek tês gês] If I be lifted up from the earth. This particle [Gr. eàn] (if) is not, as in other places, a note of doubting, or of a thing of a contingent and uncertain event: yea, it signifieth here, that Christ was not on any deliberation; shall I die, or shall I not die, for lost man? Christ is not wavering, dubious and uncertain in his love; love in Christ is more fixed and resolved upon, than the covenant of night and day, and the standing of mountains and hills, Jer. 31:35; Isa. 54:10. In other places of scripture, it is not a matter of debate; as John 14:3. If I go away [Gr. eàn poreutho] Christ made no question whether he would go to his Father, 1 John. 2:1. [Gr. eàn tis amárte] If any man sin, we have an advocate; there is no doubt but the saints sin; and if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth it not in us, 1 John 1:8.

To be lifted up from the earth, is expounded to be crucified, v. 33. This is Christ's metaphrase of the kind of death which he suffered.

Crucifying was a cursed, shameful and base death, Deut. 21:23 yet Christ expresseth it by a word of exaltation, Phil. 2:9. Lifting up from the earth: Christ death is life, his shame glory; there be pearls and sapphires of heaven in Christ's hell; and Christ keepeth warm breath of life and hot blood in the cold grave: when he is in an agony, which materially was hell, a glorious angel of heaven is in that hell with him to comfort him: when he is born a poor man on earth, and lies in a horse's manger, there is a new bon-fire in heaven for joy that a great prince is born, a new star appears; the blakness of Christ is stronger than men; the blackness of Christ's marred visage is fair in Christ poverty, when he has not to pay tribute to the emperor Caesar, the sea pays tribute to the king and prince of kings, Jesus; a fish yields him a piece of money: the lowest and basest reproaches of Christ, his cross and sufferings, drop the honey, the sweet smell of heaven; Christ's thorn is a rose, his sadness joy; O what must immediate rays of glory that come from his face be? The very second table of heaven must exceeding fatness, the back-parts of the glorious that sitteth on the throne must be desireable; the fragments and the broken meat of the Lord's higher table must be incomparably dainty: all the earth to these are but husks; the reproaches of Christ must be not so sour as they are reported of. 2. He maketh it the cause of Christ's drawing all men to him. 1. The Holy Ghost will express the cursed and shameful death of Christ, by a word of glory, to be lifted up.

1. The dying of Christ, is a leaving of the earth.

2. It is a matter of exaltation, that Christ was thus abased: of these two only in this place in the New Testament; and John 3:15 is Christ's dying so expressed. It is considerable, that in this manner of death, Christ will hold forth to us, that the dying of Christ is in a special manner a leaving of the earth; so Hezekiah, Isa. 37:11. I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world; that is, I must leave the earth, and see the sun no more: and Christ, John 13:1. Jesus knew that his hour was come, and that he should depart out of this world unto the Father: hence his own word to the repenting thief, Luke 23:43. To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise. John 8:21. I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come.

Doct. Christ choosed a kind of death which was a visible leaving the earth, and a going to heaven, ere he came down again off the cross; for that day his soul was in paradise: as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, John 3:15. Christ's motion of death is from the earth; Christ was tired of the earth, and had his fill of it, he desired no more of it. It is not a place much to be loved by you, saints; for your dear Saviour had but few and sad days on the earth, he was served as a stranger here, and has now left the earth, and gone to the Father. Consider but a few reasons to move you to leave the earth, 1. The earth was Christ's prison, he could not escape out of it, till he paid his sweet life for it: only two that we read of, Enoch and Elias, left the earth, and went to heaven and saw not death; these that shall be changed, and shall not die, at Christ's coming, have this privilege; but otherwise, all have a bruise in the heel, ere they go out of earth. 2. When Christ was on his journey, he was not so much in love with the earth as to repent and turn back again; as Christ's head and face was toward heaven, so his heart and soul followed, he went from the cross straight-way to paradise. 3. What doth Christ leave? The earth: it is thy fellow-creature of God.

But, I. The foot-stool for the soles of Christ's feet, Isa. 60:1; Matth. 5:35.

2. A foot-stool of clay, far from the throne of glory, the office-house of sin, Isa. 24:5. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof. Chap. 26:21. For the Lord cometh out of his place, to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. It is Satan's walk, Job 2:2. And the Lord said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

3. It is the poor heritage of the sons of men, a clay-patrimony, Psal. 115:16. The heaven, even the heavens are the Lord's; but the earth hath be given to the children of men. And oppressors are the land-lords of it. Psal. 10. God ariseth to judge, v. 18 that the man of the earth may no more oppress. Job 9:24. The earth is given to the hand of the wicked.

4. Yea, it is not only the slaughter-house and shambles where Christ was slain, but all the martyrs and witnesses of Jesus were butchered here: for it is said of Babylon, Rev. 18:24. And in her was found the blood of the prophets, and of the saints, and of all that were slain on the earth; then the earth is the scaffold of the lambs of Christ, where their throats have been cut.

5. 'Tis a common inn, where bed and board is free to men, devils, sons, bastards, elect and reprobate; yea, to beasts, called from their country, Gen. 1:25. Beasts of the earth; an earthly minded man, is a fellow-citizen with beasts; it is a home to all but the saints, 'tis their pilgrimage-inns; it is a strange land, and the house of their pilgrimage; Psal. 119:19. I am a stranger in the earth; so David; so Abraham and his, though they had the heritage of a pleasant spot of the earth by promise, even the land of Canaan; yet they sojourned in it as a strange country; and Heb. 11:13. Confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on earth. 2 Cor. 5:6. While we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.

6. The first doomsday fell upon the earth, for man's sin, Gen. 3:17. Cursed shall the earth be for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all thy days. 'Tis a cursed able to man: and the other doomsday is ripening or it, Rev. 14:15, 16. Antichrist's seat, the earth of he false church, is a ripe harvest for the Lord's sickle of destruction. The last doomsday is approaching, when this clay-stage shall be removed, 2 Pet. 3:10. The earth and the works therein, the house and all the plenishing, shall be burnt with fire: 'Tis no long time that we are here, if we believe Job, chap. 7:1. Is here not an appointed time to man upon earth? Are not his days like the days of an hireling? Job. 14:2. He cometh forth as a flower, and it cut down, be flieth also as a shadow, and continueth not. Many generations of hirelings have ended their day's task, and have now their wages; many shadows are gone down, many acors have closed their game, as it may be, and some have fulfilled their course with joy, and are now within the curtain, since the creation.

7. It is a poor narrow room. Some, Isa. 5:8 make house to touch house, and lay field to field, till there he want of place, that they only may be placed alone in the earth: if they report right of the earth, who make it one and twenty thousand miles in circuit, if new-found lands add to this some poor acres, and the western beast have much of this, Rev. 13:8 and the other beast of the East, the Turk, the enemy of Jesus Christ, have eight thousand miles of the land, and other eight thousand miles of sea, making sixteen thousand miles of the two little globes, (I leave others to examine their geography) then it must be a baseplea, and a poor lodging to contend for; it were a good use for us to argue, was the earth my Saviour's refuse and his inn, not his home, and if Christ left the earth long ago, and was tired of it, then let us (Heb. 13:13) go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach: for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come: we cannot lodge, far less can we dwell in a house that shall be burnt with fire; nor is there room for us here; there is a more excellent country above, where men have no winter, no night, no sighing, no sickness, no death, but they live for evermore. We are thronged here for want of room, and 'tis a narrow tent; O what a large land is that above, in which we shall not strive for acres, land, kingdoms? John 14:2. In my Father's house (saith Christ) there are [Gr. monaì pollaì] many dwelling places, houses great and fair, and numerous; all these are holden sorth to us; the earth is a creature near of kin and blood to the half of us, and our body. When a son of Adam dieth, hereturneth, Psal. 146:4. [Heb. leadmatho] to his own earth; had he no free heritage on the world, though he were no landed man, yet when he goeth to his grave, he returneth to his own free heritage, to his own earth.

32. If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw, &c.

Here is a special condition of drawing sinners to Christ: the manner of Christ's death: his being lifted up from the earth, holdeth for a drawing of sinners up after him from the earth to heaven; hence Christ's death is a special means of heavenly-mindedness and mortification. So, 1 Pet 2:24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness. Col. 3:2. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. 3. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God, &c. 5. Mortify therefore your members that are an earth, sornication, uncleanness, &c.

Beza, Piscator, and others think it probable that Christ uttered this prayer to his Father, in the Syriack tongue, because the Evangelist useth the word [Gr. hypsoo] to be lifted up from the earth, and the word [Heb. rum] signifieth both to cut off, as [Gr. hairesthai] doth as Daniel 8:11 by him the daily sacrifice [Heb. hyram] was taken away; and to exalt and lift on high, 1 Sam. 2:1 my born is exalted. Psal. 99:2. the Lord is high, [Heb. veram] above all the people. Psal. 18:47. Let the Lord be exalted. Numb. 24:7; Psal. 46:11; Isa. 49:11; Gen. 14:22. So he holdeth forth such an exalting of Christ, as is to cut off and to slay; this doth come home to drawing of man from sin, and the earth, by that Spirit purchased to us by Christ's death: now, Christ's dying thus, being a taking of him away from the earth, and from sinners, and that in a shameful manner, he being lifted up on the cross, and he in this posture drawing us after him, 'tis a clear working in us the death of sin, and our deadness to the pleasures and glory of the world. 1. Christ died pulling his brethren out of hell and sin; he died, and his spouse in his arms; and this showeth how desirous Christ is to have an union with us; 'tis a posture of love and grace, his head bowed down to kiss sinners, his arms stretched out to embrace them, his bosom open to receive them, his sides pierced, that the doves may fly into the holes of the rock, and lodge there; Christ on the cross, broached and pierced, as a full vessel, out of whom issueth blood and water, justification and redemption from the guilt of sin, and sanctification, is a drawing lover. 2. Here is fulness of power, To reconcile to himself all things, whether they be things in heaven, or things on earth, by the blood of his cross; here we are made Christ's friends, to do whatsoever he commands us, Col. 1:20; John 15:15.

3. Nor is there a stronger band or cord to draw men from sin, than the faith of Christ's death, Gal. 2:20. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Gal. 6:14. But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world. Here is reciprocation of deaths: Paul is crucified to the world, as a dead man, not in the world, nor one of the world's number: a mortified saint drawn up to heaven from the earth, is an odd person, not under tale, he may be spared well enough; the world and the town he lives in may be well without him; as Joseph was the odd lad separated from his brethren, and David none of the seven, miscounted in the telling among the ewes at the sheepfolds, and forgotten as a bastard, or as a dead man out of thought: and again, the world is crucified to Paul, for it looks like a hanged man; it smells like a dead corps to a saint's senses. Now, thus they have not eyes more affected with the world, nor ears more taken with the music, nor a heart more overcome with the lusts of the world, nor a dead man set to a rich table, is affected with all the dainties there, or with the harping of the sweetest musician; the man has escaped [Gr. miásmata tû Kosmu] the pollutions of the world, to him the world has sooty singers, and dirty and picky hands, it defiles washen souls; but to the unmortified man, the world smelleth like the garden of God: lust casteth in, and welcometh to eye, and heart, and fancy, granadoes and fire-balls of uncleanness; sinful pleasure has a rosy face, profit has golden singers, court and honour has a sweet breath, the world is not to him an ill-smelled stinking corps, fit for nothing, but for a hole under the earth: nay, but god-mammon looks like heaven; the world a poor thing; yea, the world of self is but a bag of empty wind, a fancy: (1.) It has no weight, as touching the part of it we count most of, the earth, but so many pounds of clay, the dregs, the earthy bottom of the creation: (2.) The stage that pieces of brittle clay comes upon, and weeps and laughs, and lives, speaks and dies: (3.) The flowers of it, that we are most in love withal, The lusts of the eye, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, are not of God, 1 John 3:16. (4.) It is a house of glass, or of ice, that stands for the fourth part of the year, for winter, but is removed on the spring, and is never to beseen again; for it passeth away like a figure written on the sea-shore, when the sea floweth, 1 Cor. 7:31. (5.) The frenizes, or passements of it, pleasure, profit, honour are all sick of vanity and change to the saints that are crucified and buried with Christ, in whom lust is nailed to the cross of Christ; the world is a dead bag of despised dust; and tho' a toe or a singer of a crucified saint will make a motion and a stir, and break a wedge of the cross, because of the indwelling of a body of death, yet hear his arguing, O vain clay-god, dirty earth, I owe thee no love, because my Lord was lifted up from the earth, and has drawn me after him; I care not for this bubble of a vain life, this transient shadow, seeing Christ could not bruik it: what is the fancy of a plaistered and sairded worldly glory to me, if Jesus his face was spitted on? When is this painted globe of an empty, perishing, and death-condemned world to my happiness, seeing my Saviour was a borrowed body, a stranger, and slaughtered in the world, and had all against him, and always the wind on his face?

Now, let us consider what Antinomians say of mortification; "what is mortification (saith (a) Mr. Denne) but the apprehension of sin, slain by the body of Christ? What is vivification but our new life? The just shall live by faith. I may know (saith the Antinomian) (b) I am Christ's, not because I do crucify the lusts of the flesh, but because I do not crucify them, but believe in Christ that crucified my lusts for me." Much of this lawless and carnal mortification is to be found in Saltmarsh his unexperienced treatise of free-grace, in which he labours to make protestant divines Antichristian-Legalists in the doctrine of mortification; for his way is, "(c) That we are to believe our repentance true in Christ, who hath repented for us; our mortifying sin true in him, through whom we are more than conquerors; our new-obedience true in him, who hath obeyed the law for us, and is the end of the law to every one that believeth; our change of the whole man is true, in him, who is righteousness and true holiness; and thus without faith it is impossible to please God: for there is (saith he) (d) great deceitfulness in mortification of sin, as it is commonly taken, (he must point at Calvin, and other protestant divines; for as Papists and Arminians commonly speak and teach, we are justified by works of penance and mortification) for the not acting of sin, or conceivings of lust, is not pure mortification; for then (e) children, and civilly moral men were mortified persons, &c. It is not in the mere absence of the body of sin, for then dead or sick men were mortified persons."

Eaton's honey-comb of justification, chap. 8. pag. 164, 165. "We mortify ourselves only declaratively, to the sight of men —— whereby the Holy Ghost seeth not us properly mortifying our sins out of the sight of God; for then he should see us robbing Christ of that glory which his blood hath freely done, before we begin; nay, but when the wedding garment hath freely purified us in the sight of God, then the Spirit enters in us to dwell, which otherwise he would not do, and enableth us to walk holily, and righteously, to avoid and purify out of our own sight, sense, and feeling, and out of the sight of other men, that sin which the wedding garment hath purified and abolished before out of the sight of God."

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