Part 4
Answ. Its false, that the Jews by birth as birth, had hereditary right to Church-privileges, they had right by such a birth from Abraham taken in out of free-love to Covenant fellowship with God, and his children are natural, that is, kindly. 2. First branches and springs before us Gentiles, to believing Abraham, but we believing are made Abrahams by proportion, and are secondary and so wild branches. 2. Abraham is not the Physical, but Moral root. For the Covenant was made with Abraham, not as a believing Father, but as a believing Head of Children, of Servants and strangers under him, as the Covenant is laid as an Heavenly depositum, upon Zacheus, in relation not to his children only, but to his house, Luke 19. for when he is made a son of Abraham, salvation, that is, the Covenant of Life comes to him and to his house: and so to Cornelius, Acts 10. and to the Jailor, Acts 16. and to their houses, and the same way I distinguish seeds.
Q. How can the Jews that are come in, be federally holy for their fathers? Since now it is about fifteen hundred years since their fathers were broken off from Church and Covenant: May not all the world Jews and Gentiles be federally holy branches, by the same reason, because the Covenant was made with, and Preached unto Adam a believing root and father in Paradise? So it would appear once in the Covenant of Grace, and all the seed to the coming of Christ, are federally holy, as well as they. Answ. This is as great a difficulty to the Adversaries (and insuperable) as to us, for the Jews unborn by their way, are no more holy in their branches and off spring then Turks and Indians, and their children, until they grow to age and actually believe, and so are the Infants of Americans, and such as worship the Sun, or Satan, that way holy. And so the branches of the Jews have no holiness from the root, nor are they beloved for the fathers, as vers. 28. 2. All the Jews leave not off to be members of the Invisible Church; For Paul saith Rom. 11. 25. blindness in part is happened to Israel ἀπὸ μέρους to a part of Israel: For howbeit the visible mass and body of the Jews rejected Christ, and wrath be come upon them
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to the utmost, 1 Thes. 2. 16. yet that is not said universally of all the Jews, 14. καθὼς καὶ αὐτοὶ ὑπὸ τῶν ἰουδαίων. Yea, Paul wrote to the Jews the Epistle to the Hebrewes. James to the twelve Tribes scattered abroad, Jam. 1. 1. and Peter, 1 Pet. 1. 1. and John to the Jews; I Judge, not in a visible body, and these are not broken off the Olive, and do, though not in a Visible Church-way, derive Covenant-right to the branches that shall be ingraffed in. But many Nations descended of Adam had universally rejected Christ, and know not the Name of Christ the blessed seed.
Q.May we not say that the root is Christ as mystical Head, from whom we partake of the sap of grace, and life and fatness?
Answ. The intent of Paul is to prove that the Jews cut off, because of their unbelief, shall be ingraffed in again, in the Lords own time, because of the holiness of the Covenant, that was in the root and in the first fruits Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is true, their Covenant-holiness is not the adequat cause, why they shall be ingraffed in really into Christ, for so all the carnal children, who had this relative holiness must be really ingraffed in Christ, but it is with the Lords free love, both the cause of their personal, and of their Church ingraffing, and the continued deriving of that relative holiness being a continued free favour in its kind, is the Lords love in the same kind to root and branches, otherwise it should not bear truth, which, is said v. 28. which expones this, ver. 28. that they are beloved for the fathers, not as if they were predestinate to life, because Abraham was so chosen, but because of the Fathers Covenant-holiness, which was holiness from Christ not as root and head, through influence of saving grace, but as a politic head which yet is, what we say. For because Christ is holy as root, head and Redeemer, the Jews once his Church Visible and to be so again, the branches are not really holy by faith, because all of them were not in Christ: but if all Jews and Gentiles, and also Infants, who are Jews and Gentiles and parts of the body be baptized into the visible body, so are Infants. See more of this in Mr. Cotton, Mr. Black, Mr. Cobbet, Mr. Rich. Baxter, who have closed the dispute learnedly. P3
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CHAP. XV.
The differences of external and internal Covenanting. 2. No Universal Grace; Rom. 10. 18. Psal. 19. 3. nor in Scripture. 3. Nor power of believing to all given by Christ.
Hence, the clear differences betwixt the external, visible and National Covenanting of the people of old, when they were brought out of the Land of Egypt; and the internal and personal (though it may be visible also) Covenanting with God.
1. This under the New Testament is a new Covenant, and all the old shadows are abolished: The former is the old.
2. This is with the house of Israel and Judah chosen persons, and so personal with single men. You shall not give a Nation, Kingdom, or Land, with which the Covenant internally is so made, as if all and every one, without exceptions, must know the Lord savingly (what may be the converted Jews case, whether the whole body of them, all and every one shall be visible, real, and personal covenanters, as the place, Rom. 11. 26. seems to say, I cannot determine) and all and every one be saved; for then must all the visible house of Israel be saved, and not the chosen only.
3. The visible external Covenant was broken, Jer. 31. 32. The other personal and internal is broken.
4. The promise of a new heart is really fulfilled, in all the persons and single branches of the house of Judah, so that all and every one are taught of God, none excepted, Jer. 31. 33, 34. Isa. 54. 13. Joh. 6. 45. not so in the visible external Covenant, if it be but external: not any is taught of God, but all are taught of men.
5. The real personal Covenant is everlasting, like that Covenant with the Moon and Stars. 2. The night and the day; 3. Of the motion of the Sea, Jer. 31. 35, 36, 37. There is perseverance absolutely promised, Jer. 32. 40. I will make an everlasting Covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good. Its sure in Gods part, for he changeth not. Nay, but we change and turn away from God, he obviats that: I will put my
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fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. So Isai. 54. 10. Isa. 59. 21. but all such as Nationally, visibly only, and in profession only, are in Covenant, may fall away.
6. Jer. 31. 38. Behold the days come saith the Lord, that the City shall be built to the Lord, c. There is a promise of spirituall right in Christ made to the blessings of this life, to these that are personal Covenanters; As Jer. 32. 41. Ezek. 11. 17, 18, 19. Ezek. 36. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33. Ezek. 37. 24, 25, 26. Ezek. 34, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27. which promise, though not repeated in the New Testament, when the Prophesies of the Covenant are cited, Heb. 8. 8. Heb. 10. 16, 17. but of purpose omitted, because the promise of temporal blessings, is not so express now; Yet in other places of the New Testament, it is clear that we have bread by Covenant- promise, Matth. 19. 29. 1 Tim. 4. 8. Heb. 13. 5, 6. 1 Pet. 3. 10, 11, 12. which promise is made not to these only that are in Covenant externally, c. These six differences are clear, Jer. 31. 33, c. so that it is evident, that all and every one of the Visible Church are not really and personally confederate, so that though the Lord say to both: I will be their God, and they shall be my people, yet not one and the same way.
Hence there is no ground at all, nor truth in what Arminians say, that the Covenant of Grace is made with all and every one of mankind, as was the Covenant of Works. For this must be true, that in Paradise, the Covenant was made with Adam, and all his seed: But a Covenant so universal ought to be proclaimed to all the Covenanters, but this was not: For the Lord published and made it to Abraham and his seed, and the Lord choosed Israel above all the people of the earth, Deut. 5. 1, 2, 3. Deut. 7. 6. Deut. 10. 15. and showed his judgements and statutes to them and not to other Nations: And therefore there can be no subjective revealing of Christ, by universal grace, given to Heathen and all others, and by an objective revealing of Christ in the works of Creation, the Heaven and earth, night and day, as some teach, citing the Psal. 19. 1, 2.
For so 1. God choosed Americans, Indians, and all the wild Savages to be his people, as well as he choosed the Jews: and if the sound of the Gospel went out to the ends of the earth, that is, to
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all and every one, as they expound, Psal. 19. 3. 4. Rom. 10. 18. then it must be the purpose of David and Paul, that the doctrine of the Covenant of Grace, and of Christ crucified, by whose alone name men are saved, and by whom only men come to the father, Acts 4. 12. John 14. 6. is written in the Firmament, which must declare the glory of God manifested in the flesh, day unto day, and must preach Christ crucified to all Nations, who see the Sun rise and go down; For sure that sound, Psal. 19. 4. goeth through all the earth. Sure Paul must give a dark interpretation, Rom. 10. of that Psalm, as ever was imagined. 2. If the hearing, Rom. 10. 18. (but I say have I not heard?) be the hearing of God Creator, his sounding glory in the Firmament, Night, Day and Sun, as it is, Psal. 19. by all that see the Sun, and also the hearing of the joyfull sound of Christ Preached in the Gospel, written and objectively declared in Sun and Moon, Night and Day, as Amyrald and his do expound it; Then may all that see the Sun call upon the name of the Lord revealed in Christ, and believe in Christ (for of their belief Moses speaks, Deut. 30. 14. and Paul, Rom. 10. 9. 14.) and all have the benefit of the Preached Gospel, and sent Prophets, whose feet are beautifull upon the mountains, publishing glad tidings of peace, vers. 15. as Nah. 1. 15. Isai. 52. 7. and all that see the Sun are the same way saved by Jesus Christ, that Jews and Gentiles are, who hear the Gospel. But Paul strangely crosseth this, How shall they call upon him (as God revealed in Christ) in whom they believed not? πῶς δε How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a Preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? Now if the sound of the Preached Gospel to be heard in the Firmament, Sun rising and going down (as Amyrald and some Libertines do say, whom I heard Preach the same thing at London) Paul might receive an easy and short answer: The Gospel of Christ crucified written on the Firmament Sun and night and day, is as lawfull an Ordinance, and a book upon which Americans, and all that see the same, may read the glad tidings of salvation, and so may call upon, and believe in God, and win and earn, by their industry, and hearing of the Gospel by sent Preachers, as the Preached Word of God, and therefore Paul
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cannot deny but faith comes by hearing of some other Preacher then a Gospel-Preacher or one that is sent; for Paul, Rom. 1. 16, 17, 18, 19. and David, Psal. 19. 1, 2, 3.— v. 7, 8, 9. distinguish the two Books.
There is not such an Objection dreamed as Amyrald imagines of Rom. 10. 18. If God will have mercy on the Gentiles, how is it that they have not heard the Gospel? For the Lord hath not declared his mind to them. He answers: God did not so keep up his good will to the Gentiles in former times, but by the Ministery of the Heavens, ac veluti voce providentiae, and as it were by the preaching of the Word of Providence he spake to them: which things should be spoken to no purpose by Paul, if they be understood of a revelation of God as Creator only, and not as Redeemer: for what hath that revelation to do with the Gospel? Therefore Calvin (saith he) speaketh of the revelation by the creatures preparatory to the Gospel. It is true there is an Objection in these words, v. 18. But I say, have they not heard? A learned Country-man, Charles Fermin: But the Israelites (saith he) have not heard the Gospel? Then if faith be from hearing, and saving calling upon God be from faith, then believing Israelites shall be of the number them that call upon the name of the Lord, and shall be saved. He not only yields that Israelites have heard, but he confirms it from Psal. 19. Yea their sound, c. It is an argument a minore, from the less to the more, The whole world hath heard of God, either by the preaching of the creatures from the beginning, or by the Apostles in the revealed Gospel, far more then the Jews to whom the Oracles of God were committed, and to whom first the Gospel must be preached, have heard: And therefore not all that hear do believe (though faith come by hearing) nor do all call upon God and are saved. So Pet. Martyr: so Calvin, Hyperius, Faius It's not strange that the Gospel is preached to the Gentiles: for God spake to them by the knowledge of the creature. Pareus observes that Paul cites not the place, Psal. 19. and saith not, As it is written, but alludes to it only. Q
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Spanhemius. If it be well said, that the sound of the heaven, is gone to the end of the world, that may be said truly of the Preaching of the Gospel. Junius to that sense. But 1. the place saith not, that God called with a will, to save the Gentiles: The Scripture saith, he winked at them, and called them not, Acts 14. 16. But now God commandeth all men every where to repent, Acts 17. 30. and he revealed not his Testimonies to them. Now was not the same Gospel-book in the Pages of the works of Creation, as legible to the Gentiles before, as after the coming of Christ in the flesh? Nor can the Gospel which never came to the ears of many Indians and millions of people, it being to them a non ens, and an un heard of Doctrine, explain the book of Creation; as the thing that shadows out Christ, as the New Testament clears the Types of the Old: Nor doth the Scripture any where tell us, what work of Creation or Providence, expresseth Christs dying for our sins, rising for our righteousness: Nor doth the Scripture tell us of an Embleme, in nature, of God Incarnate, of the man Christ in glory pleading at the right hand of God for us; And no doubt, the Lords natural defires of saving all, calling and inviting all to Repentance, of Christs dying for all, his natural willingness that all and every one should obey, do not ebb and waxe and decrease as the Sea and Moon do, and therefore his taking such a course with all the Gentiles, that no word of the Covenant comes to their ears, so that then at that time, they were without Christ, being aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel, and strangers from the Covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world, Eph. 2. 12. And in time past were no people (in Covenant) and had not obtained mercy, 1 Pet. 2. 9, 10. and were far off, Acts 2. 39. must evince, that the sense of the Gospel was not written in Sun and Moon; and the book of Creation is not the Gospel; and therefore he hath been showing that the Gentiles were not in covenant before the Incarnation, and since no word of the Gospel comes to millions now, they are yet not in covenant. And this is a Gospel truth now, that stands after the Incarnation, as before, Rom. 9. 18. He hath therefore mercy upon whom he will, and hardens whom he will. And he said it in the Old Testament, Exod. 33. 19. and
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repeateth it to us, Rom. 9. 15. I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion. And if any man say that he hath the like antecedent natural good-will, to save eternally all these whom he calleth and moveth finally to obey, and the greatest part of mankind whom he so moved and calleth as he knoweth they shall never obey, whereas he can move all finally to obey, without straining their natural liberty: He speaks things that cannot consist with both the wisedom and liberty of God.
And if amongst these to whom the word of the Covenant comes, some as externally only, and never saved, Matth. 22. 14. Rom. 9. 6, 7. Others internally, personally and really in Covenant and saved; why, but some may be neither ways in Covenant, if they never heard the word of the Covenant, and if the Heathen and Americans were under the Covenant of Grace Preached to them in that sound that goes to the end of the World. Why, but Moab, Ammon, and Assyrians, Philistines, Chaldeans, Persians, are the Israel of God, his chosen people, his Sion, and must not the principal promise of the Covenant be made to them? and are we not to believe that God will write his Law in the hearts of Cain, Pharaoh, Saul, Doeg, Ahab, Judas, Magus, and of Moabites, Ammonites, Egyptians, and of all and every one of mankind, if they be in Covenant with him? Contrary to Psal. 147. 19, 20. Hos. 8. 12. Exo. 20. 1.
Neither can it be said, that all mankind have received a subjective power to believe and receive Christ holden forth in the Gospel to us, Printed to be read and heard in the book of Creation, called the objective Gospel, as Adam had power to fulfill the first Covenant, for Adam had the Image of God concreated in his soul, by which he was able to fulfill the Law, then must they give us a Scripture to prove, that all Adams sons are converted, and restored to the Image of God, born over again, for by no other power but by a new heart, and the actings of God, can man believe the Gospel objective, to come to Christ, and do good-works Evangelical by which they are justified, and if it be a remote power that may grow, it is not the like power which Adam had to keep the Law. 2. This Q2
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power is either natural, or supernatural: Natural it cannot be, for then flesh and blood might believe, and the wisdom of the flesh might be subject to the Law of God, which the Scripture denies, Mat. 16. 16, 17. Rom. 8. 7. 2. There should be no need that Christ die, except only to satisfy for our breach of the Law, not to purchase new grace to us by his merits, and such a power should be no grace of Christ. If is be a supernatural grace merited by Christ, then have Pagans, and all the Heathen that supernatural inherent grace to believe in the Son of God, and yet the object thereof the Gospel is not revealed to them, which is an incongruous dispensation not warranted by the Scripture, that the Lord should give a supernatural power, to believe they know not what. 2. A supernttural power to believe is saving grace, and a power to love Christ, and can saving grace be in Pagans or in any, and they know not of it? 3. Yea sins of Pagans; for which they are condemned, must be the Gospel-sins, for they cannot be Law-sins, for if all mankind be under the Covenant of grace, there can none at all be under the Law: For there can be none under the Covenant of Works, also under the Covenant of Grace, for they are contrary dispensations, and contrary ways of salvation. He who is under the Law is not under Grace; and he who is under Grace, is married to Christ, as to another husband, Rom. 7. 4. and not under the Law.
3. Saving grace is not in vain, but effectual, 1 Corinth. 15. 10. 1 Tim. 1. 14. And we are saved by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, Acts 15. 11. and no greater mercy can be wished to any, then the grace of our Lord Jesus, Rom. 16. 20. 2 Cor. 13. 14. Rev. 22. 21. by which we are called, justified and glorified. If it be said that this grace is not that effectual saving grace bestowed upon the elect, but a general remote gracious power, by which we may acquire the saving grace proper to the Elect. But so 1. that grace saving proper to the Elect, by this means is in the power of all Pagans, and all must be gifted with a power to purchase that grace proper to the Elect: That must be strange conquishing, we must all be made our own efficacious Redeemers, and Christ is Saviour by merit, not by efficacy; For if this saving grace be infused, it is
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either infused, we doing nothing to which they cannot stand: Or then it is acquired, and so we make the general grace saving and proper to the Elect, which everteth the nature of saving grace, and makes it the purchase of works. and they must say that Christ hath merited a general ineffectual power to some, and that he dyed to merit a special saving grace to others. Let us have a warrant for this, that Christ both died equally to save all, and yet with two contrary intentions, to purchase a power of believing which should be effectual to some to save them, and ineffectual to others. If it be said that Christ died to merit the same general power to all, but some make it ineffectual, some not; This saith thus. 1. That Christs death might have it's fruit and effect, though all perish. 2. That Christ died to merit a far off, lubric and possible venture of heaven, such as was the case of the first Adam. 3. Christ died not to purchase a new heart more to one then to another, whereas 1 Pet. 1. 18, 19. the blood the Lord shed is to Redeem us from our vain conversation, in a natural state aswell as to save us from the wrath to come; Then must Christ have died to buy Pagans from Paganism and Idolatry: and that either absolutely, and then why should multitudes so die in their sins? If conditionally, what can be the condition going before conversion, to wit, that we should be delivered from our vain conversation, so we be willing, before our conversion, to be delivered from our vain conversation. And shall not the Question recurr concerning that condition? in a word they will have Christs death to buy Heaven, but not to buy faith, without which Heaven is impossible. Yea he no more bought to men a grace sweetly and strongly inclining the will to believe, then he bought such a grace to the damned devils. He purposed to give to all Pagans a power, by which they should be made fit to perform all that the Gospel requires, and be fit to be made partakers of the inheritance of the Saints, Col. 1. And yet Paul gives thanks to God for that bestowed on the Colossians, and God must by this call all men to Christ, either mediately or immediately. And say that God is prepared ever to give more and more as we use the former
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well, and that all by sufficient grace (saith Corvinus) are dispose to conversion, but that sufficiency is not habitual grace, but actual assistance conveying the Preached Word, which is to bring all to free-wills-power, rejecting all infused power, and to make an influence of grace, which is in the power of free-will to use or not to use, and to stand in two. 1. In a measure of heavenly Doctrine. 2. In the stirring upon the heart; Whence 1. Grace habitual so is denied; then the will needeth no healing. 2. Grace universal is limited to the Word Preached, then it is not universal; For Pagans hear not the Word Preached. 3. There is no other help given to free-will in every act, but. 1. Information by the Word, that was the grace of Pelagius. 2. Some influence of God in every act: But that adds not new strength to the will, Shortly they say, any man may know, understand and believe the Gospel, if the object be sufficiently proposed and revealed. And so the natural man can no more know and receive the things of the Gospel, then he can understand the Metaphysics, the Acromatics of Aristotle: for these he cannot receive, but judgeth them folly; and so we are the same way blind, dead, stony-hearted to believe the Gospel, as we are to know and believe the mysteries of Aristotles Philosophy.
Lastly, this power of believing and coming to Christ cannot be in all men, since the Scripture saith of all men (even these within the Visible Church not excepted) that until the light of the Gospel savingly enlighten them, they sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, Isa. 9. 1. Mat. 4. 15, 16. And οὐδεὶς δύναται No man can come to Christ without the Fathers drawing, and God teaching the heart, Joh. 6. 44, 45. The natural man, οὐ δυναται γνώναι, cannot understand the things of God, but judges them foolishness. 1 Cor. 2. 14. His wisdom cannot be subject to the Law of God. Rom. 8. 7. He cannot (δύναται) call the Lord, Jesus except by the Spirit of Jesus, 1 Cor. 12. 3. He is a whithered branch
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being out of Christ, and can do nothing, Joh. 15. 3. 4. It shall be clear to any, that the Holy Ghost denieth any such power, as they affirm. It reckons not much to tell that Jesuits, as Martmez de Ripul. Swarez, Alphonsus Curiel, Duvallius, Lod. Molma, Did. Ruiz, Vasquez, Bellarmine, Phili. Samachaeus, Sorbonicus, Gulie. Estius, Dominica, Toletus Cardinalis, Pirerius, Salmeron, teach, that, without saving grace, men may, and can first know moral truthes, shining virtues, as heathens, be free of sin, as touching these virtues in their due circumstances. 2. Keep the Commandements and Law of Nature. 3. Dispose themselves for, and obtain the grace of Conversion by their own industry. 4. Be victorious over this or that weighty temptation singly taken. 5. That there is no intrinsical hurt of free-will, that it is wounded a little, because of the darkness of the mind, and langour of nature, but not dead to actions supernatural. 6. That we may Jove God as the Author of nature, and Creator sincerely; And Arminians teach that we may without the Spirit of God know all truth, quantum sufficit ad salutem, sufficiently to salvation, and so may will, love, and believe without the infused supernatural habit or grace; so their Apology.
And the Socinian Catechism, c. 6. pag. 212. and Socinus himself, Praelect. Theol. Cap. 4. Fol. 15, 16. Et de officio hominis Christi: Cap. 5. Smalcius on Joh. 1. Hom. 3. Give to us man—whole, sound, sinless, as he came from the first Adam. 2. That man can do all that God commands him with little help of God. 3. It is an errour (saith Smalcius) that a man hath no strength in spiritual things, there is no need of the inward gift of the Spirit of God to believe (saith the Raccovian Catechism) for we read not that such a gift in Scripture is bestowed upon any but upon believers:
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such as are born of Adam (saith Socinus) are all born in the same condition, and nothing is taken from such a man, which he naturally hath or was to have. Ostorodius Iusti. Relig. Christ. cap. 21. Praedicatio sola Evangelii potest hominem absque interna Spiritus illuminatione, operatione a peccatis convertere. The only Preaching of the Gospel without the inward illumination by the Holy Spirit, and his working is able to convert a man from sin. All which is Printed and taught, and many other abominable errours to us.
To this Objection against universal grace (as I judge unanswerable) Corvinus Answers, that all the places of Scripture brought to prove mans inability to believe in Christ, and to worship him, conclude well, that a man hath not strength of himself without Christ and his grace; but this, is but to cloud the truth, and to mock the reader, for if all and every man (even the Infants of Pagans) be in Covenant through Christ, and be made able by a gifted grace common to all, within, and without the Church, by which they are able by degrees to do all that the Gospel requires, what avails it to discourage them, and to tell they are not masters of a good thought, without grace; for they are no less masters of good thoughts and good words, and of good actions then Adam was; for they are not hearers of the Gospel by nature, but as gifted with universal grace, they are hearers, and before their conversion, and before they receive the Spirit of Regeneration, can please God, and prepare themselves for Regeneration: Yea there is no animal and natural Pagan de pacto existing in the world (by their way) who cannot receive the things of God, and cannot come to Christ, except he be drawn, for all Pagans and others are drawn, and by this it might have been said, Adam as wanting supernatural grace, and as a natural man (for the Image of God was supernatural grace to Adam, as Arminius and Corvinus teach) so was not able to think a goodthought, as 2 Cor. 3. 5. nor able to receive the things of God, as the natural man, 1 Cor. 2. 14. and Adam so was also dead in trespasses and sins, and must come to Christ the same way, to wit, drawn by the grace supr-added to nature, as we fallen sinners do.
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CHAP. XVI.
Cases from the former Doctrine.
1. The differences betwixt such as are externally, visibly, and conditionally, and such as are internally and personally in Covenant with God. 2. Gods esteem, not mens, make Nations Visible churches. 3. The first and prime subject of special Church-privilege. 4. Gods command to receive seals, no warrant to all members to challenge them.
Q. 1. If multitudes and people externally Covenanted with God, though not internally, whom the Lord calls his people and chosen by him, Deut. 7. 6. Deut. 10. 15. be the rightly constitute and Visible Church, as Mr Thomas Hooker granteth, then Kingdoms must be his Visible Church. Answ. no doubt, Egypt, Assiria, all Nations, all the the ends of the world, all the Kingdoms of this world, are prophesied to be the Kingdoms and Covenanted people of God, and the Lord challengeth them as his, ( Isa. 19. 25. Blessed be Egypt my people) Isa. 2. 1, 2, 3. Psal. 22. 27 Rev. 11. 15. Psal. 96. Psal. 97. Psal. 98. Isa. 42. 10. Isai. 49. 7, 8. 20. 21. Cant. 8. 8.- Acts 13. 46, 47. Rom. 15. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. must be the visible Covenanted Churches of God, to whom the seals of the Covenant are due; but that none in Egypt, Assyria, of all the called Gentiles, though visible and professedly in Covenant, and affirmed by the mouth of the Lord to be his people the Sister of the Jewish Church; and his Kingdoms, are members of the visible Church, or hath right to membership and seals, except men judge them to be real converts, sound believers, and so internally called and chosen, is to prefer the judgement of men, to the Word of God, and since he said that Kingdoms, fathers, children are his in Covenant, and chosen to be his people, in regard the Lord calleth them by his Word, as he did Israel, Deut. 7. 6. Deut. 10. 15. Psal. 147. 19, 20. they must be all Visible Churches in Gods esteem; except he say they are not R
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Visible Churches, except men also esteem and judge them not only externally, but really and internally justified and effectually called. 2. These we are to judge in covenant visibly, whom the Lord so calls, and to these the seals do belong Ecclesiastically, though we see not signs of their inward conversion; Except we say that our judgement is surer then the Lords; But the Lord calls Nations, the Gentiles so, and so must Paul and Church-members judge all the Kingdoms, and all the Gentiles real converts; Else the seals are not due to them. 3. If we must judge them all really redeemed and sanctified, who are fed by Pastors, as Mr. Hooker teacheth from Acts 20. 28. feed the flock, then are we to esteem all the fathers who were baptized unto Moses in the Cloud, and in the Sea, and did eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink of the same spiritual Rock Christ, 1 Cor. 10. 1, 2, 3, 4. to be really redeemed, real believers, and the whole world to be really redeemed, and yet the world is not the Church, yet they were Idolaters, murmurers, visibly known to be such; And John Baptist was obliged to esteem the multitudes, all Judea who were baptized of him, Mark 1. 5. Luk. 3. 7. Matth. 3. 2, 3, 4. really sanctified and redeemed, yea and since there be Prophesies under the Messias, that all the Kingdom of the world, Rev. 11. 15. Egypt, Assyria, Isa. 19. 25. all Nations, Isa. 2. 2. all the Gentiles, Isa. 60. shall be the confederate people of God, we must believe that all these Kingdoms are visible Saints, chosen to life as the Corinthians and Ephesians were, 1 Cor. 1. 1. Eph. 1. 4. So argues Mr. Thomas Hooker from confederacy. 4. Let one word in Old or New Testament be given of Judicature giving judicially sentence on earth of a number that professedly are hearers, that so many are to be admitted as due members of the Church, because conceived of men to be regenerated, and so many rejected, because conceived to be non-converts; or what word of Christ there is that doth regulate the judicial sentence, as touching the time how long the Church-member hath been so. 2. What motives or inducement led Simon Magus, and the generation of vipers, the multitude and all the people baptized, Luke 3. 7. compared with Luk. 3. 2. Matth. 3. 5., 6. Mark 1. 5. (for as many as went out to be baptized were baptized, but all Jerusalem, and all Judea went out
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Mat. 3. 5, 6. and were baptized, saith Mark 1. 5.) what motives I say led, and induced them to join? For they joined but for a season, Joh. 5. 35. Matth. 21. 32. and what rule of the word there is to regulate us in judging of these motives? 3. What outward marks the word gives of outward Regeneration, and consequently of predestination to glory, Justification, Effectual Calling, made visible, which we must see in others, before Pastors can feed them as Pastors, for the word is in all the like a perfect rule.
Quest. 2. What is the first, principal and only proper subject of the promises of special note, in the Mediator, of the promise of a new heart, of the styles, properties and privileges of special note; That is, to be called the body of CHRIST, the Anointed ones, and such as shall never fall away, Jer. 32. 39, 40. Jer 31. 35, 36. Answ. Only the Invisible and mystical body of Christ, for a promise of a new heart, of the Law ingraven in the inward parts, of the anointing, Jer. 31. 33. Isai. 54. 13. Heb. 8. 10. of perseverance, Jer 31. 35, 36. Isai. 54. 10. Isai. 59. 23 21. Jer. 32. 36, 40. Joh. 10. 27, 28, 29. are promises of special note in the Mediator; And if any say that the Visible Church as such, as visible, whereof Simon Magus is a member, is the first principle subject of these promises or of privileges of special note in the Mediator, they must join (it may be mistakenly) with Arminians. Mr. Thomas Hooker did so not ingenuously as need were, refute this Thesis of mine, as he ought to have done, but framed an other of his own, and refuted it, to wit, which is not owned by me. The Invisible Church is not the prime and only subject of the seals, that is, of the external seals. I grant all the external seals is not a privilege of special note in the Mediator, for it is a privilege of Ishmael, Magus, and of all profane Hypocrites. And it is not to be said that Hypocrites and graceless men, Ishmael, and Esau, have a command of God to receive the seals, and a warrant from his Word to require them, as that pious and grave man Mr. Thomas Hooker saith in his Survey, Part. 1. Cap. 3. pag. 41, 42. For (saith he) there can be no better right then Gods command to enjoin, and his Word to warrant us to challenge any privilege. The command R2
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of God is a good warrant to the Church and Ministers to confer the seals to Ishmael, Simon Magus, Judas, though no word of God warrant us judicially to sentence them to be regenerate, before the Ministers can confer the seals, as Mr. Hooker and his teach, but that the command of God is a good right and warrant to Esau, and Simon Magus, to require and to challenge the seals is not written in the Scripture, with the good leave of that pious man, no more nor usurpers have warrant to challenge that to which they have no right, or a robber hath warrant to require the purse of an innocent traveller. Can the sorcerer Magus say, there can be no better right then I have to challenge Baptism and the Lords Supper? Why? I have the command of God. Nay but an answer is soon returned to the witch: The Church of Samaria hath Gods warrant to confer the seals, so long as the witches skill fails him not to act fairly the part of the painted professor, but the conditional command of an externally Preached Covenant is not the best right, nay, no right at all for him to challenge the seals, except he come believing and discerning the Lords Body, and mourning for sin, and fulfill the condition: Indeed if the Lord had commanded Magus and all the visible members, with an absolute command, Come and receive the seals whether ye profess, know Christ or believe and repent, or not; that command should warrant all to challenge, but I trust Mr. Hooker will not stand to such a command. And therefore distinguish betwixt ius activum, an active right in the Church to confer the seals, and ius passivum, a passive right in Magus to challenge: The latter requires that Magus have right as a believer, and in foro Dei, both to the seal and interest in Christ, by the grant of Adversaries; Else he hath no right, no command of God to challenge the seals. And therefore we must distinguish betwixt the Covenant of Grace, qua factum initum, qua annunciatum, the Covenant, I say, as made with some, and yet Preached to all. And whereas Mr. Hooker saith, 38, 39 pag. that he cannot see how the will of purpose, and the will of revealed command, do not contain apparent contradictions; This Godly man hated Arminians, when he saw them in daylight. I cannot now insist to answer him and Papists and Arminians who object the very same thing. It is clear they differ much,
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but they are not contradicent, more then the decree of God, and the moral obligation of men are contrary. Hypocrites and such are only visible members and no more, and have no true and internal right and interest in the seals according to the inward grace signified or the promises of a new heart, which are absolute and made to the Elect and believers, who are the only principal prime and proper subject of such promises of special note in the Mediator.
Quest. 3. What be these pincipal real Covenanters, to whom only the new heart is absolutely promised, and how are they known.
CHAP. XVII.
1. Of the hypocrisy of formal Covenanters. 2. Self- deceit. 3. The new Spirit. 4 Revelations and Prophecies. 5. Marks of a Spiritual disposition.
Answ. This toucheth the differences of the old and stony heart in such as are externally only in Covenant with God, and are Hypocrites: And the new and soft heart of such as are internal, real, and absolute Covenanters: Hence these propositions.
1. A Hypocrite is he who in the stage represents a King, when he is none, a begger, an old man, a husband, when he is really no such thing, Luke 20. 20. They sent out spies, feigning themselves to be just men: To the Hebrews they are פנום faciales, facemen, men of the face and vizard and צבועום colorati, dyed men, rid men, dipped, baptized, from the root צבע to dye, dip, wash, baptize, Jer. 12. 9. mine heritage is to me as a speckled bird, or a pied bird, and hath casten off my simple livery, and so is a bird of many sundry colours: The Hypocrite is dyed and watered with a hue and colour of godliness. Coneph noteth hypocrisy, Isa. 32. 6. from חנף simulavit, fraudulenter egit. The noun הנף Chald. חנים a dissembler, an Hypocrite, who is sometimes just, sometimes wicked, the root by a Metaphor is to pollute,
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and defile, Psal. 106. the land was defiled with bloods: Hence the Hypocrite is all things, and all men, and nothing, and no man but himself.
Hypocrisy is considered in itself, and so it is opposed to sincerity. Or in relation to these graces and duties which it feigns, and so it is opposed to all the true virtues which it lyingly and feignedly represents, as painting is opposed to reality in nature, being a counterfeiting of nature, and it is opposed to things that are painted, so a living man, and a growing rose, things obvious to the eyes of sense are most easily painted as colour lineaments, as a mans body, but things that fall under the understanding only, as the soul, and under the sense of smelling and touching, are hardly pictured. Ye may paint the man, the roses, the colour, figure, and the fires red flaming, but ye cannot paint the soul, the smell of the rose, or the heat of the fire: It is hard to counterfeit spiritual graces, as love of Christ, sincere believing intending of the Glory of God. Its hard to get a coat, or put painture on spiritual graces, and the more ye counterfeit the Spirit, the more the Devil-like is the forgery, for he changeth himself into an Angel of light. There is some use for painted men, for they serve for ornament, but there is no use for faith but resting upon Christ, nor for love, but to cleave to God, and please him and our neighbour: In all duties we counterfeit but the outward bulk of graces and actions, and would seem to do what we do not: If the colour of graces and godliness be desirable, itself is more desirable, but to imitate only the externals of the Covenant of Grace to keep a room in the Church, is to put a lie and mock upon the Lord, and to reproach him with dimness of sight: And such as hate Christ and the Godly in their heart, and first clothe them with the coat of hypocrites, liars, Samaritans, seditious men, they much more hate Godliness, he that would have the picture of the man stabbed or hanged, would much more have the living man in person stabbed or hanged.
Hypocrisy is a resembling of a moral good for vain glory: Its not hypocrisy to suppress tears in Prayer, lest the man seem to seek himself, nor for a father to seem to be angry at his child, or servant when he is not angry, nor to put on deafness at reproaches
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Psal. 38. 12. They speak mischievous things, 13. But I as a deaf man heard not: It was prudency, not hypocrisy in Saul to hold his peace and misken when the sons of Belial despised him, it being the beginning of his reign, 1 Sam. 10. 27. Nor is it hypocrisy in a Magistrate or Joseph to put on an other person to his brethren, though if the ground be unbelief, it is not lawfull for David to feign himself mad: Nor for Ammon to conterfeit sickness, or to put a lie upon providence: and yet it is not hypocrisy for Solomon to seem to divide in two the living child with a sword, or for the men of Israel to fly before the men of Ai. A lawfull end, and right end and motive, contributes goodness to actions that are not intrinsically evil.
There is a natural hopocrisy in all, every man in both sides of the Sun is a liar, he that said he would wish that he might dwell in the land beyond the dawning of the morning, where they are all sincere, wished to dwell where there are no men; for whereever men are, there are hypocrites and hypocrisy. There is an acquired hypocrisy in all, less or more, and an habit thereof in not a few.
According to mens ways, so are men white and painted Hypocrites; Herod professeth to worship Christ, and minds to kill him, Matth. 2. And Absolom converts treason and rebellion against his father and prince, with the whiteness of a vow at Hebron, what better is the whore, and what more devout to say, Prov. 7. 14. I have peace offerings with me, today have I paid my vows? under the veil of zeal (they think it) service to God to kill the Apostles, Joh. 16.
But the worst of Hypocrites is he who makes himself a Hypocrite, not before God only, and before men, but whitens and paints himself before himself, and deceives himself, 1 Joh. 1. 8. It is strange a man hath such a power over himself, as to persuade himself that he hath no sin, not only in point of faith, as such as deny any original sin in themselves or others; as many seducers now do, Socinians, Arminians, diverse Anabaptists, and such as say, the Law may be fulfilled by Grace, we are justified by Works: It is possible to be free of sin in this life and to be perfect, so as they cannot sin: But also practically a mans heart may deceive
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his heart and may persuade himself that he is Godly and Religious, Jam. 1. 26. and that his ways are right, Prov. 14. 12. and may say within his heart, and so think not only, I am holier then thou, and yet not be so much as ceremonially holy, but remain in the grave and eat swines flesh, Isai. 65. [4.] but I say I am rich, (and which is above admiration) I have need of nothing, Rev. 3. 17. that I have no need of forgiveness, of saving Grace, of the Redeemer Christ, of salvation. And this is so much the more dangerous, that the prejudice and blindness of self-love, doth more strongly persuade self-godliness then any godliness of the world, and begets a more strongly radicated and fixed habit of believing self-godliness, then Ministers the godliest of them, and Professors, and Angels, and the Lord immediately speaking (so long as the revelation is literal) Numb. 22. 12, 24, 28. and Christ Preaching in his Person, Matth. 8. 9, 14. Matth. 21. 43, 44, 45. Luk. 16. 13, 14. Joh. 10. 24, 25, 26, 27. 28, 29, 30, 31. and the Apostles, Acts 24. 25, 26. Acts 26. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, c. 24. can be able to root out, for they can fence and ward off, and can let our blows at all that ye can say, and carry this habit of a false opinion of self-holiness to Eternity with them, and stand to what conceited lamps they here on earth did glister withall; and plead against the Lord in his face, that the sentence of condemnation is unjust, Matth. 25. 44. and that they deserve for their profession to be admitted into the Bride-grooms chamber, Matth. 7. 22. Matth. 25. 11. Luke 12. 25. and all such fairded Professors, are externally only in Covenant with God. And therefore these are sad marks, when first ye hide your lusts and nourish them, and feed upon the East wind of some created last end, and have not God for your last end, Luke 12. 19. Psal. 49. 11. Psal. 4. 6. Jer. 22. 17. 2. When ye know not that ye are poor, miserable, blind, naked, Rev. 3. 17. Matth. 9. 11, 12, 13. Luke 15. 2. Luke 19. 7. and ye were never in Christs hospital, and are whole and need no Physic. 3. Ye loath Christ but knows it not, Luke 7. 44, 45. ye love Christ as a supposed Prophet, and loath him as a Redeemer. One may deadly hate Christ and not know it. 4. Ye cannot compare the two states. together, the state of nature and the state of Grace, as 1 Tim. 1 13. ye Idolize your own choice, to bear down Achabs Idolatry,
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but chose not the will of God to oppose Jeroboams Idolatry. 5. Ye want Christ, ye were not born with Christ in the heart. 2. Yea, ye are eternally lost without him, and know neither the one, nor the other.
Quest. 4. Whether or not are believers the parties of the Covenant of Grace? Ans. These are parties to whom the covenant- promise is made, not these who already have the benefit promised in the Covenant, but believers must have a new heart, and consequently faith already, therefore they cannot be parties with whom the Covenant is made. As because the Image of God is not promised to Adam in the Covenant of Works, but presupposed to be in him by order of nature, before God make with him the Covenant of Works, else he could not be able to keep that Covenant, which we cannot say, for God created him right and holy, Gen. 1. 26, 27. Eccles. 7. 29. Eph. 4. 24. Col. 3. 10. Therefore Adam in his pure naturals, as not yet indued with the Image of God, cannot be the party with whom the Covenant of Works is made, for then the Image of God must either be a reward, which Adam by his pure naturals and strength thereof must purchase by working, which the scripture and nature of the Covenant cannot admit, or then the Image of God must be promised to Adam in the Covenant of Works, which is no less absurd. And if faith be promised in the Gospel, the Covenant of Grace must be made with some Israel and Judah as predestinated to life eternal and yet wanting a new heart: For God cannot Covenant-ways promise a new heart to such as have it, but to such as have a stony heart and believe not, Ezek. 36. 26. Deut. 30. 6. Ezek. 11. 19. nor can he promise faith to such as have faith this way.
Quest. 5. Who are these that have the new heart, and so are personally and really within the Covenant of Grace. Ans. Because the new spirit is given, when the new heart is given, Ezeck. 36. 27. Ezek. 18. 31. Make you a new heart and a new spirit, and many in our times boast of the spirit, it shall be fit to speak of the new spirit, and who are spiritual.
Hence these questions of the new spirit.
Quest. 1. What is the seed of the new spirit?
Ans. The word of the Gospel, therefore before Adam could S
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have the Gospel-Spirit, the Lord must reveal the doctrine of the Gospel, the seed of the woman must tread down the head of the serpent, Gen. 3. So the word and the spirit are promised together, Isa. 59. 21. Isa. 30. 21. Thy teachers shall not be removed, and thine ears shall hear (this is the inward teaching) a voice behind thee, saying, this is the way, walk ye in it. Isa. 51. 16, 17. Mat. 28. 20. Go teach, that is the word: Lo I am with you to the end of the world, that is the spirit to make it effectual, by my spirit, Joh. 14. 16, 17.
Object. But Adam when he heard first the Doctrine of the blessed seed, could not try the doctrine or speaker, by any new Doctrine.
Answ. The first doctrine can be tried by no other rule, because it was the first rule itself, nor can these principals written in the heart naturally (That God is) (God is just, holy) c. be tried by any other truths, because they are first truths; As the sense of seeing cannot try whether the Sun be the Sun by the light of Some other Sun, that is, before this Sun, which is more lightsome. For there is not another Sun before this, the Gospel itself hath God shining in it, to these who are enlightened, as Adam was, a Ruby doth speak that is a Ruby.
Obj. How then should Adam know what God spake to him and not to another, are we not to try all spirits that speak?
Ans. There is a word immediately spoken by the Prophets, and Apostles, that is to be tried, partly by the first Preaching the Lord made in Paradise, partly by the effects, that it converteth the soul, Psalmes 19. 7. and smells of that same Majesty, and the divine power of another life, which is in the first Sermon, Gen. 3. 15. this is Verbum Dei immediatum. But when God himself speaks in his own person to Adam, to Abraham, Gen. 22. to Moses, Isaiah, the Apostles, that is Verbum Dei immediatissimum, the fountain-word; neither word nor speaker is to be tried. The Patriarchs and Prophets are never bidden try the visions of God, for when God speaks them himself, he makes it evident that it is he, and only he who speaks, and we read not of any in this deceived, Angels or men cannot conterfeit God.
Obj. There have, after the Canon of the Scripture is closed,
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been some men, who have Prophesied facts to come, that fell out as they foretold, just as Isaiah, Elias, and other Prophets, then somthing is to be believed, that is not written, and such may have the Spirit, and yet no word of Scripture goes along with it.
Ans. 1. Such men may have (I confess) a Prophetical spirit, but first, they were eminently holy and sound in the faith, and taught that the Catholic Church should believe nothing, nor practise nothing, but what is warranted by the Word. Such as boast of Spirit or Prophecy, and reject the word, are therefore not to be believed.
2. What these men of God foretold, is a particular fact concerning a man, what death he should die, or a Nation, or a particular, such a man shall be eternally saved, but no dogma fidei, nor any truth that lays bands on the Catholic Church to believe that to the end of the world, as all Scriptural truthes do, and a doubt it is, if we are to believe these, in the individual circumstances of fact, sub periculi peccati, upon hazard of sinning against God, we may, I judge, without sin suspend belief, and yield charity to the speaker.
3. If any object, the Prophets did foretell particular facts concerning the death of Ahab, the birth of Josiah, which concerned particular persons: I, but they were the maters of fact (as the crucifying of Christ was a matter of fact) as also they did by the intent of the Holy Ghost contain Historical, Moral and dogmatically divine Instructions, so that, the whole Catholic Church must believe them, with certainty of divine faith, they being written and spoken for our Instruction, and they sin who believe not.
Quest. 2. What are we to judge of these truthes revealed to Professors when they are in much nearness to God, and the Lord is pleased to shine upon them in some fulness of manifestation of himself to their souls, especially in particular facts? Answ. There is a wide difference betwixt revelations, which speak what is lawfull or unlawfull, agreable unto or repugnant to the Word; And what is good in iure, and what in facto, shall come to pass or not come to pass, what ever is given to revelations of the former sort, is taken from the Scripture, whose peculiar perfection it is to show S2
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what is good and just, what not; Therefore to say that revelations now do guide us in disobeying higher Powers or killing men, c. is a wronging of the word, especially of the first, second and sixth Commands. As to the other, God may and doth lead his owne, especially when they are near Glory, under fewest prejudices touching time and eternity, to speak what shall be, but it is not our rule. It's an Argument of nought, Such a thing was mightily born in upon my spirit as lawfull and as certainly to come to pass, when I was most near to GOD in a full manifestation of himself: therefore such a way is right, or such a way shall come to pass; For not to say, 1. that this is a wronging of the perfection of Scripture, and 2. That there is a bastard Logic in the affections where God and nature hoth seated discursive power; And we often prophecy, because we love, not because we see the visions of God. 3. Peter might, the same way, reason, I saw the glory of heaven at the transfiguration, and the Peers of the higher house, Moses and Elias, and this was then mightily born in upon my spirit, It is good for us to be here, let us build three Tabernacles: therefore this is true, It is good for us to be here: But the Conclusion is a dream; who should preach the Gospel as witnesses and suffer for it, and write Canonic Scripture, if these Disciples should be for ever there? And if they should be separated from the whole glorified body, and make up a Church eternally glorified in that Mount, of only six persons: And the word saith, Peter being drunk with glory, Mark 9. 6. οὐκ ἠδεὶ knew not what he said, and the Disciples were sleeping, not prophecying, Luk 9. 32. which saith they were in heaven, but clothed with bodies of sin, and not lead by Scripture light (as that good Prophecy of Peter was contrary to the Gospel of suffering and dying, that Christ prophesied was abiding himself, and all his, Matth. 16. 21, 22.) we should reel and sin: for there may be no connection between the present nearness to God, and the thing suggested in the spirit; and they cohere by accident. So one in prayer is near God in respect of sweetness of access, and yet the individual favour which ye pray for conditionally, never granted; Ye may be saved, and God more glorified in the sufficiency of his grace, without granting it to you, as is clear 2 Cor. 12. 9. Sorrow and desire can suggest such an
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answer to the fasting of Israel, as they may say and think, they shall be victorious now over the children of Benjamin, and yet they are deceived. The heart would be silent and let God speak here. The sight may be dazzled in nearness to God, and we take our marks by the Moon; And the liberty of praying is terminated upon the fiducial acts, and we think it is fastened upon the particular thing we seek: And here the Antecedent is true, as heaven, and the Consequence folly and darkness. So John, Rev. 19. and cap. 22. seeth Heaven opened, and behold a white horse and him who sat on him, and he heard the voice of many, saying, Hallelujah, and saw the pure river of water of life, the tree of life, the Throne, and Him that sat thereupon, c. But he did not rightly infer that he might therefore fall down and worship a created Angel. All which saith they vainly boast of the Spirit who reject the light of Scripture, which is a surer day-star then the light of glory, for our direction. The light of glory is for our perfection of happiness, in seeing and enjoying the last end, but not for our instruction in leading to the end, and the means. The Candle-light and Sun-light in the City comes not without the City to direct us in the way, the lights and torches in Jerusalem and the new City serve not to guide the way to these Cities.
2. The spiritual man judgeth all things, but by the word. In one particular, Samuel, in another Tertullian dotes upon Montanus, some of the prime fathers, otherwise Godly, are blacked with Platoes purgatory, and some of them with invocation of Saints, yet speaking to them doubtingly, εἰ τὶς αἰσθησις, say; the spirit may be, where some perticular errours are, but if the judgement be rotten unsound in the matters of God, rottenness in one the side of the Apple creeps through the whole, and so doth corruption from the mind sink down to the heart. A godly heretic I cannot know.
3. Any bone or hurt member in walking, actually pains and breedeth aking, if there be a piercing and a graving conviction, in Christian motion, that untowardness and opposition from the flesh, pains the Spirit and new man, and hinders the stirrings of the Spirit, it saith the Spirit is there, as water cast upon fire speaketh there is fire, Rom. 7. 15, 16, 23, 24. It were good to try the untowardness
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to spiritual duties, and several kinds of delight, whether it be borrowed delight from the literal facility of the gift, from gaine and glory, adhering to the office and calling, or from the inbred sweetness in honouring God, crooking and pain in walking is a token of life-walking.
4. Its a spiritual disposition in the Church, Cant. 2. in a particular soul, to know and be able to give an exact account of all the motions, goings and comings of Christ, where he lieth as a bundle of myrrhe all the night, even betwixt the breasts, Can. 1. 13. when the King brings you into his house of new wine, Cant. 1. 4. Cant. 2. 4. when he speaks, Cant. 2. 8, 10.—My beloved spake and said to me, arise, my love, my fair one, and come away, when he knocks, know ye his knock, to tell over again his words, open to me my sister, c. where is he? Cant. 2. 8. Behold he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills, where is he in his dispensation to his Ancient Church? Cant. 2. 9. Behold he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows. 16. He feedeth among the Lillies: when, and how he embraceth, Cant. 2. 6. His left hand is under my head, his right hand doth embrace me: when he withdraws, Cant. 5. 6. and is not to be found, I sought him, but I found him not, I called him, but he answered me not. Cant. 5. 6. Cant. 3. 1, 2. how hard he is to be found, and how easy he is to be found, Cant. 3, 1, 2, 3 4. what spiritual stirrings he makes in the heart, Cant. 5. 4. My beloved put in his hand by the key-hole. For (1.) this speaks much soul-love to be where he is. Cant. 1. 7. (2.) To be able to write a spiritual Chronicle and History of all Christs stirrings towards your soul, saith ye have letters daily, and good intelligence of the affairs of the Spirit, and of the Kings Court, and that he writes to you, as Cant. 5. 1. I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse; I have gathered my myrrhe with my spice, I have eaten my honey-comb with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk: Then will Christ write a letter to spiritual ones, and (as it were, with reverence to his Holiness) give a sort of account where he is, what he does, what thoughts he hath to us: O! how few know this?
5. Godly missing of Christ must be a gratious disposition, Cant. 5. 6. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself,
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Cant. 3. 1. I sought but I found him not, vers. 2. I sought him but I found him not. Such as are pleased with a bare literal missing, and are not also in a holy manner anxious, and are not
6. Restless in rising and going through the City, in the streets and the broad ways, seeking and asking, saw ye him whom my soul loveth? Cant. 3. 1, 2, 3. are not so spiritual, as is required, Cant. 5. 6. My beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone, my soul failed when he spake, rememebring his speeches, when he knocked. v. 2. There may be some too longsome security under sad falls, when he is not soon missed, 2 Sam. 11. 1, 2, 3, Psal. 26. 15. Yea a spiritual soul having regard to all the Commandments misseth the spirits acting in all the ways in eating, Pro. 6. Acts 27. 35. 1 Cor. 10. 31. Job 1. 5.
7. Frequent convictions (which are the connatural actings of the Spirit) Joh. 16. 9. and of the most spiritual sins, as of unbeleef and Gospel-ignorance, Joh. 16. 9. prove a spiritual state: as flaming proves fire to be fire. Unbelief is more contrary to the Spirit, then carnal sins, being most contrary to the flower and bloomings of the Spirit in his sweetest operations, and most against the Mediator-love of Christ. For as by the fall, Christ hath a new Office to redeem us, Matth. 1. 21. 1 Tim. 1. 15. Luke 19. 10. Isa. 61. 1, 2. Isa. 44. 6, 9. So the Spririt hath a new office, which he should not have had, if man had not sinned, to apply the blood of sprinkling as a sort of Mediatory intercession, to dip us in the fountain of his blood. John 16. 14. He shall receive of mine, and show it unto you. Joh. 14. 16. to be the Comforter, Joh. 14. 16. the Leader, Joh. 16. 13. the Witness, Joh. 15. 26. Rom. 8. 15, 16. The spirit in his Office cannot step one foot with the unbeliever. Hence much tenderness and smiting of heart where the Spirit, 1 Sam. 24. 5. is. Yea conscience to weep as oneover his mothers grave, for his enemies, Psal. 35. 13, 14. and strict doubling of faith in greatest deps: In which Christ proves himself to be more then a believing man, Mat. 26. 39. Luk. 22. 42, 44. for no man that is only man can both drink hell and believe heaven at once. 8. In duties there be these. 1. The end. 2. The delight in them. 3. The success. As to the first, the less of the creature and self, and the more of God in the end, so much the more denied and spiritual is the doer, when purely
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for God ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ, we do, 1 Cor. 10. 13. Col. 3. 23. we are sick for God, and in health for God, and wake to him, Psal. 119. 62. 147, 148. and sleep to him, Psal. 16. 7. Psal. 139. 18. live to him. 1 Pet. 2. 23. live and die to him and to Christ, Rom. 14. 7, 8. and pray to him even when we speak to God, Eceles. 5. 1, 2. and preach to prepare a Bride to him, 2 Cor. 1. 14. 2 Cor. 4. [5.] we may be not speaking to God, or for God and his honour, 1 Cor. 11. 2. 1 Thess. 2. 19, 20. How miserable and carnal to do all for the creature, and the flesh, Rom. 13. 14. Jer. 22. 15. Isa. 5. 8. for self, Dan. 4. 30. Heb. 2. 5, 6. and this speaks much of the Spirit, when the man is sick and hungry, for the exalting of God, and the will is so capaciously wide in this, that he would his eternal glory were a foot-stool for the heightening of his glory, Exod. 32. 31. Rom. 9. 3. the will is a most spiritual and capacious faculty, and O! what acceptable service when the mans will looks right toward an infinite Majesty, as thirsting for and panting after this: O! if all beings, millions of Worlds, Angels and men, and all created beings, Heaven, Earth, Sun, Moone, Stars, Clouds, Air, Seas, Floods, Beasts, Birds, Fishes, and all the drops of Rain and Hail, Snow, Dew, so many worlds of Angels would sing his praises? What wonder then, he accept the will for the deed? And what is to be thought of the will averse from God, and which hates him, and wishes that God were not? How contrary to a Spiritual disposition is this?
2. For delight, it is a spiritual disposition, to go about the duty as duty, ut bonum honestum, and not upon this formal account, because it delighteth us; Except the delight be in the Law of the Lord night and day, as it glorifieth him. 2. It's spiritualness, when abstractedly from private consolation we go about the duty for God, and can rest upon suffering and burning quick as it is duty, though the sufferer should be deserted all the while; We often feed ourselves with the bonum secundum, the pleasantness in the duty, which is our sin, except the sweetness of the holiness of the duty be our delight, and the beauty of pleasing God allure us, but feeling being a way, we find how hard it is, to delight ourselves in the Lord. 3. We do duties too often, for the success, not for the duty: We pray, the Lord hears not, we weary:
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we rebuke men, they care not, and we weary; success and not duty, self-delight and not the honouring of God, which should be all our delight, take us up. I pray and weep for my enemies, (Ah! if it could be done) saith David, they are worse, Psal. 35. 13. but my prayer returned to my besome, that is, the sweet peace of God, which is the fruit of the duty of praying came to my soul, and cheered me. We consider not the promise of peace, and consolation is made to the duty itself, Psal. 119. 165. Psal. 19. 11. Prov. 3. 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. not to success of the duty, and we consider not that we are to be quieted in the duty, and to be armed with patience, against the temptation of the duty. Often it inrages Pharisees against CHRIST and the Apostles, yet the Spirit bids them Preach. Therefore whether success in praying, and the sugar of delight in duties hire us, or not; We are to know that though Abrahams offering of Isaac to God, had neither in it the one or the other, nor our Saviours offering himself to God, for the sins of the world; If reason weigh the one and the other, yet because both were performed upon the motive of the love of God commanding, both was most spiritual obedience, especially, because the duty is both work and wage, and the more of the Word of God is in the obedience; I mean not the letter only, but the word including the love. 2. The authority of the Commander. 3. The beauty apprehended to be, and the peace in obedience; the more spiritual is the obedience: The letter only may show you duty, your obligation, and the penalty of disobeying, and all these three in a litteral way, and yet upon that acccount, the obedience is not spiritual, but Gospel-love added to the Laws-letter makes spiritual obedience.
CHAP. XVIII.
The New heart of Covenanters, the Nature, Characters, Properties thereof, hitherto of the new Spirit.
Quest. 6. When are we to judge, that we have a new heart? And when do we know that it is not the old heart? T
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Ans. 1. Propos. As physically, so also Morally, the heart is the man, the good heart, the good man, the evil heart, the evil man, and God weighs men by the weight, not of the tongue, of the hands, of the outward man, but by the weight of the heart: Asa his heart was perfect, 2 Chron. 15. 17. the heart of Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. 17. 3. was perfect. And Psal. 78. 37. their heart was not right: the froward heart is the froward man, Prov. 3. 32. For there is a man speaking within a man, and a heart within a heart acting, as if it were a man made up of soul and body. Thou hast said in thy heart, I will ascend up to Heaven, so the King of Babylon, Isa. 14. 13. So the heart acts Heaven or Hell within the man, Psal. 14. 1. Luk. 12. 19. they have a heart γεγμνασμένην busied in in the College, studying and reading covetousness, 2 Pet. 2. 14.
2. Propos. When the Lord tries the man, he tries the heart and the reins, Prov. 15. 11. Hell and the heart both are naked before him. Prov. 17. 3. Theodoret. God acteth the noon-day-Sun meridionaliter in every heart: The man himself is without, and God within, Jer. 17. 9. Man searcheth not his own heart and reins, for there be plottings and inclinations to evil in the heart, which the heart knows not, 2 King. 8. 12, 13. Peter hath a better heart then all men in the books of his own heart, Matth. 26. 33. but its not so indeed.
3. Propos. The washen heart that lodges not vain thoughts, Jer. 4. 14. purged from dead works, by the blood of Christ (above all the blood of bullocks and goats) Heb. 9. 14. purified by faith, Acts 15. 14. is the good heart. It is a better heart according to the heart of God, 1 King. 15. 5. that turneth not aside, 1 Sam. 13. 14. of Gods seeking out and finding, then the first heart created of God, Eph. 4. 24. Col. 3. 10. And ah! we seek a good Ruler, a good Physician, when we are sick, a good house to dwell in, and (which is strange) a good horse, but not to have a good heart
4. Propos. The excellent acts of God, in a manner (with glory to his Highness) to mind his first work, to create a better heart then the first which he created, saith, that there is great need of a good heart, Psal. 51. 10. of a new heart, Ezek. 36. 26. Its beyond
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all admiration, to create so rare a piece as the Sun out of nothing, and a beautifull Lilly out of mire and dirt, out of common clay to bring forth Sapphires, Carbuncles, and in lieu of a stony heart (for grace is not educed out of the potency of any created thing) to create a new heart, which God loveth to dwell in, rather then in heaven the high and holy place, Isa. 57. 15. which so ravisheth the heart of Christ, Cant. 4. 7, 9. and is of more price with God, then gold, or any corruptible thing, even a meek and quiet spirit, 1 Pet. 3. 3, 4. is the rarest piece of the works of God.
Its an excellent act of God to keep the vessel in a spiritual season, as David prays, 1 Chron. 29. 18. To make room for Christ dwelling by faith, and for love to comprehend love, Eph. 3. 17, 18. and who puts such a thing in the heart, Ezra 7. 27. when a sparkle of fire from flint falls on water or green timber, there is no firing from thence. But when actual influences fall upon an heavenly habit as the Lord can cast in a coal, or a lump and flood of love, Cant. 2. 5, 6. Luk. 24. 32. Cant. 6. 12. there are more heavenly actings of the soul.
2. He bows and inclines the heart to the Lords testimonies, and to cleave to him without declining, Jer. 32. 39, 40. Ps. 119. 39. Cant. 1. 4. Ps. 141. 4.
4. We are to beware of 1. the reigning evils of the heart, of a rotten and unsound heart, 1 Tim. 6. 5. Psal. 119. 82. 2. Of an unsavory stinking heart, that smells of hell and the second death, of all sort of unrighteousness and malice like a green opened grave, Psal. 5. 9. 3. Of an uncured heart, that never came through the hands of the Physician ( Prov. 14. 13. A sound heart is the life of the flesh.) Of an unsound unsavoury and a rotten heart, Ephes. 4. 29. compared with vers. 23. from whence issue rotten words, borrowed from rotten and worm-eaten trees which speak an uncured heart.
5. We are to look to deadness of heart in all the branches of it. As (1.) sullenness and dumpish sadness, in refusing comforts, and being full of unbelieving heaviness, in David, Psal, 69. 20. Psal. 42. 11. whereas we are always to rejoice, Psal. 119. 52. Phil. 4. 4. (2.) Fainting at the greatness of the affliction, Isa. 20. 3. Joh. 14. 1. [whence] comes [withering] of heart, Psal. 102. 4. Psal, 27. 13. T2
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(3.) An overwhelmed and unbelieving swooning heart, Psal. 61. 2. Psal. 142. 3. Psal. 143. 3, 4. (4) Deadness in going about the service of God, Psal. 119. 37. Quicken me in thy way, of this else where. (5.) Narrowness to take in God, opposed to an inlarged and wide heart, Psal. 119. 32. Psal 81. 10. and straightening of heart when the soul is so hampered, that he cannot speak, Psal. 77. 4. unbelief clips the wings of the spirit, and lays on fetters, which may come from the wicked company, and may be laid on by ourselves, Psal. 39. 1, 2. (6) There is an Atheist heart, to hate the [existence] of God, of Christ, of a Gospel Jam. 2. 19. Matth. 8. 29. Compared with Psal. 14. 1. Eph. 2. 12. Some believers are near to say, I take my leave of Christ, I'll pray no more, for it is in vain, Jer. 20. 9. Ps. 73. 13, 14. but it is not a fixed resolution: of this else where.
7. There is an evil heart of unbelief to depart from the Living God, Heb. 3. 12.
8. A heart that deviseth, plotteth, or delveth wicked imaginations, Prov. 6. 28. As Prov. 3. 29. Plot not evil against thy neighbour. Hos. 10. 13. You have plotted iniquity; such plots are forged against the people of God, Matth. 27. 1. Nah. 1. 11.
9. A proud heart (1.) resisted of God. (2.) Farthest from the lowly and meek heart of Christ, Matth. 11. 29. Phil. 2. 5, 6, 7. (3.) Most near to Satans heart, 1 Tim. [3. 6.]
Q. Why are we more ashamed of an unclean lustful heart, then of a proud heart? Ans. A proud heart is deeper guiltiness, and nearer to Satans nature; And pride and unbelief are sins more reproachfull to God, and incroach more upon his Throne, but there is more flesh in us then spirit, and we think that there is more of a beast in uncleanness.
Quest. But we are more ashamed of lying, falshood and stealing then of pride? Ans. There's more of being ashamed before men it being a carnal sort of passion, then of being ashamed before God, and falshood and lying to men are fleshly evils against common honesty, but pride is a more Angel-sin, or a more God- like sin, a spiritual sin, and pride is a sort of heart-heresy, by which we judge but blindly, we have reason to ascend and climb aloft to
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Gods room, Gen. 3. 5, 6. Isa. 14. 13. because of knowledge, parts, power.
10. There is a deceitfulness and self-deceiving in the heart, Isa. 44. 20. the Idolater feeds on ashes, a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, is there not a lie in my right hand, Obadiah 3. The heart is the greatest liar on earth to say and gain-say.
11. There is a wicked fearfulness in the heart to do evil, Jude 12. feeding themselves without fear, 3 Sam. 1. 14. was thou not afraid (saith David to the Amalekite) to put out thine hand to destroy the Lords Anointed? Its a godly fear to tremble always, at feasting, speaking, hearing, sleeping, company, Prov. 28. 14. 1 Pet. 1. 17. Phil. 2. 13. Job 1. 5. And in all there lie snares within and without the house.
12. There is a wicked slightness of heart, we shall have peace though we both hear cursing and walk loosely, Deut. 29. 19. we are fallen, but Ephraims stout heart (2.) will rise whether God will or not, Isa. 9. 9. And (3.) the King of Assyria's stout heart will be as strong as God, Isa. 10. 12, 13. And (4.) its wicked stoutness to say, godly mourning before the Lord is in vain, Mal. 3. 13, 14. (5.) Its wicked stoutness to rest upon your own righteousness and refuse to treat with God, Isa. 46. 12, 13. (6.) And vain stoutness to dare God in his own quarters and fight him, Exod. 14. 8. 26. Exod. 23. 1. 13. Isai. [37.] 10, 11, 36, 37. if it were in his own seas as Pharaoh and the Egyptians would do.
13. There is a wicked hardening of the heart, when men make the Lord his word and his mighty works the contrary party, Exod. 5. 1, 2, 3. Exod. 7. 10, 13, 16, 20, 23, 24. Exod. 8. 5. 6, 7, 15, 17, 18, 19. Isai. 6. 9, 10. Zech. 7. 8, 9, 11, 12. Ezek. 2. 3, 4, Ezek. 3. 7, 8. Matth. 13. 13, 14, 15. Act. 13. 44, 45, 46. and oppose God in his word and works.
14. There is a sinful dullness upon the heart, by which men are as weaned children, line upon line, line upon line, can do them no good, Isai. 29. 9, 10, 11. Here it is to be observed, that we cannot preach Omnipotency, nor persuade a word to be created, nor a new heart to be infused, nor can we preach to a Wolf to become a meek Lamb, nor threaten the Sun to rise at midnight, we but
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speak words about the new birth, the husband-man but breaks the earth with his plough, but God makes the corn to grow, and he only, not that the word is not the instrument of conversion of souls, Rom. 1. 16. Rom. 10. 14. but how to the act of infusion of a new heart the word concurs as a moral and suasory instrument, is above my capacity.
15. There is a froward heart, Pro. 17. 20. that perverteth and is crafty עקש to pervert.
16. A wicked heart. Pro. 26. 23. set of evil, Eccl. 8. 11. 17. foolishness is bound to the heart, Pro. 22. 15. a dissembling heart, when seven abominations are in it, Pro. 26. 25. (1.) We take not heed to the imaginations, and are not grieved for the constitution of the heart, for actual sins make original sin to smell as two floods running into one, maketh a huge River. (2.) We take not heed to the young births of the heart, with the concurrence of the mind, fancy and imagination, there are multitudes of forgeries, claypots and imaginations framed, as a potter deviseth vessels of earth of many quantities, figures, shapes, great, small, narrow, wide, round, cornered, for the word is a potters word, Gen. 6. 5. 1 Chr. 28. 9. with all keeping keep thy heart, Prov. 4. 23. the word is to keep as the keepers of the walls, Cant. 3. 5. as shepherds, for its in danger to be stolen away, Hos. 4. 11. 2 Sam. 17. 6. Hos. 7. 11. Ephraim is like a sitly dove without heart, but we take no heed to the entry, to see what goes in, what comes out. (1.) What if there be no God? Psal. 14. 1. (2.) What if God see not? Ezek. 9. 9. (3.) What if man perish as the beasts? Eccl. 3. 19. It may be there is no heaven, nor hell. (4.) What if there be no Christ, nor Gospel, but only questions of words? such clay pots were framed by Gallio, and Festus, Act. 18. 14, 15. Act. 25 11. 19. Hence come imaginations of things impossible, Isa. 14. 13. I'll ascend to heaven, saith Babylon I will set my nest among the stars. Oba. 4. Tyrus saith, I am God, I sit in the seat of God. And new wild fire flights which are indeed old heresies, are of this kind, in re, its a lie. (5.) A new heart is the Office-house of Christ, and a heart delighting in Gods ways is a new heart, where the Law is imprinted and ingraven in the heart, Isa. 51. 17. Hearken
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ye people in whose heart is my Law. Psal. 40. 8. I delight to do thy will, O God, thy Law is within my heart. Its true there is a new delight in the heart, but not a delight of the new heart. Isa. 58. 2. Joh. 5. 35. for a delight in the Gospel as a good thing, not as a good Gospel, a delighting in Christ as a Prophet that feeds them, not in Christ as a Redeemer, Joh. 6. 26. that saves them, is not a new heart.
2. The new heart is a heart universal, wholy for God as God, there is an entireness in it, when the whole spirit and soul and body is kept blameless, 1 Thess. 5. 23. 1 Pet. 1. 18. ἐν πάση ἀναστροφῆ in holy conversations and godlinesses, 2 Pet. 3. 11. Half a globe, though exquisitely plained, or half a cart wheel, is not a globe nor a cart wheel. External things may be divided, one may be an hearing Professor, and a drunken Professor, and a praising, a singing Professor, in public, and not a praying nor a believing Professor in private, spiritual duties cannot be divided: half a faith, half a love, is no faith, no love, saving grace is an essence that consists in indivisibili, and cannot be parted.
3. A new heart is a fixed and established heart by Grace, it's a new state, not a new transient flash, a new heart, Deut. 5. 27. All that the Lord our God will speak unto thee, we will hear, but the Lord saith, verse 19. O! that there were such a heart in them, but it is not in them.
4. 1 Sam. 10. 9. God gave Saul an other heart, then a changed heart is not a new heart, a new spirit or a new gift in Jehu is not a new heart, It's not newness that makes the heart new, but Gods new ingraving, Jer. 31. 33.
5. A heart keeped with all keeping is a new heart, Prov. 4. 23. both the words note exact diligence in keeping, as watchmen and sheepherds with all keeping, at all times, Psal. 119. 119. some pull their hearts to pray and hear, but not while the sabbath, or under a storm of conscience: and the heart is a word in some company, not at other times and in other company.
6. The heart is new, where the affections are all faith (as it were) and all sanctified, reason and zeal is a lump of angry reason, and fear a mass of shining reverence; and love only soul sickness and pure adherence to God, the instinct of faith wholly on God, as the last and only end (2.) The heart is new when the
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affections are equivocally, or at least, at the second hand set upon the creature, but as nothing can be seen, but what either is colour, or affected with colour, so nothing is fixedly sought after, but God, he only feared and served, Mat. 4. 10. Deut. 10. 20. only desired, Psal. 73. 25. loved, Deut. 10. 12. Cant. 3. 2, 3. the soul sick of love for only Christ, Cant. 2. 5. Cant. 5. 8. he only trusted in, Jer. 17. 5, 7. Psal. 62. 5. (1) Nothing is all good and desirable but God, and God in Christ, Mat. 19. 17. Cant. 5. 16. the shadow of the Sun in the fountain is not the real Sun: the stirrings of the pulse of the affections towards the shadowed good of the creature, should be lent, and like the beating of the pulse of a dying man, with a godly contradiction, loving and not loving, joying and not joying, 1 Cor. 7. 29, 30. mourning and not mourning.
CHAP. XIX.
1. The place of Evangelic works in the New Covenant. 2. Possession of glory and right to glory considerably different. 3. A twofold right to life. 4. We are not justified by works. 5. The place of declarative justification by Works, Jam. 2. discussed. 6. Faith and Works different. 7. Possession of life and right to life cleared. 8 Faith and final believing both commanded in the Law, final unbelief not the sin forbidden in the Gospel only. 9. How life is promised to works Evangelic.
It's a grave and weighty Question to rid marches between the two Covenants in their conditions, the one requiring the obedience of Works, the other faith: It's not to be said that for fifteen hundred years no man did doubt of the necessity of good Works, Paul propones the objections of the Antinomians, Shall we sin and continue in sin, that Grace may abound? Rom. 6. 1. this they spake through the occasion of what he taught, chap. 5. some have said they are hurtful, because we abuse them, some arbitrary and indifferent, because they are not necessary to justification.
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O! what proneness in us to suck out of the Doctrine of free Grace poison, how kindly to desire there were no Law against treason, because the Prince pardons; All sin is virtual Atheisme, to wish the existence of a Law, and so of a just, holy and unchangeable God were not, and we can hardly believe this. And 2. what rising of heart and carnal reason is there against the first acts of providence, why, and what necessity was there to make a Law to forbid the eating of an Apple, God foreseeing that thence should come the ruin and endless damnation of all. It had been good God had never created such a Tree. 2. That the eating thereof had never been forbidden. 3. That it had never had such a name, as the tree of knowledge, for it deceived Evah. 4. That God had not given free-will to Adam. 5. That he had given him confirming grace in the moment of Creation. But
Observe 1. Satan started first the dispute concerning the equity of the Law, and that we are Disciples of, and apprentices to Satan, when we toss and rackot arguments in our carnal heart-Logic against the holy Law of God, Gen. 3. 2. and make the heart a ferry-boat to carry messengers and devilish thoughts hither and yonder in questioning the goodness of the Law, and the acts of providence; and therefore it is speaking Grace, to close with the sweetness not only of the Law written in the heart, and these inbred principles of honesty and truth, to hurt none, to obey God, (for Satan raised not the first dispute about these) but with all the judgements and Testimonies of God, as David, Psal. 119. 127, 128. vers. 85. All thy Commandments are faithfull, 1 Sam. 12. 7. Stand still that I may reason with you of all the righteous acts of the Lord. It's a mind like Christs that hath an heart-prejudice at no one command, by an other, and is sweetly friended with all that God commands, Matth. 3. 15. It becomes us to fulfill all righteness. and O! how sweet to have no heart-quarrel, but a sweet stooping of soul unto, and an adoring of God in all providences, and acts or decrees he hath concluded or done in time or from Eternity. These draw deep in the decree of Reprobation, God had an hatefull design against me. 2. The Gospel is an untrue and fabulous dispensation. What a spirit is Galaenus who reproacheth Moses because he teacheth not that God works ever and by decessity V
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of nature, what is most good for the creature. And that Prince who said, that if he had been Counselor to God in the time of the Creation, many things should have been created ordinatius melius, in a better order and state, then they were. Let the man be remembered who called the Gospel a fable, and the spirits who reproach the Scripture as inky wisdom. 1. A bare dead form, bare flesh, c. and weak ones under desertion, who feed upon reports and lying news from Satan. God hated me before time, and carries on a design of eternal ruin to me, therefore I have no right to hear, to pray, to eat, to sleep. 2. Yet the necessity of good works is asserted by Luther, the Augustan Confess. and Apol. Arti. 20. docent nostri, c. Evangelic works are necessary, not to merit, but by the will and commandment of God: Calvin calleth them inferior causes of the possession of our salvation. The dispute began upon occasion of the book called Interim Anno -M. ICLXVIII. and in Colloquie at Altenburge, Melancthon and the Divines of Wittenberge assented to the necessity of good works, but the followers of Flaccius Illyricus dissented: The Authors of the book of Concord condemn these of Flaccius their way, and deny a necessity of efficiency in works to deserve salvation, but yield a necessity of their presence, that the work of salvation be not hindered.
3. These distinctions are necessary. 1. There is a ius and right to Gospel-life eternal. And 2. there is actual possession of life eternal.
2. There is a twofold ius, One by the purchase of merit, and the paid ransom of blood; There is a right secondary by promise, every promise giveth a right in a manner: but its unproper.
3. There is promise of life formally federal. 2. There is a promise of life consequenter federal.
4. There is an order of things, one going before the other as the Antecedent and the Consequent, and in order of cause and effect.
5. Law-obedience doth much differ from Gospel-obedience as Law- commands from Gospel-commands.
6. GOD sent his Son to justify persons, but not to justify works, not to make inherent obedience perfect, or righteousness before God.
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Asser. 1. If the new Covenant be considered strictly and formally in its essence, he that believeth whether his faith be weak or strong is justified and saved, Joh. 3. 11, 36. Joh. 5. 24. Act. 15. 9, 10, 11. Rom. 3. 16. Rom. 4. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Rom. 5. 1. for faith justifieth as lively faith, and not as great or small: Otherwise none should be justified and saved but the strong believer, whereas Christ died for the weak in the faith, Rom. 14.
Hence Mr. Sibs excellently. Know that in the covenant of Grace God requires the truth of Grace, not any certain measure, and a spark of fire is as well fire as the whole element thereof, we must look to Grace in the sparkle as well as the whole flame, all have not the like strong, yet the like precious faith, whereby they lay hold and put on the perfect righteousness of Christ, a weak hand may receive a rich Jewel, a few grapes will show that the plant is a vine not a thorn: There is a room in heaven for thee who judgest thyself; for the number of lambs, and babes weak in the faith in this Kingdom, do far exceed the number of the strong and aged in Christ; for the scripture names the whole flock, little ones, babes, his sheep, they are not a flock of fathers and strong ones.
Asser. 2. There is a right to me by promise, he that believes shall be saved. Promissio facit ius, creat debitum: Godliness hath the promise of this life, and of that which is to come; And because a promise as a promise cannot create an equality betwixt the work and the wages, as is proven, this is an unproper right, and not proper debt, and take not away the nature of a free gift: This is no consequence at all, the performing of the condition of the Covenant of Works doth justify Adam by Law-works, so as he is no sinner, hath fulfilled the Law, hath right to life eternal; Ergo, to believe to the end, and fulfill to the end, and fulfill the condition of the Covenant of Grace doth justify the believer by Evangelic works, make him no sinner but a perfect fulfiller of the Covenant of grace, and one who hath due right by working to life eternal. Certainly then, 1. doing Evangelic gives a good right to eternal life, without the price and ransom of blood, as doing legal gives to the same life. 2. When we sin and fall in atrocious offences, Adulteries Parricide, Robbing, V2
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we have as good right to justification by works, and life eternal by Evangelic works, suppose he be a robber all his life, as was the repenting thief, as Adam, suppose he had perfectly fulfilled the Law. Now though believing be the condition of the Covenant of Grace, it is of a far other nature then perfect doing, to the end and constant fulfilling of the whole Law, in thought, word, and deed with all the heart, and the soul and mind, and all the strength. For there is no sin here, and so no place for punishing justice, or wrath, none can so believe, but he sins and so deserves everlasting wrath. If it be said, that by the Covenant of Works he doth deserve it, but not by the Covenant of Grace, for Christ hath merited to him life eternal. Ans. 1. We speak now of the right that a Believer hath by Evangelic works to justification and life as contradistinguished from the merits of Christ, this opinion saith that a man is justified by Evangelic doing, because God hath made the like promise, and the like ius and right by promise, to doing Evangelic, that he made to Law-doing, if Christs merits be added to qualify Evangelic works, to add to them the worth that they have, then Christs merits must give life eternal by way of merit, or a virtue of meriting condignly to our Evangelic doing, as Papists say, and so Christ hath made us saviours and redeemers of ourselves, and this is a right to life ex condigno more then Adams most perfect Law-obedience had: 2. The Covenant of Grace commanding faith, doth by this opinion command all that the Law of Works doth but in an Evangelic way that they be done sincerely; Ergo, it must forbid all sin which the Law forbids; But the Law forbids not only unbelief, final unbelief, but all the works of the flesh: Also Christ must come to loose and dissolve the Law, which he denies, Matth. 5. for if the Covenant of Grace condemn nothing but final unbelief, Christ in this Covenant must dissolve the Law; but Christ sayeth, he that breaks or teacheth men to break these, is the least of the Kingdom of God.
But there is other ius and right to life eternal, by which Christ dying hath satisfied the Law, expiated our sins, restored as much and more glory to God by passive obedience, by his sufferings, as we had taken glory from God by our evil doing, and so merited to us life eternal. If any say abusing that place, Rev. 22. 14.
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that we obtain this ἐξουσὶαν and right to the Tree of life, and to Christ our life and everlasting glory (which is our only right, the only Charter of blood) by keeping the commandments Evangelically; he must say that we first may keep the Commandments Evangelically before we have right to life, to Christ, and so before we believe. 2. That we merit Christs right, or merit by doing, and that by evangelic works, we buy right to Christ and Christs merits, and so Christ hath not merited to us a ius and right and title to life everlasting by dying, and grace and a gratious right to do his Commandments by his death, but that we, by doing his Commandments do earn and sweat for a right to Heaven, which is to say, that we by doing, merit and deserve the price of Redemption, and that we merit Christ to ourselves, by doing, whereas it is he and he alone, that hath merited to us Grace and Glory, and all title to Heaven. Not to say that a Charter of life from such a noble Superiour as Christ by the purchase of blood and of such blood, the blood of God, Act. 20. 28. is some better then to have eternal livelyhood and free-hold from our duty and lubrick best works, which are polluted with sin, and by which, though we are Evangelically conscious to ourselves of nothing, yet should we not be therefore justified, 1 Cor. 4. 4. for the righteousness in which is Davids blessedness before Christ, and Abrahams before the Law, and ours under the Gospel, is in forgiving of iniquity, covering of sin, not imputing of sinue, Rom. 4. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. But in all the Scripture our sins are never said to be pardoned and not imputed to us, by our own most evangelic doing, for we are justified freely by his Grace, through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Rom. 3. 24. not by the Redemption that is in us, and are washed from our sins in his Blood, Eph. 1. 7. Col. 1. 14. Matth. 26. 28. Rev. 1. 5. and sufferings, not by our Evangelic doings, and if such a case could stand, the Martyrs, sure, might well be justified by their own blood, and since no pardoning, washing, Law- satisfying virtue, can be in faith, works, or our Evangelic deservings, they cannot justify us nor keep and ocupy the Chair of Christ. And the fault were the less, if our works were only called the way to the Kingdom, not the cause of reigning, but they are called perfect, both in their nature, and conforme to the rule,
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and also in order to the end, to justify us before God, and to save us. And if so, all in Christ may say, we have no sin, contrary to Scripture, Jam. 3. 2. 1 King. 8. 46. Eccles. 7. 20. Prov. 20. 9. Jam. 2. 10. Yea though he that is guilty in one offends in all, yet in the sight of God, all flesh shall be justified, this way, Psal. 143. 2. Nor can it be said that such works are perfectly conform to the Gospel, because the doers believing in the lowest degree fulfill the condition of the Gospel. But where it is said that the Gospel commands only faith in the lowest degree; then the Centurions faith, the faith of the woman of Canaan, and the greatest faith shall not be required in the Law. For the condition of the Covenant of Grace cannot (say they) be required in the Covenant of Works, and it is not required in the Gospel under the pain of sinning against the Covenant of Grace, and of damnation, for then all who have not faith in the highest degree should be damned, and violate and break the Covenant of Grace, contrary to the whole Gospel, which saith that these who have weak faith are justified and saved, and so the greatest faith shall be will-worship and a work of supererogation. And because this way saith, that all and every one of mankind are under the Covenant of Grace, then 1. there shall be none living under the Law. 2. no Law, but only to believe in CHRIST, shall lay an obligation to any, Jews, Christians, under pain of wrath.
And if James be to prove that we are justified by works, and yet mean, that both faith and works concur as causes, though faith more principally, how can Paul deny that we are justified by works? if Peter and John jointly work a miracle, and heal the crippled man, suppose the influence of John in the miracle be more, yet it is not to be denied, that Peter wrought the miracle. Nor doth the Scriptures say that we are more principally justified by faith, and less principally justified by works, but the places alledged for salvation by works (if works have a causative influence) specially Matth. 25. speaks more for the preheminence of works. Nor doth the Scripture insinnate any thing of the first and second Justification, or of growing in Justification, in having our sins not imputed to us to our very day of death; and the Question must be, Rom. 4. whether Abraham was justified by works done before
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circumcision, or not, Rom. 4. when as faith was not reckoned to Abraham, when he was in un circumcision, and the blessedness of righteousness by faith cometh both upon circumcision and uncircumcision, vers. 9. and he had faith and righteousness, and was in Christ and regenerated, when he was justified. Though some taught Justification by the works of the ceremonial Law, yet Paul Gal. 3. 10. states the Question of works agreeable to the Moral Law, that are absolutely perfect, and must be done by Grace. And Paul might justly in the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians have excepted himself, David, Abraham, and all the regenerate, for they are justified by giving almes to the poor, Mat. 25. as was Rachab, by receiving and lodging the spyes. The English Divines say, How conld the Scripture conclude from Abrahams being justified by works, whence he offered his Son Isaac, unless by works here we understand a working faith, the Apostle must mean the same by works, vers. 21. that he meaneth by faith, 23. for he cannot say vers. 23. the Scripture was fulfilled (in Abrahams being justified in the work of offering his son, vers. 21.) which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness: Except it must be meant, that the work of offering his son Isaac was counted to him for righteousness. Now the letter of the Text expressly vers. 23. saith, that believing God was counted to Abraham for righteousness, then the work of offering his Son must either be the believing declared by offering his son, and faith working by that act of offering, or if they be two sundry things, he must then say this in effect, Abraham was justified by the work of sacrificing, vers. 21. causatively before God, Ergo the Scripture is fulfilled, vers. 23. and Abraham is justified by believing causatively before God, vers. 23. which we cannot ascribe to the Apostle, according to their mind who make faith and works the two collateral and joint causes of Justification before God: as if one would say Peter wrought the miracle; Ergo, the Scripture is fulfilled that John wrought the miracle. So Abraham was justified hy works, vers. 21. Ergo, Abraham was justified by faith, 23. 2. The faith which James debarrs from Justification must be the faith, Jam. 2. by which Paul strongly proves, Rom. 3. c. 5. we are justified without works. If faith and works concur as
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collateral causes in our Justification before God, as the Papists contend; but the faith which James excludes from Justification, is no faith at all. But only (1.) fair words to the hungry and naked, and giving them supply for no necessity either of hunger or nakedness, and which cannot save, and so is no faith, and so can have no saving influence with works to justify and save, but such is the faith which James excludes μὴ δυνάται ἡ πίστις σῶσαι αὐτὸν v. 14. v. 15. the faith of Paul, saves, Rom. 4. Rom. 5. purifies the heart, Acts 15. 9. (2.) A dead faith is no saving and living faith, no more then a dead corps is a living man, v. 17. (3.) A faith that cannot be shown to others in good works, as this v. 18. is no faith, for it hath no motions of life. (4.) A faith of the same nature, with the faith of the Divils, who believe and tremble, v. 19. (5.) A faith which a vain empty professor imagines to be a living faith, when it is dead, without works, as this v. 20. can have no joint influence of life to justify and save with good works; all which saving influences contrary to this, saving faith hath.
2. It is to be observed that James maketh mention of two sorts of faiths, ch. 2. which the Adversary confounds. 1. All along, v. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. he gives vive characters of a dead painted faith which is in ἀνθρώπῳ κένῳ in the vain empty boaster, ver. 20. 2. He shows us of a lively faith of Abraham, which wrought with his Works, now it is a lewd errour to make Abrahams faith, and the faith of believing Rahab of the same nature with the faith of the vain empty Hypocrite, whose faith is nothing but fair words, and with the faith of Devils. So the Papists, Lorinus, Estius, Stapleton, Mavochius, Bellarmine, make it an Hypocritical and dead faith, and lively faith as Abraham; was, a vital receiving of Christ and a believing the Lord, so as believing is counted
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for righteousness, to differ not in nature and essence from the faith of the Devils whereas in the faith of sound Believers there is a Godly submitting and leading captive of the understanding to the obedience of Christ, because it is the Lord that speaks, and so a receiving of the Word as the Word of God 2 Cor. 10. 5. 1 Thes. 2. 13. Matth. 22. 32. which is not in the faith of Devils (2.) There is in it a receiving of Christ, Joh. 1. 11. a fiducial resting of the heart upon God in Christ. And the word חסה is to confide, to betake himself to a lurking place, where one may be safe from a storm, Psal. 2. 12. Psal. 11. 1. Psal. 31. 2. Deut. 32. 37. Psal. 118. 9. Judge. 9. 15. come and trust under my shadow. And this is contradistinguished from the Devils and Hypocrites who cannot seek their lodging nor a hiding place against wrath in the Lord.
2. It is to lean and rest the body, 2 Sam. 1. 6. Saul leaned upon his spear, and by a Metaphor it is to cast the burden upon the Lord, Isa. 50. 10. Psal. 55. 22. hence the word that notes a staff, 2 Sam. 22. 18. Isai. 3. the Lord hath broken the stay and the staff of bread, Isa. 30. 1. and this is to be done often, when there is no present duty to be done, nor any work required of us, but only a fiducial relying upon the Lord alone, as at the Red Sea Moses and the people were to lean upon JEHOVAH only, not to act, which cannot be said of the faith of Devils and Hypocrites. (3.) It is to look with delight and confidence, Isai. 17. 7. as oppressed servants, Psal. 123. 1, 2. (4.) There is a word that notes to be silent, not to speak, not to move, Josh. 10. 12, 13. the Sun was silent, it moved not: It notes a Godly submission that the soul dare not speak against God, Psal. 37. 7. rest in the Lord, sile Jehovae: LXX. subditus esto Domino, Psal. 62. 6. whence faith teacheth us to submit and hold our peace, and lay the mouth in the dust as a spirit dantoned of God, Lev. 10. 3. Job. 1. 21. Lam. 3. 28. Ezek. 16. 63. which is far from Hypocrites. (5.) To believe is to cleave to God, from a root that signifies to adhere as things glued together with pitch or glue, Psal. 63 9. Josh. 23. 8. X
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Deut. 11. 22. so we become one Spirit with the Lord, 2 Cor. 3. (6.) It is a word of near adherence בטה to lean firmly upon any with hope of security, 2 King. 18. 5. hast thou leaned upon this reed? Hos. 10. 13. Psal. 13. 6. Psal. 31. 7. Deut. 12. 10. Thou shalt dwell safely, confidently, it places the soul under the Rock of Omnipotency. (7) It is to roll thyself upon God, that is borrowed from heavy bodies, Josh. 10. 18. Roll greal stones to the mouth of the cave, Genes. 29. 3. Psal. 22. 9. he trusted in the Lord, rolling himself on the Lord. Prov. 16. 3. commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. Cartwright sayeth it is a Metaphor from men who being oppressed with a burden, transfer it off themselves upon one who is mightier and stronger: It is excellent when the heart rolls all its cares upon the Lord, and disburdens itself upon him. (8.) There is a word that noteth to leane, to stay or stablish, to strengthen, Isa. 48. 2. 2 Chron. 32. 8. the people rested themselves upon the word of Ezekiah, Cant. 2. 5. stay me with flagons, Psal. 71. 6. I have leaned upon thee from the womb, and it notes to draw near, Ezek. 24. 2. so it is to strengthen and make strong the heart that is trembling and shaking if it be not stayed upon God. And shall all these excellencies of faith, be in the faith of Devils and Hypocrites? and therefore it is most absurd to make the faith of Abraham all one in nature with the faith of Devils and Hypocrites, and to make the difference only in having Works, and no Works, as if there were the same heart-leaning, soul-rolling, and cleaving to the Lord by faith in Abraham, and in Hypocrites and Devils who tremble.
3. That Scripture, Abraham believed, and it was counted to him for righteousness: Is not Gen. 22. when he did justify himself by the work of sacrificing Isaac: But it is Gen. 15. 6. when the son of promise Isaac, a type of Christ is promised to him: at which time there was no work at all required of Abraham, but only believing the promise, for what should Abraham act or do to further the fulfilling of that promise, for he believed that Gospel-promise in the mean time, with a faith lively, and having with it as a concomitant, a resolution to walk before God and be perfect, but then the Text shall say, Gen. 15. 6. Abraham resolved to be fruitfull
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in good works, when he heard the promise, and that resolution of good works was counted to him for righteousness which is most violent.
4. Who so are justified causally and in the sight of God by Works, as James saith, to him works are counted as the formal cause, for so James from Scripture, ver. 23. Abraham, ἐπίστευσε τῷ Θεῷ, believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Which sayeth, by that faith he was declared, or by that he was justified, which was imputed to him for righteousness. But his believing or his faith living and working like the body quickened with the Spirit, was counted to him for righteousness. Now except it be yielded that James speaks of two faiths, one dead and empty, ascribed to the hypocrite, vers. 14, 15, 16. another lively and working, ascribed to Abraham, ver. 23. and except this be denied, that Abraham was justified, ver. 23. not by that same faith; It must follow that Abrahams empty believing, ver. 23. was that which was counted to him for righteousness, Gen. 15. 6. but James cannot be so understood, but when he saith, the Scripture, Gen. 15. 6. was fulfilled; for his faith in believing the promised seed, Gen. 15. he shows that Abraham was justified by faith without works, as Paul, Rom. 4. and when he saith he was justified by works in offering his son, as Gen. 22. he saith he was not declared just, or not justified by the empty and idle faith of the hypocrites; but by a faith that did prove itself to be lively. So that James proveth that we are not justified by a dead faith that neither hath, nor can have good works. As his Adversaries said, and Paul proves, Rom. 4. that we are not justified and saved by works, that is by our own inherent perfect righteousness, because, Rom. 3. all have sinned, Jew and Gentile. Because Abraham then should boast as a perfect man free of sin, and he needed no Redeemer, the Law of works should save him, and so he needed not remission of sins, nor the non-imputation of iniquity. But there is a mids between these, and James saith, that it is to be justified by faith, by a metonymy of the effect, by faith made known to be lively, not to the world only, but to their own conscience, for if James should mean that we are justified by works properly as counted to us for righteousness, he could not say, vers. 21. X2
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Abraham was justified by works, when he offered his son, vers. 22. he cannot infer, vers. 22. thou seest that his faith wrought with his works: What faith? He had spoken of words, vers. 21. not one word of Abrahams faith, yet he saith, because Abraham was justified, that is declared to be really, before God, to his own conscience and others justified, his faith did work in a lively way as reall in and by his works, and you see that Abrahams faith, Gen. 15. 6. was persected by works, Gen. 22. when he offered his son. Now it was not perfected as touching the nature of it, and the act of justifying, for Paul, Rom. 4. cities Gen. 15. 6. to prove that Abraham was justified by that faith in believing the promise of the blessed seed, some 25. years, as others reckon 30. years before he sacrificed Isaac, Gen. 22. so that it must follow that Abraham was not justified by works, nor his faith perfect in its lively operations until he offered his son Isaac: when the contrary of this, the Scripture tells us, for by faith he left his Country, C. 12. By faith believing the promise he was justified. Rom. 4. many years before: Therefore these words, seest thou his faith, must mean that his faith came out to view by his works.
But there be learned and godly Protestants who grant that James must speak of Justification real and before God, and not of declared Justification before men only? Answ. It's true and easy to name them. But these are subordinate: James speaks not of a faith only declared, nor of a justification only declared to the world: But of a declared Justification that is real before God. 2. That is declared to the man himself, and to the world: And that James speaks of a justification beffore God, the Text saith: Because he saith, vers. 14. What can that faith profit? Which is empty, he must mean, what can it profit before God, to save and justify? As the word, 1 Cor. 13. 3. if I have not love οὐδὲν ὠφέλουμαι, it profits me nothing before God. 2. Can that faith (it is not well translated leaving out the particle in the new Translation, can faith save him?) save him? Then he must speak also of real faith, and so real salvation, and so of justification before God. 3. The examples of the Justification of Abraham, of Rahab, which were real, must say somthing to the same purpose. 2. That he speaks of real Justification to the mans own conscience as
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well as to the world if clear in the Text also. For James speaks to the conscience and privity of the man who saith that he is justified, and hath faith, vers. 18. Σὺ πιστὶν ἐχεὶς. 19. Σύ πιστεύεις, thou hast faith, thou believest, the Devils also believe, he would have the hypocrite to discuss his own conscience, and solidly to know, whether his Faith and Justification be real or not; And James wakens all visible professors in this Epistle (as John also doth) to try his Religion whether it be true and solid, or vain: by Chap. 1. being a doer of the Word, and not a hearer only, 23, 24. by visiting the fatherless, vers. 27. by loving and respecting the poor that are Godly, as well as the rich, Ch. 2. by trying his faith whether it be dead or lively, by bridling the tongue, Ch. 3.
And therefore the Arminians and others do but lose their labour, who say James doth not speak here of Justification declared to the world, because the world cannot judge infallibly whether our works by which we are declared to be justified, are sincere or not. For 1. we say that James doth speak of Justification declared to the world, for he speaks of real Justification before God but as declared, not to the world only, but to the conscience also of the doer. 2. Because the world can not be infallibly judge of our Justification and works, therefore they cannot judge at all. It's a loose consequence: For we may declare ourselves to our own conscience and to others by our good works, that we are before God justified. Otherwise because men cannot see our good works, nor the principles from which they proceed, whether from saving faith or not, nor the ends for which they are, whether for the glory of God, or not, men should not glorify our heavenly Father: Contrary to Matth. 5. 16. nor should the Gentiles glorify God in the day of visitation: As 1 Pet. 2. 12 because they cannot infalliby know whether they be good works or not and done in faith and for God: Nor is Abraham declared to be justified because of a secret heart-intention to offer his son to God in the court of men (but in the court of his own conscience he may) yet his sojourneying to
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the place where he was to sacrifice his son, his building an Altar, his laying on wood, his binding his son, and stretching out his hand to kill him, may well declare him to be a justified man to the world and to men. Trelcatius, the Professors of Leyden, Calvin, Beza, Paraeus, yea the Papist Cajetan hath said well to this point. Not to add that Scripture shall never admit, that Abrahams and Rahabs sins were pardoned, their iniquities not imputed, and they delivered from condemnation, by the works of offering Isaac, receiving the spies, fighting the Lords battles, suffering persecution of Saul. For James, if he say any thing for this cause, that good works are the formal cause of our righteousness, our merits, and in the very place of the satisfaction of the blood shed by Christ, we shall so be formal causes not of the declaratory act of justifying (for that may be thought to be the Lord our Justifiers act) yet of our own Justification, and so should we fight and run for the Crown of inherent righteousness of works, as well as for the Crown of Life. And what Scripture is there for that? 3. A man shall be as just and sinless, as he may say, I have no sin, I am just: And in order to the Covenant of Grace, which forbids no sin (as some
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for this way to teach) but finally unbelief, he no more needs forgiveness of sins and the blood of sprinkling, nor pardoning grace, then the elect Angels, or Adam in the state of innocency, and to that, Prov. 20. 9. as to that, Eccles. 7, 20. 1 Joh. 1 Who can say I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin? The man Evangelically justified can say, I have made my heart clean I am pure from my sin. 4. Nor need such a man pray, forgive me my sins as I forgive, c. for he is justified from all Law sins, who is inherently holy and Evangelically just: And so the Gospel is a new Law which does not forbid all sins that the Law forbids, and the man is not under sin, though he sin against the love of Christ. According to that, if ye love me keep my commandments, Joh. 14. 15. so he once, ere he die, believe. For the Law (say the Authors) forbids not unbelief, nor any Evangelic unthankfulness against the Law of a ransom-prayer, which yet, I judge the Law of Nature and Nations condemnes: The Covenant of Grace forbids no sin, but finally unbelief, and the believer cannot be guilty of that unless he fall away.
5. And it may justly be be asked, whether the believer Evangelically justified, who needs no grace of pardon of Redemption from sin in order to the Covenant of Grace, needs the grace of renovation to keep him to believe, for he needs no pardon for the weakness of his final believing, for the smallest weak faith is a fulfilling of the covenant of Grace. To these add, if James mean by πιστις μόνον, faith alone, v. 24. by which he says we are not justified, οὐκ ἔκ πίστεως μόνον, no other then the dead faith, ver. 20. and the faith which cannot save, the faith of fair words to the hungry and naked when the vain man gives him nothing necessary for his body, 16. the faith without works, 17. the faith that cannot be shown to men, 18. such a faith as devils, 19. and vain hypocrites boast of, 20. then sure the conclusion is for us, and agreeable to the scope of James, v. 24. ὁρᾶτε τοίνην, ye set then a man in justified before men and to himself, and so really declared before God,
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justified and saved by works as the fruits of saving faith καί οὐκ ἔκ πίστεως μόνον, and not by faith only, which is dead and without works. For 1. he cannot exclude saving and lively faith: For that believing God is counted to Abraham for righteousness, saith James, ver. 23. for then the conclusion should contradict the premisses, and he should say, Abraham was justified by sound and lively believing. Ergo, we are not justified by only sound and lively believing. 2. the Adversaries, Socinians, and Arminians, who by this Text say we are justified by works, know no Gospel-faith by which we are Justified, but faith including essentially new obedience the crucifying of the old man, the walking in the Spirit, and repentance; as else-where I cite. Therefore when James saith, we are not justified by faith only, he must mean a naked dead assent: as in the former verses; We are not Justified; and that is it which we say: James denies not but says that Abraham believed, Gen. 15.
6. (It is only believing, but lively and not dead, not a naked assent which was counted to him for righteousness, and Gen. 15. Rom. 4. he was thereby justified; and therefore Paul and James are well reconciled. And the faith here excluded must be a dead faith, not a lively faith and a true faith, as the body without the soul is a true body, and hath the nature of a true body, though it be no living body. So (say they) the faith that James excludes is a true faith, when as it is evident, it is no more true faith then the faith of Devils and Hypocrites. 3. it is false by the Papists
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way and Arminians also, that we are not justified by faith only, which is a true and general assent to the Word of God, for they teach that in the first Justification, we are justified by faith only without works as Paul proves, but in the second Justification when a man of just is made more just (say they) he is justified by works; as saith James, c. 2. Now by this they are forced to say James speaks not of the first Justification, but of the second, but beside that scripture knows not two Justifications; James must deny that the unconverted hypocrites, and Rahab the harlot were justified by only faith as Paul saith, and it were most incongruous to teach unconverted ones, who never knew the first Justification, how they were not justified in the second Justification. And if James being speaking of the nature and causes of the same Justification before God only, with Paul, and not of the effects thereof, it were false that James saith (with reverence to the holy Lord) that we are not justified by faith χώρις ἔργων without works, for Paul says it, and proves it strongly from the scripture, and never insinuates that we are justified in a second Justification by works. And sure he should not have denied all the Jews, all the Gentiles, all the world, Rom. 3. 9, 19, 29, 30. David a man according to Gods heart, and much in communion with God, when he penned the 32 Psalm, and Abraham a believer and effectually called, Gen. 12. and justified when he, Gen. 15. 6. believed the promise of the seed, Rom. 4. to be justified by works in their second, or their Evangelic Justification.
Yea, when James saith we are not justified μόνον only, he must mean fidem solitariam, a faith solitary, which hath no works conveying it, as man sees not with eyes that are solitary and plucked out of the heart, and separated from hearing, smelling, and the senses; though faith, if true and properly so called (as they say this is) must justify as the eye sees only μόνον, and the ear only not the eye, hears; now this faith hath a causative influence in Justification as well as works (if it be proper and true faith, as they say it is, as the body without the spirit hath the nature of a body) and so James had no more ground for him to say, ye see then that we are not justified by faith only, then to say, ye see then that we are not justified by works only. For works separated from faith Y
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are no less dead works and cannot justify, 1 Cor. 13. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Then faith separated from works, really pulled from them, as in an hypocrite, is a true faith. Obj. When James saith that a man is justified by works, not by faith only, he maketh faith and works concomitant in that procurement of Justification, and in that kind of causality, for he saith not, as he is commonly interpreted (not by faith which is alone) but by fatth only καὶ οὐκ πίστεως μόνον Ans. He is not more commonly, nor soundly and truely interpreted, he is not justified by faith which is alone, fide solitaria, by dead faith. For sola fide iustificamur. Faith hath the only virtue of justifying as an instrument, and so is the Adverb μόνον Solum taken, Matth. 5. 47. If ye salute your brethren μόνον only, what do ye more then Publicans? Where μόνον notes duties only natural excluding these which only convert in a spiritual way can do, Matth. 8, 8. Only say the word, μόνον it clearly saith, that a mandat of Omnipotency only in CHRIST could heal the sick servant; but yet that Omnipotency is not really separated from justice wisdom, mercy, Matth. 6. 21. ἐάν μόνον ἀψωμας If I only touch him, I shall be whole. But the act of touching was conjoined with the act of hearing. Who hath touched me? Yet the act of hearing had no causative influence in the drawing virtue out of Christ, but only the act of touching did extract the virtue, as Christ saith, Luk. 8. 50. Mar. 5. 36. Fear not, μόνον πίστευε, only believe, saith Christ to the Ruler; can it be said, but this excludes works as touching the apprehending of the power and mercy of Christ in raising the dead Damosel. And yet that believing was not solitary, but conjoined with love, reverence, submission, 35. So Luk. 8. 50. Mat. 21. 19. And Act. 3. 16. The faith that is by Christ hath given this cripple perfect soundness. Heb. 11. 30. by faith the walls of Jericho fell. It were strange to say (by Peter's and John's good works and holiness the crippled man was made whole) and (by good works the walls of Jericho fell) and yet there were good works, love, mercifulness, courage in the Priests who compassed the walls of Jericho, and in Peter and John. Add to these that by good works we must more and more justify and pardon our own sins, and must more and more buy a right to the Tree of Life,
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as they teach, citing Rev. 22. 14. and more merit, ex pacto Evangelico, life eternal: and so our works and merits must be joint causes with the blood of Christ, and the Martyrs blood and Christs blood must have parallel and collateral influence with Christs blood to buy right to the Tree of Life; Yea and Paul already justified, even in the progress of that which is called his Evangelic Justification, Phil. 3. would be in another condition, 9. That I may be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the Law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. And why should Arminians and Socinians deny it to be Pauls own. For 1. it is inherent righteousness. 2. It is not infused as Papists say, but acquired as they teach. 3. It came (say they) from Pauls own free-will indifferent to will or nill.
But how is the Scripture fulfilled in Abrahams believing, Jam 2. 23.
Ans. The Apostle spake often of faith πίστις and believing, v. 14. twice, v. 17, once, v. 18. thrice, v. 19. twice, v. 20. once, v. 22. twise, that is nine times, thereof Emphatically, v. 23. by way of excellency the Scripture was then fulfilled, Abraham ἐπίστευσε τῷ Θεῷ, believed, and it was counted to him for righteousness, as its written, Gen. 15. 6. before God and man and to his own conscience, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar. That was real, visible and conspicuous believing and righteousness, to deny himself so far for God: For James is much for Religion made known to a mans self, and to men, and hath far other Adversaries in the other extremity then Paul had, even the old Gnostics, who, in opposition to the Jews and Pharisees, laid aside the Law, doing of the Law, Jam. 1. 22, 23. all works, c. 2. 14. all conscience of bridling the tongue, c. [3.] 1, 2. of peaceable and mortified living, c. 4. c. 5. and thought it godliness to hear the word in the Assemblies, ch. 2. 1, 2, 3. without love to the Brethren, and to keep in their head a room, empty faith, and professed fair, and gave good words, but no garments to the naked, v. 14, 15. And James had good cause to treat of a visible and declared faith, but yet not merely declared, but which was real and can save, 14. and of justification such, as that of Abraham and Rachab, as was sensible Y2
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and real and not in a bare profession: For James speaks of a profiting and saving faith, Jam. 2. 14. What doth it profit, c. Can faith save him? Another devise is here alleged, of a formed faith, animated with charity, and that justifies (say Papists) and an unformed faith, void of charity, and that, say they, doth not justify: And the same way, but in other expressions, Arminians and Socinians teach, that to believe to do good works, and to repent and walk in all the Commandments of Jesus Christ, is to believe, or complete formed and Evangelic faith. But we distinguish them as the Scripture. It's true, Rom. 4. 9. faith is said to be imputed to Abraham for righteousness, and so v. 3. v. 5. but it is not meant of the act or work of believing, that was counted for Abrahams formal righteousness, there should so no room be left to the satisfaction of Christ, reckoned to be ours: if all the righteousness of God, Rom. 10. 3. [2] Corin. 5. 21. Phil. 3. 9. should be be turned over in an act of believing, mixed with much doubting and in our sinful obedience; And the Socinians have more reason for them to say, there is no necessity of any real satisfaction of blood paid for us, then the Arminiaens and Papists: For if our righteousness and inherent obedience may be of grace esteemed formal righteousness before God, by free Evangelic paction and an act of Gods free-will: the Lord might have esteemed the eating of an aple, or any act of obedience, our formal righteousness, and so Christ died in vain, to become our righteousness, were an act of a sinful man, or a deed of the Law, even the Law of faith is sufficient. What needs the shedding of the blood of God? Frustra fit per plura, quod aeque bene potest fieri per pauciora. There's no need of real satisfaction.
2. Faith imputed doth well bear the sense of the object that faith lays hold on, as our righteonsness, Rom. 3. 21 Now the