Chapter IV
Tlie reasons why God suffers his elect, grown into riper years, to continue for sometime in a state of sin. The glory of God s mercy and free grace is the more illustrated by this dispensation.
This explication and caution premised, I come now to give the reasons why it hath pleased God so to order it, that the generality of his elect, who
live up to riper years, should for some time remain in a state of sin and wrath.
You meet with a strange thanksgiving, Rom. vi. 17, God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin. Had the apostle ended here, you would have deemed it blasphemy. But he thanks God, not simply for their
having been the servants of sin ; yea, not merely for this, that now they were converted (which follows,
* that ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you, that is, become men holy, both in heart and life), but he blesseth God complexly with respect to both, namely,Jor this change wrought in them, as it is set forth and illustrated by their having been the servants of sin formerly. No man likes or com mends the shadow in a picture, if you take that alone ; but it is the like ness thereof unto the life itself which makes both the piece and the work man to be esteemed and praised. And yet the shadow sets off the picture, and gives a liveliness unto it. He in the next words shews how the image of God had been faintly stamped upon their hearts, as this similitude of
being cast into a mould, there used, imports. And that is the main thing he blesseth God for ; yet withal he admires and extols God s workmanship and art in taking the advantage of so great and dark a shadow as an estate of sinning is (which themselves had first drawn) to be a foil to this bright image of his holiness. God had let them alone a long while to draw the dark part (for sin was their work, and not God s work), who is only the Father of lights, and with him there is no shadow (as James speaks) and no darkness at all (as John hath it) ; and they had many years been appren tices at this work
(< ye were the servants of sin ), and God all this while
having had his work in his eye, he suffered them to go on unto a full mea-
CHAP. IV. J IN OUR SALVATION. 89
sure (for the sins of elect men have a fulness before God converts them, as
well as wicked men before God destroys them), and then God fell to work. And he that brings light out of darkness made that chaos and abyss of
darkness which they had been so long a-creating, the groundwork whereby to set out his new world and workmanship of grace, more than if at first he had made all perfect, and begun it by sanctifying them in the womb. And
* God be blessed that ye were the servants of
therefore, says the apostle,
sin, which you are to take together with that which follows : But ye have
obeyed from the heart, &c. For sin, or an estate of sinning, cannot in
itself alone be made the matter of God s praise, but yet it may serve the more to
* commend the grace of God unto us. So says the apostle, Rom.
iii. 5, If our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say ? Is God unrighteous ? If God,*who is the judge of all the world
(as ver. 6), will suffer the creature to go on in sin which it was justly born
in, and for which he damneth millions of souls, and is not unrighteous in
taking such a vengeance (as follows, ver. 5), then if also he will suffer an
elect son of his to go long on in sin, even unto a fulness, and then, instead of
damning him, converts him, justifies him, and sanctifies him ( Such were some of you, says the apostle, 1 Cor. vi. 11, but ye are sanctified, but
ye are justified, &c.), he cannot be said to be unrighteous. In a word, this is such a phrase of speech as in the like case is usual in
the Scripture ; so in Luke xv. 23, 24, says the fatherjof the prodigal, Let us eat, and be merry
: for this my son was dead, and is alive again ; was lost, and is found, &c. Merry they were, not simply for that he was dead and lost, but that, having been lost and dead, he was now found and
alive ; the mercy of his finding and life being heightened by this, that
once he was dead and lost, and therefore it enlarged their joy that he was now found and alive, and that (as that parable shews) more than if he had
never played the prodigal. Now nothing is more the object of thanks and
praise to God than what proceeds from love and mercy.
And so I come to that which at first I propounded to shew, the ends God hath in this dispensation of his ; to give an illustration and demon
stration of,
1. His love or kindness.
2. His mercy. 3. His grace. All distinctly mentioned in the text.
I shall first, in a word, distinguish these three.
1. Love is the foundation of mercy, whereby God peremptorily and un
alterably pitched upon some men, and set himself to love them in all estates and conditions whatsoever. Who shall separate us from the love of God
in Christ ? Now I join kindness and love together in one, for they differ but thus, that kindness is when love strives to express itself in the most
taking way, and to set a lustre upon what it doth.
2. Mercy is a continuing to love them when they are in misery, for mercy
properly respects misery.
3. Grace imports the freeness of both these, his loving freely, and shew
ing mercy freely, founded upon no respects in the creature moving him
thereunto.
Now that which I am to speak to is not simply that God hath put forth
all these his attributes towards his children in their salvation in general, but particularly that he eminently doth it in this dispensation of his, when
having left them to an estate of sinning, he yet at length quickens and saves them.
90 THE WOEK OF THE HOLY GHOST [BOOK II.
Again, 2. By way of general premise to this discourse about all these
three, whether God first pitch his love upon us simply considered as
creatures, or creabiles in massd purd, in that pure mass, without the con sideration of our being sinners, I will not dispute ; for in relation to this
point it comes all to one. For if he first set not his love upon men con sidered as fallen into sin, but purely as creatures, yet his wise counsels
pitched on this course, that we should be left to this condition only of having sin in us (as in the mixed estate of sin and grace after regeneration), but also to an estate of sin and death, to the end he might shew the more love ; that it might appear he took up so great a love, that though we were sinners it continued the same ; and not only so, but stirred up mercy to
pity us therein ; and thus all our sinfulness comes to magnify his love. And
although God might have communicated himself to us without letting us have fallen into sin, though he might have communicated (I say) himself to
us, as he will heaven, immediately and directly, when the world shall be at an end, when sin shall be remembered no more, when God shall be all in
all, as he is to Christ, and he might have in this estate yet made us appre hensive of mercy in this respect, that when he might have left us to sin, and to such a condition of sinning, yet he in mercy would preserve us from
it ; thus he shews love and mercy to the elect angels. But because the creatures are apt to receive the stronger impression by sense and real ex
perience, and his end was to take our hearts in a rational and most taking way, suited to our apprehensions ; and then it is the understanding of man
is taken and struck with admiration, when one contrary is set against or
brought forth of another, which exceedingly serves to illustrate it ; and also because God would suit his way of acting to the experience of man (by^which Christ himself learned obedience), and in common experience what a man
really falls into, and is then delivered out of, this affects more than what is
altogether prevented ; therefore God ordained this course, rather so to com mend his love and mercy to us.
1. His love. The apostle John doth in this argument make a great matter of this one consideration, that we do not begin to love God, but he loved us first. Herein is the love of God, says he, 1 John iv. 19, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and, as in ver. 19, loved us
first. And thus it may be greatened as to angels. But Paul goes farther, and, upon the consideration of this our unregenerate estate, winds this argument of God s love up to a higher pin, not only by the negative, that we loved not him first, but by aggravation positive, that we hated him, we were enemies to him; so in Rom. v., God commended his love, when we were sinners, ver. 8, yea, when enemies, ver. 10, Christ died for us. And to set out his love herein, he makes four degrees of misery we were in, two negatives and two positives.
(1.) He describes us to be without strength, ver. 6, unable to help our selves ; yea, dead, and utterly dead ; for so of the body the same word is used; when it is dead, it is said to be sown in weakness, 1 Cor. xv. The word is the same word that here he describes us to be.
A good-natured man is moved to pity a poor weak child or beast without strength, but it must then have life in it ; but we were dead. This you have (Ezek. xvi. 5-7) set forth to the end to greaten God s love unto us. He compares that estate of ours afore to that of a dead
child, still-born, cast forth on a dunghill, all in gore blood, its menstruous blood, and none eye pitied thee. Then says God, I passed by thee, and said unto thee, Live. I therefore say, a dead child, because
CHAP. IV. J IN OUR SALVATION. 91
the mercy shewn was to bid it live, so putting life into it. Not only so, but ungodly.
(2.) Ungodly, ver. 5, and empty of that goodness he at first saw in us, so as what by the law of creation might more move him, was lost and for
feited : as salt, when the savour, the goodness is lost, is fit for nothing but the dunghill. Yet in that case now he is moved to pity. But, further, there
are two positives added.
(1.) We are said to be sinners, ver, 8; that is, that had dishonoured God, and transgressed his law. But yet that might be pardoned if it were not out of malice and inbred enmity.
Therefore (2.) he heightens it by this also, even when we were enemies. A love, by all these circumstances manifested to be such and so great that much water cannot quench it (as Solomon speaks), is love to the height of admiration.
And as hereby the greatness of his love, so the unchangeableness of his
love, and peremptoriness thereof, is declared and made conspicuous. Is it not an unheard-of wonder, that so strong a stream of infinite love should run under ground for so many years, and that so many rebellions
all that while should not dam it up, but that it should hold on its course
uninterrupted, and work out all that had so long obstructed the current of
it, and at last bubble up at a time designed, and save, and wash, and purify the wretched defiled creature ? Doth the earth bring forth such a wonder ? Have mothers love enough to hold out thus ? Other things may manifest other properties of his love, as the giving of his Son shews the greatness of
it, and yet even that, too, is set out by our natural estate. But nothing more argues the peremptoriness and unalterable resolution of God s love, than its holding out against all the provoking oppositions in us, against all the sins committed before he had broke his mind, and declared his love unto us, or any open way engaged it: Jer. iii. from ver. 1 to the end of the
chapter. It is usual with you (says God there), and according to the prin
ciples you walk by, that though yourselves cast a wife off, and not she you, yet if she becomes another man s (as then she may), you will then never own her more. Ay, but (says God to his betrothed spouse, his church), Thou hast voluntarily played the harlot, and run after other lovers. And (ver. 5), thou hast done as evil as thou couldst, hast sinned, as it were to the utmost, and yet I cannot part with thee, and yet return thou unto me, says he. He still loves her and allures her unto him ; and why is it ? He gives the reason at the 14th verse,
* For I am married unto
you, &c. There was knit so fast a love-knot between God and them, a secret pre-contract on his part, though unknown to them, made by himself, even from all eternity, that no whoredoms, no continued sins whatever of
hers, could untie. Well therefore might the apostle say, Who shall sepa rate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ ? Yea, and challenge angels, devils, afflictions, and all creatures else to do it, Rom. viii. 34-39. For
surely if a continued course of sinning could not dissolve it, then nothing else can.
II. The second thing which God eminently manifesteth hereby is mercy. And though God s mercy be absolutely in God, or in his nature, and he had been merciful, although we nor any creature had ever been, or never had been miserable, yet the manifestation of that his mercy hath respect unto misery, whereof sin and death being the greatest that can befall the
creature, the freeing it therefore from, an estate of both must needs be the
fullest manifestation of that his mercy and pity towards them. Thus, Rom.
92 THE WORK OF THE HOLY GHOST [BOOK II.
xi. 32, the apostle says, God hath shut up (or concluded) all under
unbeLef, that he might have mercy upon all, both of Jews and Gentiles, of whom, in the 30th and 31st verses, he had discoursed how, in their seve
ral vicissitudes, first the Gentiles, then the Jews, had been shut up under
unbelief, and locked up ; they both were under the surest lock and key that could be, unbelief, and whereof God alone keeps the key ; who openeth, and no man shuts, who shutteth, and no man openeth. The key of the door of faith (as Acts xiii. it is called) is in God s hand alone, for it is the
gift of God. And unbelief is as a gravestone rolled over men, when
already dead in sin, to keep them in that estate. Now unto those that have lain longest under it the greater mercy is shewn. God hath locked
up the Jews under unbelief for sixteen hundred years, since Christ s death, as he had done the Gentiles for above two thousand years before Christ. And the design in this dispensation unto either was that he might have
mercy upon both, who between them make up the all of mankind, for these two divided the world. Now this which he doth unto these two bulks and
bodies of mankind, the more in the end to illustrate his mercy unto them, the like he doth to the particular persons of his elect. He shuts them up a long time under unbelief, that in the end he may have the more mercy on them. Whom likewise doth the apostle call
* vessels of mercy, Rom.
ix. 23, but those who once were not his people ? As appears by verses 25 and 26, vessels of mercy they could not be, till they had first been filled up with sin and misery. And that some of them are greater, and of a larger size than others, this comes to pass by how much they have been fuller
filled with sin. Even as a bladder is more capable, and will hold more of a
precious liquor, by how much at the first it hath been distended with wind ; so these are enlarged to contain the more mercy, by how much they have,
like a wild ass s colt, snuffed up the wind (as the prophet speaks), and have walked on in the vanity of their minds, as Paul says, and in a vain
conversation, as Peter s words are. God s children, as well as reprobates, have a measure of iniquity, and a stint of sinning ; which, when they are once arrived to, and have filled their measure, God begins to empty them, and to fill them up again with mercy. III. The third attribute, the glory whereof God doth hereby advance, is
his applying grace, which is the grace he here speaks of, and which superadds to his love and mercy a freeness, as being extended to us upon no
motives or incentives in us, but ex proprio suo motu. So Bom. iii. 24,
Being justified freely by his grace. Now nothing can be supposed to
illustrate the fulness thereof more than this kind of dispensation. For
there can be supposed fewest motives for God to shew mercy to those who have done nothing but offended and provoked him in a continued course of
sinning. After we are regenerate once, though we continue to offend him,
yet then he is engaged to be reconciled to us. And therefore, Rom. v. 10,
it is made a greater matter to reconcile us to himself at first when we were
enemies, than to keep us friends being once reconciled. For to the
upholding of our friendship many motives may fall in, from which at least God may take an occasion to back one kindness with another. But in this
case there are none at all. Now both the riches of his justifying grace, and also of his sanctifying grace, are illustrated by this dispensation. And
I mention both, and upon this very occasion you have both these distinctly mentioned, 1 Cor. vi. 11, where the apostle, having spoken of their condi
tion before they were converted, he says, Such sinners were some of you ; but now you are justified, now you are sanctified.
CHAP. IV.] IN OUR SALVATION. 93
1. God s justifying grace is hereby (1.) Cleared; and (2.) Exalted; and
that more than any other way.
(1.) Hereby is cleared to us that our justification is wholly of and by
grace. Now, in the point of justification, the great competition is between
grace and works. Grace looks upon works as its only enemy and compeer herein, which are therefore always set in a direct opposition throughout the
epistles. This is in the text, and this dispensation it is the strongest con
viction that could have been that works are no ingredients to the justifica tion of us. Take for proof of this the course the apostle holds in the Epistle to the Romans to clear this to them. After in the two first chapters he had
proved that both Jew and Gentile were in the like natural corrupt estate, he says, chap. iii. 9,
* We have proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin ; not sinners only, but under sin, that is, the dominion of it. And this natural condition, and the corruption of it, he describeth from the 10th verse to the 19th ; and then at the 20th infers this as a
corollary from it, Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be jus tified in his sight ; and, ver. 23, repeats his reason, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God ; and therefore he concludes (in ver.
28), that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. This
is so strong an eviction of this saving truth, that the papists themselves (to do Bellarmine and their doctrine itself this right) do acknowledge that works done afore regeneration, though never so outwardly righteous, are excluded from that first justification (as they by distinction call it) ; yea, he confesseth that justification then is therefore only in and through Christ s blood. But then after conversion, they say, there is a second justification, whereby a man is judged worthy of eternal glory, and such and such degrees of it ; and this they attribute to good works after conversion, dipped in Christ s
blood. A man in and by regeneration being made inherently righteous, and set up anew, begins with a new stock, and so trades for eternal life. And that is their error. But yet, even to convince that works are excluded from that their second justification as well as from the first, the considera
tion of a man s unregenerate estate doth most aptly serve. The total cor
ruption of that estate hath spoiled and disabled all the righteousness that
shall anew be bestowed for ever being fit to justify us. And this not simply because it hath defiled the person, and made him a traitor to God, and so
nothing can ever, as from him (as in himself considered), be accepted. Nor
is it the cause why works after conversion cannot justify us, because they are imperfect, and stained as a menstruous cloth (though that is a reason ex abundanti), but if we could suppose them as undefiled as after the resur
rection they shall be, as perfect as in heaven they shall be, and if God should upon the first moment of conversion make any one so perfectly holy, yet they would not then serve to justify
* If I know nothing by my
* yet I am not thereby justified. And what is the true and utmost reason of this yet ? Because he had known so much by himself in
self, says Paul,
his former unregenerate estate. This you shall find to have been the apostle s
scope and way of reasoning (in the 8th to llth verses of the second chapter to the Ephesians), why salvation is of grace, and not of ourselves, nor of
works, neither afore nor after : For by grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves
: it is the gift of God : not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. That is, these very works are given by grace, of which this your former condition enough convinceth you ; for then you were nothing but
94 THE WORK OF THE HOLY GHOST [BOOK II.
sin, dead in sins and trespasses, not able to think a good thought, so as God was out of his grace to give you a new frame of heart on purpose created, or you had never come to have had the least good work. And if
so, then you are not saved by these good works wrought by you, through this new workmanship in you, no more than by those afore ; for they all
are the mere free gift of God, and of his grace ; and that righteousness that comes of grace, and holds of that tenure, can never come to justify. For the works that must justify must some way challenge that justification by debt or a due, not merited indeed (for so even Adam could not), yet by a natural due through that first covenant of nature, Rom. iv. 12.
(2.) As the doctrine of justification is hereby cleared to be by grace, so
his grace in justification is hereby advanced and extolled, and that in two
properties thereof.
[1.] The freeness of grace.
[2.] The exceeding riches thereof. You have the one, Rom. iii. 24 ; the other, Eph. ii. 7, 8, &c.
[1.] The freeness of grace is hereby exalted ; for if you observe it, upon what occasion is the mention of the freeness of grace in justifying brought in in Rom. iii. 24, but only upon his having said before, ver. 22, 23, that
they all had sinned, and there was no difference ; that is, all were alike in
a state or condition of sinning. For those that are not justified are and remain in such an estate ; now, says the apostle, so do all those whom he means to justify ; he justifies them freely by his grace. For then it is ap parent it is grace, out of its own mere motion, doth it, and so puts a differ
* Who caused thee to differ from another ? says the apostle, 1 Cor. iv. 7.
ence, and that a vast one :
[2.] The exceeding riches of grace in justifying is hereby advanced ; for when a man by sinning hath gone on to treasure up wrath, adding every moment to the heap for so long a time, it requires a vast sum of mercy treasured up by God to discharge and buy out (as it were) that other. And
it is certain, when after so long and so lavish an expense of sinning, as falls out in a man s unregenerate condition, he comes first to God in the sight of all his sins, though afore he lightly took it for granted God was merci
ful, &c., yet now he stands aghast at it, and wonders where there should be riches of mercy enough to forgive so many millions of talents of sinning. And it is infinite mercy (God having such sums ready and lying by him) to forgive a man all after all, upon one single act of faith. It is infinite mercy in God to suffer such a poor and mean ticket to take up upon pure trust so much riches, whenas yet God hath no experience neither of our
good behaviour. I will not now dispute whether then, at the first justifi cation, God pardons all a man s sins to come as well as past. For whether the one or the other be asserted, yet this must be reckoned the great act and time of justifying, and of expending the riches of grace upon us, even when he first saved us by faith, as Eph. ii. 7-9. And if then all sins to come as well as past are pardoned, yet not till then ; and then after so long a forbearance, God at once doth it. Well might the apostle triumph upon such an experiment, and say,
* Who shall lay anything to the charge of God s elect? It is God that justifies. Shall sin, that a man was born in, that
lay as an old debt from the womb ? The apostle cuts that off with an
easy answer, Not as the offence, so is the grace ; it abounds much more, Rom. v. 15, 16. Though sins, continued in with full consent, every one of which had made the corruption of nature of a deep dye, have abounded ; nay, throw on heaps of actual transgressions as high as heaven, as Daniel
CHAP. V.] IN OUR SALVATION. 95
speaks, and these reaching also as low as hell, let Manasses come with his
fifty years continued rebellion, and Paul with his, although these abound, yet grace much more. Yea (verse 20 of that chapter), the apostle is bold to make the utmost supposition, that where sin hath abounded, grace hath abounded much more ; and in the next verse compares it to a mighty mon arch that rejoices in the conquest of so many enemies :
* grace reigns through righteousness. And the glory thereof lies (as of other potentates, as Solomon
says) in the multitude of these its subjects.
2. This conduceth to shew forth the power of sanctifying grace, or that renewing grace. In the text, Eph. i. 19, the apostle Paul attributes to this the greatest power that ever God did or will put forth in any work, unless in that of raising Christ from that low estate the human nature was in unto the highest estate of glory. Arid how comes it that so great a power ap pears ? He tells us, Eph. ii. 1, where he goes to prosecute it, You who were dead in sins and trespasses hath he quickened ; dead in the sin of nature, dead by transgressions actual, whereof each gives a fresh stab ; not only twice dead (as Jude speaks), but a thousand times dead. And though in nature there is but one measure of death, one man that is dead of one stab is as dead as he that hath ten thousand ; yet if you were to raise a man to life, it would require a greater power to raise a man to life that hath a thousand stabs in vital parts ; for every stab must be cured, or he will be dead still. Or rather, to exemplify it thus : to raise a man rotten in the grave is a matter of greater power than to raise a man newly dead. Mary thought that Christ might have kept Lazarus from dying whilst any spark of life had been in him (so twice it is said, John xi. 21, 32,
< If thou hadst been here, my brother had not died ). But now (says Martha, ver. 89), he is not only dead, but stinketh. He hath been dead four days, ver. 39 ; and indeed Christ had stayed away on purpose to shew forth the glory of God; ver. 5, 6, compared with the 40th. In like manner thus Christ defers and suffers his own children to be in a state of death. He defers his own not only four days, but many years, and before he raiseth them up, lets them stink in their sins. The virtue of Christ s death and resurrection is a sovereign remedy for any sore, and God is a skilful physician, that in tends to shew the virtue of it, and often drives so long, till, as the prophet says, the wound is otherwise incurable, and then applies and cures them.